America's not perfect, but it's certainly not in decline "Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned," said President Obama in his 2012 State of the Union address, "doesn't know what they're talking about." It was a "rah-rah America!" applause line for a president who needed to get the assembled Republicans out of their seats a few times over the course of the evening. But the line works literally, too. Whenever someone tells me that the United States is in decline, I have no idea what they're talking about. What does it mean for the United States to be in decline? Our current standard of living compared with some assumption about its appropriate rate of improvement? Let's flip the question: What does it mean for the United States to be on the rise? If it's growing at a perfectly respectable 3.5 percent a year while China is growing at 8.5 percent a year, enabling China's economy to surpass the U.S. economy in a decade or so, does that mean the nation is in decline? My hunch is that's how most Americans define decline. That's a problem. Consider a different scenario: Let's say the United States is growing at 3 percent annually, and China's growth slows to 4 percent. In that case, China won't surpass the United States for decades, forestalling American "decline." Yet that's a worse outcome for everybody. It means more impoverished Chinese and more impoverished Americans - who will, incidentally, be competing with those low-wage Chinese workers who still can't afford to buy American-made goods and services. It means fewer life-improving innovations will be developed in both countries. It may also mean less geopolitical stability as the Chinese people channel their frustrations against their political system, or their political system tries to distract them by channeling their frustrations against competitor nations. If American preeminence relies on the continued immiseration of Brazil, China and India, then, even in the most selfish terms, I'm not sure that it's worth having. Yet it seems that some Americans would prefer to be the only superpower in hell than the foremost member of a more prosperous Group of 20 in heaven. A world in which global growth slows so much that countries with three or four times our population never surpass the United States" economic output is a world in which much is going wrong. Even now, many Chinese think that 8 percent annual growth is necessary for their society to remain stable. If growth falls to 4 percent, the Chinese system could crack, with untold geopolitical and human consequences. Perhaps it would lead to a more pluralistic, open political system. But I wouldn't bet on it. More likely, it would lead to increased nationalism, xenophobia and internal repression. If hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians continue to be stuck on unproductive farms or in unskilled jobs rather than being freed to develop their human capital, the rest of the world will be denied access to the endless innovations they otherwise might have developed. Put another way, the sun may now set on the British Empire, but the average British citizen lives much better because of the medical and computer technologies developed in Britain's former colonies. If those colonies hadn't grown rich and strong enough to throw off the mother country's yoke, the result would be a worse world for everyone - including the British.