12
March 2014
Past Event
Two Papers on American Innovation

Two Papers on American Innovation

Past Event
Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C. Headquarters
March 12, 2014
Default Event Image
12
March 2014
Past Event

1015 15th Street, N.W., 6th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

Speakers:
Jim Manzi

Guest Scholar, Brookings Institution

Charles Murray

W.H. Brady Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

christopher_demuth
Christopher DeMuth

Former Distinguished Fellow

Dan Arvizu

Director, National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Chairman, National Science Board

Robert Atkinson

President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Claude Barfield

Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

Kimberly Dennis

President, Searle Freedom Trust

Carrie Filipetti

The Paul E. Singer Foundation

Harold Furchgott-Roth

Hudson Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Economics of the Internet

Ted Gayer

Director of Economic Studies, Brookings Institution

Peter Huber

Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute

Default Expert Image
Leon Kass
Arnold Kling

Economist/Blogger

Ira Kuhn

Managing Member, Kuhn Technologies

Hanns Kuttner

Senior Fellow

Yuval Levin

Hertog Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center

lewis-libby
Lewis Libby

Former Senior Vice President

Robert Litan

Director of Research, Bloomberg Government

Michael Mandel

Chief Economic Strategist, Progressive Policy Institute

Jerry Muller

Professor of History, The Catholic University of America

Robert Poole

Searle Freedom Trust Transportation Fellow, Reason Foundation

Jonathan Rauch

Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Reihan Salam

Policy Fellow, National Review Institute

Jeffrey Salmon

Deputy Director, Resource Management, Office of Science, Department of Energy

joel_scanlon
Joel Scanlon

Executive Vice President

Nick Shultz

Integrated Advocacy Manager, ExxonMobil

Sarah Stern

Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Hudson Institute

Bret Swanson

President, Entropy Economics

David Tell

Senior Fellow

Edward Tenner

Senior Research Associate, Smithsonian

Peter Thiel

Technology entrepreneur and investor; Partner, Founders Fund; Co-Founder, Mithril Capital Management

John Walters

Chief Operating Officer, Hudson Institute

John Weicher

Hudson Senior Fellow

On March 12, 2014, Hudson's Initiative on Future Innovation convened a distinguished panel of experts from government, business, and the academic world for an off-the-record workshop on working drafts of two illuminating new papers on the status and culture of American innovation: Jim Manzi's "The New American System," and Charles Murray's "America and the Culture of Innovation," each a broad, historically informed survey of the current status and economic, social, and institutional "infrastructure" of innovation in the United States--and each offering provocative, if preliminary, forecasts and prescriptions for the future.

Following Hudson's workshop discussion, both papers were revised by their authors, and each has now been published: Manzi's in the Spring 2014 issue of National Affairs, and available online here and Murray's--under the title Does America Still Have What It Takes?"--as the April 2014 "Monthly Essay" in Mosaic Magazine, and available online "here

Two of Hudson's March 12 guest discussants have also since published web postings about the session. Economist Arnold Kling, who admits that he attends these sorts of things" on a frequent basis but only rarely "hears a stimulating idea," reports that Hudson's workshop "was one of the winners"--and he lists not just one but eleven separate stimulating ideas that came up during the conversation in a blog entry "here Dr. Jeffrey Salmon, Deputy Director for Resource Management at the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and Technical Information (OSTI), describes Hudson's March 12 workshop as rich and multi-layered" exchange of views providing "much food for thought" and a range of "key ideas and arguments of particular interest" to government policymakers in an extensive OSTI blog posting "here

Jim Manzi is a guest scholar in the Economic Studies program and founder of the Project for Experimental Innovation in Policy at the Brookings Institution. As founder and chairman of Applied Predictive Technologies (APT), the world's largest purely cloud-based predictive analytics software company; a veteran of AT&T Laboratories; the holder of multiple patents; and the author of Uncontrolled (2012), a widely discussed book on the importance of rapid, iterative experimentation in business and the public sector, Jim Manzi is one of the nation's most respected voices on policy questions related to technological innovation and economic growth.

Political scientist and author Charles Murray is currently W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He first came to national attention in 1984 with the publication of Losing Ground, which proved to be a major theoretical influence on what became the federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996. His 1994 New York Times bestseller The Bell Curve, coauthored with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, sparked heated controversy for its analysis of the role of IQ in shaping America’s class structure. Murray's other books include What It Means to Be a Libertarian, Human Accomplishment, In Our Hands, and Real Education. His most volume, Coming Apart (2012), describes an unprecedented class divergence in the United States over the past half century.

Related Events
23
October 2025
In-Person Event | Invite Only
The US in the South Caucasus: Mapping New Strategic Opportunities 
Featured Speakers:
Ilan Berman
Luke Coffey
Steve Daines
Michael Doran
Ambassador Khazar Ibrahim
Efgan Nifti
Joel Scanlon
: President Donald Trump, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan sign a joint declaration at the White House in Washington DC, on August 8, 2025. (Getty Images)
23
October 2025
In-Person Event | Invite Only
The US in the South Caucasus: Mapping New Strategic Opportunities 

A keynote address by Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), to examine the implications of the recent Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement. 

: President Donald Trump, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan sign a joint declaration at the White House in Washington DC, on August 8, 2025. (Getty Images)
Featured Speakers:
Ilan Berman
Luke Coffey
Steve Daines
Michael Doran
Ambassador Khazar Ibrahim
Efgan Nifti
Joel Scanlon
30
October 2025
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
How Long Can Russia’s Weakening Economy Support Putin’s War on Ukraine?
Featured Speakers:
Dr. Volodymyr Lugovskyy
Dr. Anders Aslund
Thomas J. Duesterberg
Getty Images
30
October 2025
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
How Long Can Russia’s Weakening Economy Support Putin’s War on Ukraine?

Join noted Russian and Ukrainian economists and Hudson Senior Fellow Thomas Duesterberg for an event that will analyze how growing economic problems are affecting Vladimir Putin’s war effort and its ability to avoid an economic crisis.

Getty Images
Featured Speakers:
Dr. Volodymyr Lugovskyy
Dr. Anders Aslund
Thomas J. Duesterberg
03
November 2025
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Congressman Rich McCormick on Securing American AI Leadership
Featured Speakers:
Congressman Rich McCormick
Jason Hsu
Representative Rich McCormick speaks during a House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on January 11, 2024. (Getty Images)
03
November 2025
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Congressman Rich McCormick on Securing American AI Leadership

Senior Fellow Jason Hsu will host Congressman Rich McCormick (R-GA), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee and a former member of the bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, for a conversation on securing American AI leadership.

Representative Rich McCormick speaks during a House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on January 11, 2024. (Getty Images)
Featured Speakers:
Congressman Rich McCormick
Jason Hsu
04
November 2025
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Bad Money: How America Can Solve Perpetual Inflation
Featured Speakers:
Brendan Brown
Alex J. Pollock
Moderator:
Harold Furchtgott-Roth
Getty Images
04
November 2025
In-Person Event | Hudson Institute
Bad Money: How America Can Solve Perpetual Inflation

At Hudson, Senior Fellows Brendan Brown and Harold Furchtgott-Roth and Mises Institute Senior Fellow Alex Pollock will discuss the book’s findings and how gold-based monetary reform combined with the increased use of modern analytical tools can help end the inflationary spiral.

Getty Images
Featured Speakers:
Brendan Brown
Alex J. Pollock
Moderator:
Harold Furchtgott-Roth