“ON PRESENT policies and performance, the United States is condemned to slower growth than the other main industrial countries for the foreseeable future.” So declared the Competitiveness Policy Council, a committee advising America’s president and Congress, in 1992, a time when America was gripped by concerns that its economy was declining and losing ground to Japan and Europe. The opposite turned out to be true. Japan entered a long period of stagnation, Europe’s growth fizzled and America experienced a mini-boom, fuelled by the rise of the internet.