Relight the lamps: an interview with Malcolm Forbes Jr., publisher of Forbes Magazine.

• Author: Shelton, Ken
• Position: Interview

How do you read the economy - doom,

boom or something in between?

Despite the current recession and uncertainty, the U.S. and the rest of the world are about to enter an unprecedented period of material and political prosperity.

To understand our unique opportunity, we first have to understand our unique strengths. We must also understand how this century, which began with such promise and opportunity, ended up being one of most murderous centuries in history. Then I think we can grasp the opportunity at hand. We can better judge what we should be doing and not be doing to realize the promise of recent world events. Recession and pessimism have obscured our basic strengths. We need to get beneath the surface of things to see our strengths and weaknesses and our role in bringing about this unprecedented prosperity.

What is the role of the United States in

the world today?

We tend to take the triumph of democracy in central and eastern Europe and the emerging democracy in Russia for granted. We tend to think that because they have democracy, they always will have democracy. But the truth is that if the United States does not play a vigorous and active role in world affairs, the world will not be safe for democracy - it will regress to the kind of purgatory that we had in much of this century.

What are our strengths?

We have several genuine strengths. 1 An investment boom. Contrary to what a lot people would lead you to believe, the United States has experienced an investment boom in the last 10 years. Investment in this economy has grown at a faster rate than consumption. Few people write about it, but there has been an extraordinary investment boom. Investment rates in our economy have gone above historic norms. In the last 10 years, the amount of money invested in our economy has more than doubled. 2 Manufacturing renaissancje. In the last 10 years, manufacturing in America has seen a renaissance. The growth of productivity has been as good as any peace-time period in our history. For the first time since World War II, our share of manufacturing output worldwide has gone up. Our manufacturing output, as the percent of our economy, isn't much lower today than it was 50 years ago. 3 Technology revolution. We are going through a technology revolution that will profoundly change our lives. This revolution is symbolized by the computer chip. The computer chip is expanding the reach of the human brain the way machines expanded the reach of human muscle more than 150...