In his Nov. 16, 2009 NYT column David Brooks points out the importance for a nation’s people to have faith in the future:
“It may seem like an ephemeral thing, but this eschatological faith in the future has motivated generations of Americans, just as religious faith motivates a missionary. Pioneers and immigrants endured hardship in the present because of their confidence in future plenty. Entrepreneurs start up companies with an exaggerated sense of their chances of success. The faith is the molten core of the country’s dynamism.”
This was a tremendous driver of progress when our ancestors came to North America and is now an engine Brooks claims that the Chinese possess in greater vigor than we.
”The Chinese are now an astonishingly optimistic people. Eighty-six percent of Chinese believe their country is headed in the right direction, compared with 37 percent of Americans. . . . The majority of the Chinese believe that China will produce the next society-changing innovation, while only a third of Americans believe the next breakthough will happen here. . . “
An important insight, it is consistent of what we might expect of any group of people or country, which starts out from an economically poor position and begins to see the open road to opportunity. The generally poor economic state of the majority of Chinese now and the recent past suggests that the future is indeed brighter.
Still, it is not clear to what extent the top-down, liberty-restricting, authoritarian Chinese economic and legal institutions will limit its people from obtaining the future the aspire to.
The Nation of Futurity, Nov 16, 2009, NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/opinion/17brooks.html
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