I’m really interested in those books, thanks for citing them.
But peak period? You’re missing the whole information age. In AI alone, we lead the world.
And competition from the USSR is competition, too. You’re right that top-down planning is ideal for a lot of things, so the definition of ‘competitively’ I most intended was more like ‘stronger than other countries.’

I mean, it’s a really competitively efficient system. We outpaced the rest of the world on a lot of things for a while there. We even have the 1% self-exploiting with highly specialized skills, 3X as likely to work more than 50hrs a week. All gas, no brakes.