The Americans have succeeded because they have more extremes of random behavior.

From Lee Kuan Yew by Graham Allison.  Published in 2013.  An interesting perspective from a wise and accomplished outsider.

What has made the U.S. economy preeminent is its entrepreneurial culture…Entrepreneurs and investors alike see risk and failure as natural and necessary for success. When they fail, they pick themselves up and start afresh. The Europeans and the Japanese now have the task of adopting these practices to increase their efficiency and competitiveness. But many American practices go against the grain of the more comfortable and communitarian cultural systems of their own societies—the Japanese with life-long employment for their workers, the Germans with their unions having a say in management under co-determination, and the French with their government supporting the right of unions to pressure businesses from retrenching, by requiring large compensation to be paid to laid-off workers.           

The U.S. is a frontier society…There is a great urge to start new enterprises and create wealth. The U.S. has been the most dynamic society in innovating, in starting up companies to commercialize new discoveries or inventions, thus creating new wealth. American society is always on the move and changing…For every successful entrepreneur in America, many have tried and failed. Quite a few tried repeatedly until they succeeded. Quite a few who succeeded continued to create and start up new companies as serial entrepreneurs…This is the spirit that generates a dynamic economy.          

The American culture…is that we start from scratch and beat you. That is why I have confidence that the American economy will recover. They were going down against Japan and Germany in manufacturing. But they came up with the Internet, Microsoft and Bill Gates, and Dell…What kind of mindset do you need for that? It is part of their history. They went into an empty continent and made the best of it—killed the Red Indians and took over the land and the buffaloes. So this is how they ended up—you build a town here, you be the sheriff, I am the judge, you are the policeman, and you are the banker, let us start. And this culture has carried on until today. There is the belief that you can make it happen.    

The Americans have succeeded as against the Europeans and the Japanese because they have more extremes of random behavior. You have the mean, you have the bell curve, and you have two extreme ends. And the more you have of the extreme ends on the good side, the more creativity and inventiveness you have.

One fundamental difference between American and Oriental culture is the individual’s position in society. In American culture, an individual’s interest is primary. This makes American society more aggressively competitive, with a sharper edge and higher performance.        

The Americans will always have the advantage because of their all-embracive society, and the English language that makes it easy to attract foreign talent.

America has a clear advantage over China, because its use of the English language enables America to attract millions of English-speaking foreign talent from Asia and Europe. There is an off chance that the United States will lose confidence in itself, will not be so creative, so inventive, and creating breakthroughs in new technologies and not attracting new talents from abroad. I do not see the United States in the next 10, 20, 30 years losing that capability. Talent will not go to China. Talent will go to America because Americans speak English and everybody fits in. It is a country that embraces immigrants. To go and settle in China, you have to master the Chinese language. And you must get used to the Chinese culture. And that is a very difficult hurdle to clear.       

The U.S. is the only superpower because of its advances in science and technology and their contribution to its economic and military might.          

The U.S. dollar is likely to remain the leading currency, because the American economy will remain the most entrepreneurial and dynamic in the world.           

America is a great nation not just because of its power and wealth, but mainly because it is a nation moved by high ideals. Only the elevating power of her idealism can explain the benign manner in which America has exercised its enormous power since the end of World War II and the magnanimity and generosity with which it has shared its wealth to rebuild a more prosperous world.            

The United States is the most benign of all the great powers, certainly less heavy-handed than any emerging great power…As long as its economy leads the “world, and America stays ahead in innovation and technology, neither the European Union nor Japan nor China can displace the United States from its present preeminent position.