July
2010 Newsletter
I-CUBED FORMULA FOR NATIONAL RECOVERY Y
July 23, 2010
By Robert D. Aronson
DEAR CLIENTS AND FRIENDS:
The great Sufi Persian poet, Rumi, once noted
that a person needs to define three central, consistent, and
mutually supportive core principles of life. Extrapolating that
wise statement to our national life, I believe that the formula
for national revitalization and economic resurgence can be reduced
to three key concepts: IMAGINATION + INNOVATION
+ IMMIGRATION,
or my I-cubed theory. I would simply note that my I-cubed theory
is elegant, direct, simple, and synergistic – and best
of all, it will work! You cannot and would not want to remove
any one of these pillars for to do so would cause the entire
structure of the plan to crumble into ruins. Here is how the
I-cubed pieces fit together.
IMAGINATION
Until I spent four years of my life living abroad, I always assumed
that America’s greatest attraction lay in its material
wealth. But after my lengthy sojourn abroad and as reinforced
by my 24 years serving our foreign national clientele, I have
come to the realization that our country’s most intriguing
national characteristic is that you can dream, create, and succeed
here. We cannot afford to be inextricably locked into the tired
formulas of the past, but rather need to approach modern-day
challenges – political, global, environmental, economic – with
new vision and new thoughts. This is the core concept of imagination
or, to quote Frank Lloyd Wright “an idea is salvation by
imagination.” As we move forward (hopefully confidently
and optimistically) into the 21st Century, it is precisely the
role of imagination to bring coherence to the exponentially expanding
complexities and possibilities of the modern world.
INNOVATION
If imagination and ideas are the seedlings, then innovation is
the germinating growth. As a nation, we have the necessary infrastructure
to foster innovation – that is, a stable civil society,
a functioning judiciary, capital and natural resources, a thriving
(and probably an indulgent) consumer society, and a receptivity
to ingenious new developments taking place in the marketplace.
But let’s face it. We are witnessing several fundamental
transformations that affect – and challenge - our access
to innovators: 1) innovation is no longer measured (at least
in this country) in tangible manufactured goods and products,
but rather in service, ideas, and concepts; 2) there is a worldwide
competition for innovators and this country no longer has a monopoly
on intellectual capital; 3) innovators serve as the transformative
agents between ethereal, disembodied ideas and the actualization
of ephemeral thoughts; and 4) we as a nation are engaged in a
competition not only to access innovators, but to provide them
with an environment in which to prosper and achieve. In today’s
world, the most important economic competition is no longer between
countries or even companies. The most important economic competition
is between you and your own imagination. Just about everything
except imagination – that is, the ability to spark new
ideas - is becoming a commodity that can be replaced or substituted
more cheaply, efficiently, and better.
IMMIGRATION
So, where does immigration fit in this symbiosis of imagination
and innovation? In a word, it is the indispensible elixir that
blends, renews, and energizes this union of imagination and innovation.
Go into any of our nation’s Ph.D. programs in the sciences
and you will find that they are disproportionately populated
by foreign nationals; wander around any city and you will note
that new business formation is disproportionately being done
by immigrants or their children; rummage through the list of
inventions and you will find that the rate of new patent registrations
is disproportionately higher for immigrants or their children.
I refuse to attribute these phenomena to a higher intelligence
quotient or even a greater aptitude for science and technology.
But what I do think is that emancipated from preordained expectations
of wealth and social convention (themes that were explored by
Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers) and understanding that
the future belongs to risk-takers and innovators, it is our immigrant
population and culture that is seizing the opportunity to dream,
innovate, aspire, and achieve.
I don’t know who will invent the next Internet, but I do
know that our national economic revitalization will require some
type of technologically supercharged and transformative new innovation.
I don’t even know if the next earth shattering technological
advancement will have its birth in a university laboratory or
some back-alley garage. But I strongly suspect that the next
transformative breakthrough will be the product of the human
imagination conjoined with scientific and technological sophistication
and innovative, risk-taking vision. If this is the recipe for
national success, the odds truly are that the progenitor(s) of
the next generation of technological and economic transformation
will have a very heavy immigrant imprint.
The conceptual problem that bedevils the immigration debate is
that immigration is too often seen as a zero-sum game. The prevailing
narrative holds that immigrants deplete our national treasure
house and destabilize our society. Even assuming that this fear
is true (and I would hold that the opposite is actually the case),
that is not grounds to staunch immigration; rather, it is the
imperative to reform our immigration system in a manner that
will enhance our global competitiveness and restore our position
as the world’s leading source of innovation, dreams, and
ideas. Immigration has been essential to our nation for hundreds
of years and continues to kindle the laudable spirits of our
national character – innovation, meritocracy. risk-taking,
pursuit of excellence, inclusiveness, and technological advancement.
So, to quote my good friend and Minneapolis native, Tom Friedman,
(after all, I once saw him in a local Target store), there are
certainly things “we should be celebrating and preserving
but lately have not: open immigration, educational excellence,
a culture of innovation and a financial system designed to promote
creative destruction, not ‘destructive creation.’” (NYT,
7/14/2010)
These are the keys to our future: Imagination
+ Innovation + Immigration, that is, the I-cubed vision of America’s future.
As
always, please feel free to distribute this Newsletter to other
interested recipients and by all means, please bring any
questions or comments to our attention. It is always a pleasure
to hear from those whom we serve.
Cordially,
ROBERT D. ARONSON
This memorandum
is one of a series of communications prepared as a general
public service to our clients and friends. The information
herein presented is not intended nor should it be utilized
as legal advice on any specific situation. Furthermore, given
the rapid pace of change, the veracity of this information
is constantly subject to modification and/or reversal. Rather,
this piece represents a good faith attempt to orient clients
and other interested parties served by Aronson & Associates
to current immigration developments. This piece in no manner
supercedes the need to seek competent legal advice when engaged
in activities carrying possible immigration-related consequences.
|
