"The US and the Tech Race of the 1980s and 1990s"

The Cold War ended. For many, these four words capture the defining historical event of the late twentieth century. The historical significance of this landmark event scarcely needs to be explained. Between 1989 and 1991, a half-century long struggle between competing political ideologies and economic visions concluded. Liberal market capitalism appeared triumphant. The world’s remaining superpower, or so the standard story goes, could project its immense economic and military power across the globe. A new unipolar epoch had dawned. This was, both in the popular and scholarly imagination, the ‘end of history’ and the high tide of the ‘Washington Consensus.’
When it came to rapidly expanding computer industries, few believed that 1989 or 1991 marked the end of an era of geopolitical and geo-economic competition. On the contrary, many expressed fears that the US was falling behind in a new multipolar tech race. This triggered alarm. The domestic computer industry become a prestige industry in the minds of the mass media, politicians, and business leaders during the early 1980s. The idea, then, that the United States might become a second-tier player in the information and knowledge economy was a nightmare scenario few were willing to accept.
This paper examines public policies put in place to strengthen the US computer industry, and weaken their international rivals in the mid 1980s and early 1990s. Gripped by a fear that the US was losing the tech race, members of Congress, computer industry executives, and the Reagan and Bush White Houses proposed various initiatives designed to keep the United States on the right side of the information technology gap. The result was a serious of overt and covert trade restrictions, and publicly funded consortia. Just as in the 2020s, anxieties about the vitality and weakness of US capitalism helped bring about a selective and distinctive set of industrial policies intended to ensure America remained a leading player in the prestige industries of the moment