Ok, now do positives.
* US is absolutely the leader in innovation. No doubts about it.
* Champion of democracy. The US political system & constitution has inspired a lot of other countries. Its a very immaculately drawn political system built on checks & balances
* High degree of choices to an individual to shape his life
* High degree of demographic diversity.
* Good quality secondary & college/university education.
* A general attitude to question the status quo - which is necessary to bring change.
* Secure nation militarily.
* Peaceful & cooperative neighbors, who engage symbiotically for the better of all stakeholders.
* High social mobility for a lot of people (not all but a big chunk).
* Good quality of life in general.
* Very high natural diversity & plentiful resources.
* Ability to shape the political climate to maintain world order.
Why is it good? and for who?
In US, I always felt at home. There were people just like me - eating similar food, sharing different festivities, of same socioeconomic strata etc. Eventually inclusivity & diversity retains immigration. US (& UK as well) does better than most other developed countries
US News says Japan: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/innovati....
World Intellectual Property Organization says Switzerland: https://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2021/article_0008...
Bloomberg says South Korea: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-kor...
1. The presence of top research institutions across a wide spectrum of science & technology.
2. The footprint of this research in reputable publications & conferences.
3. The amount of capital investment to bring ideas to products.
If we consider this practical yardstick - US is ahead by a fair margin to any other country.
A better question to ask is why other countries (e.g. India, China Japan) aren't doing better to retain their talented scientists & engineers
I did my schooling in India, college in US & doctorate in Japan. Had I made a novel discovery, who should be apportioned the majority credit? The schools which taught me the basics, the college which taught me engineering or the specialization which earned me the hypothetical achievement?
I think the credit assignment based on institution of incidence is the most practical way of recognition since they happen to have an outsized influence on the outcome in terms of labor, capital & collaboration. Economics of technology is known to have little room for moral discourses. I understand the point you make, but there are no better objective and granular ways to understand achievement & progress.
Take the story of Newton and the Apple, (I know its probably not accurate historically, but bare with me a moment). Are we concerned with if Newton was in London/Sicily/Barcelona/Paris when the proverbial apple fell? How about who owned the apple tree? No, the observation could have been made in any location. The variable which caused the "innovation" was the observer, not his location.
But then this situation begs the question on what basis research institutions & corporation will ask for continuing support. If all credit is apportioned to individual how is research funding to be justified? This answer will again lean on the individual's affiliation who has incidence within the institution where the discovery was made. We will be back to square one.
Remember my original comment is within the context of exceptionalism and pride drawn from nationalistic achievement recognition, I think you are conflating credit with funding which are separate issues. A corporation or country is perfectly legitimate in saying 'We have been researching this and would like to receiving funding so we can continue" but a a country would not be correct in saying that "because this occurred here, it can only occur here and thus we are responsible for the discovery and thus exceptional".
What I meant is that unlike a lot of countries where you are bottlenecked by choices of educational specialization, profession, career & personal development, as a US resident one doesn't face any of these. There is ample scope to pursue your interests or take risks to change your career path, things which are unthinkable in the aforementioned situation.
The emphasis on his is not as telling as you make it out to be given that fathers also play a role in the conception (by definition) and raising (hopefully) of children. Some men will see what they considered to be their "right" to skip the consequence of them having intercourse without contraception taken away. Those who consider elective late-term abortion to be an essential part of life may move to those states which continue to provide this - New York and California seem to be poised to become abortion 'free states' - while those who consider abortion to be an abomination/against their religion/... may move to those states where it is limited. As far as I know - and correct me if I'm wrong - there are no states where abortion in case of rape or incest or in those cases where the life of the mother is directly threatened is forbidden.
Inherent to the US, or an accident of them just happening to be the largest economy?
When UK (and/or Germany or France) where large(r) economies, innovations was happening there (e.g., Industrial Revolution). Now that the US is the large(st) economy, it's happening there.
How much are innovation levels 'just' a correlation with a lot of money sloshing around?
> High social mobility for a lot of people (not all but a big chunk).
The high-ish wealth inequality ties into low social mobility in the US: