The AmericanIndustry

A history of longand effortless success can be a dreadful handicap,but if properly handled,itmay become a driving force.When the United States entered just such a glowing

period after the endof the Second World War,it had a market eight times larger than anycompetitor,giving its industries unparalleled economies of scale.Its scientistswere

the world's best,itsworkers the most skilled.America and Americans were prosperous beyond thedreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had

destroyed.

It was inevitablethat this primacy should have narrowed as other countries grew richer. Just asinevitably,the retreat from predominance proved painful.By the mid-1980s

Americans had foundthemselves at a loss over their fading industrial competitiveness.Some hugeAmerican industries, such as consumer electronics,had shrunk or vanished

in the face offoreign competition.By 1987 there was only one American television makerleft,Zenith.(Now there is none.Zenith was bought by South Korea's LG Electronics

in July.)Foreign-madecars and textiles were sweeping into the domestic market. America's machine-tool industry wason the ropes.For a while it looked as though the

making ofsemiconductors,which Americahad which sat at the heart of the new computer age, was going to be the nextcasualty.

All of this caused acrisis of confidence.Americans stopped taking prosperity for granted.They beganto believe that their way of doing business was failing,and that their

incomes wouldtherefore shortly begin to fall as well. The mid-1980s brought one inquiryafter another into the causes of America's industrial decline.Theirsometimes

sensational findingswere filled with warnings about the growing competition from overseas.

How things havechanged!In 1995 the United Statescan look back on five years of solid growth while Japan has been struggling. FewAmericans attribute this solely to such

obvious causes as adevalued dollar or the turning of the business cycle.Self-doubt has yielded toblind pride."American industry has changed its structure,has gone on a

diet,has learnt tobe more quick-witted,"according to Richard Cavanagh,executive dean ofHarvard's Kennedy School of Government,"It makes me proud to be anAmerican

just to see how ourbusinesses are improving their productivity,"says Stephen Moore of theCato Institute,a think-tank in Washington,DC.And William Sahlman of the

Harvard Business Schoolbelieves that people will look back on this period as"a golden age ofbusiness management in the United States."The author seemsto believe the revival of the U.S.economy in the 1990s can be attributed tothe______.

A.turning of thebusiness cycle

B.restructuring ofindustry

C.improved businessmanagement

D.success ineducation