It'd be interesting to be able to compare America and China through the lens of capitalism; at the moment I don't think China is transparent enough to really come up with anything meaningful.

America is a lot less capitalist than it once was [0, 1] total government spending has gone from 10% GDP around the 1930 great depression (so, 9 private dollars for every public dollar) to about 30% post 1950 including State & Local government (2 private dollars per public dollar). I'm not sure how to interpret it, but spending on military also seems to have plummeted since the 60s as a % of spending. The military spending was where the research for things like the internet was done, so that might be meaningful. It seems very reasonable that the impacts of research and tax impacts on savings play out over 20-30 year timeframes (low risk capital investment pays itself back over ~15-20 years which sets up a natural cadence).

As the world becomes competitive for the first time since the end of the cold war, issues of how to generate new wealth very rapidly become important. America won't be able to harvest resources from foreign climes (eg, the Middle East) as freely now that China is starting to move beyond its boarders; to say nothing of potential changes in India or other Asian countries.

[0] http://metrocosm.com/history-of-us-taxes/ [1] https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/breakdown_1930USpt_20ps...