ership and bending to every breeze ofnforeign exchanges, and where crucialnforeign poHcy decisions are vetoed bynaUies in Europe, Japan, and the MiddlenEast, how can anyone expect routinenfaithfulness to, much less willingnessnto risk life and fortune for, thenfatherland? What is extraordinary isnnot that there are so many traitors andnspies in contemporary America butnthat there are so few. Whatever thenproblems of their era, the failure tondiscern enemies is one weakness thatnHenry VIII and his children did notnU.S. — Staying in Businessn”He that fails in his endeavors after wealth andnpower will not long retain either honesty orncourage.”nManufacturing Matters: The Mythnof the Post-Industrial Economy bynStephen S. Cohen and John Zysman,nNew York: Basic Books; $19.95.nNot all change is progress. Thisnsimple statement is one of thendividing lines between right and left. Annelement of common sense to the conservative,nit is denounced as timidity orna lame defense of vested interests bynliberals and radicals. F.A. Hayek in hisnessay “Why I Am Not a Conservative”nstated that “the liberal position is basednon courage and confidence, on a preparednessnto let change run its courseneven if we cannot predict where it willnlead.” Hayek is a moderate liberalnwhose optimism about change is madenbearable only by an apparent assumptionnthat people adhere to basicallynconservative modes of behavior. Morenradical thinkers — Rousseau, Godwin,nMarx, Marcuse — have urged changenwith different expectations about wherenit would lead. Certainly the changesnover the last 30 years provide plenty ofnexamples of decay and disaster. Historynonly reinforces the conservative positionnthat a commitment to “change” withoutnthought of consequences is irrational.nIn the social, political, or militarynspheres, those on the right easily agreenthat many recent changes have been fornWilliam Hawkins is the economicsnconsultant to the U.S. Business andnIndustrial Council and a columnistnfor the USBIC Writer’s Syndicate.n•Samuel Johnsonnthe worse. The aim of conservativenpublic policy is to control events in thenbest interest of the United States, i.e., tonfoster changes that are beneficial whilenworking to retard or reverse changesnthat are harmful. Only in the economicnsphere do conservatives abandon commonnsense in favor of an unfoundednliberal optimism: economics, alonenamong the activities of mankind, has ann”invisible hand” that guarantees progress.nIndeed, to listen to some exponentsnit would be easy to think thatnmarket outcomes were the result ofndivine intervention rather than the strat­nby William R. Hawkinsnnnhave, and in their determined efforts toneradicate their foes and to consolidatentheir own rule, they addressed thenfundamental threats to their regime farnmore forthrightly than the would-benrulers of our own age of treachery havendealt with theirs.negies of businessmen and governmentsnpursuing gain.nYet, as anyone in business knows,ncompetition produces both winners andnlosers. The failure of individual firmsncan be devastating to those directlyninvolved, as well as entire communities.nBut within a closed society this maynonly be a ripple, with the expansion ofnthe victors making up for the collapse ofnthe losers. However, on a global scale,nthings are different. Nations, not justnfirms, compete for wealth and power.nThe stakes are much higher. Summingncosts and benefits across nationalnboundaries is not valid. There are stillnfundamental differences between thenloss of market share by GM to Ford ornthe shift of jobs from Ohio to Georgia,nand the loss of market share to Nissannor a shift of jobs to Brazil. There is nonconsolation in being told that the de-nAPRIl 19881 33n