As the first nation to be founded on a set of ideas, America has achieved a level of growth and success over the past two and a half centuries that is unprecedented in human history. From the very beginning, our Founding Fathers' tireless efforts to lay the foundation for this immense prosperity were driven by an intensely passionate and highly productive debate over how we could, both individually and as a nation, improve the world around us, confront our challenges most effectively and provide a better life for our children and future generations. Over the past two and a half decades, however, America has become increasingly driven apart by ideological polarization, partisan divisions, and the influence of special interests. As a result, our current political dynamic, the way that we make critical decisions about the form and function of our governing institutions, has lost much of the focus on solving difficult problems and finding new forms of improvement that energized, unified and inspired the earlier debates. The Synthesis Revolution provides the framework to comprehend and to fully understand how America has generated all of this tremendous progress and prosperity and how we can overcome the current barriers to even greater advancement by restoring the focus of our public discourse back to productively pursuing solutions and transforming our society by substantially improving the way we make political and economic decisions. Over the past two centuries, humanity has achieved more advances in science, medicine, technology, and prosperity than in all other historical periods combined. This permanent upward shift in development began in the early Modern period by overcoming the narrow, one-dimensional thinking of the medieval era and by adopting a method of objective observation and analysis. And even though the United States has been a unique contributor to this process by becoming an inspiration and model for other countries to follow in the pursuit of perpetual improvement and ascent, today, the combined influence of ideological and partisan divisions, reinforced by special interests is meaningfully lowering our potential by draining productivity and innovation from our political and economic interaction. The Synthesis Revolution rejects the failed ideas and flawed dynamic of our current political system. Partisan coalitions on the left and the right have both failed to keep pace with a rapidly changing and more competitive world. The Synthesis Revolution is a movement focused on an upward path to maximizing our potential as a society. This new thinking combines an understanding of the vital necessity of both bottom-up individual freedom and initiative combined with the need for a top-down organizational framework, such as the rule of law and free, impartial markets. The good news is that we have vastly more sophisticated tools for understanding the increasing complexity of the modern world, but they are of no use unless we remove these barriers to their effective implementation. Just as the wise Framers of the US Constitution envisioned, we need to continue the good work of forming "a more perfect Union" through an open and productive political dynamic and by electing the leadership that not only solves difficult problems, but also is capable of adapting to new and changing circumstances. The Framers clearly understood that a solid, stable, and inclusive foundation is needed for free individuals to unleash the innovation and productivity held back by narrow, one-dimensional thinking and organization. The Synthesis Revolution is both the tool for understanding what needs to be done and the mechanism for bringing about the needed reforms and change. No other country even comes close to America's potential to lead the world and create new and even greater forms of progress and prosperity in the 21st century and beyond, at the same time, to realize this potential, we must, once again, engage in a Revolution.
About the Author: Thomas 'Tom' Rossman has spent his career studying and investigating how people around the world can think and interact more effectively. As a young executive in finance during the 1990's, Rossman was an early champion of up-and-coming markets, investing in the newly emerging Latin American, Chinese and Asian markets far ahead of the crowd. Following Communism's collapse, Rossman took a key role at the leading Turkish Investment Bank, Global Securities, in bringing American capital and investment to the developing markets of the Former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Turkey and North Africa. By assisting in the privatization process within Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, Rossman became an important link between Western capital and know-how in the early stages of modernizing these formerly closed economic systems. First as an institutional advisor, and then as an independent consultant, he continued to advocate the sustainable development of democratic and stable free market institutions and expanding economic opportunity throughout the region. More recently, Rossman has provided a similar advisory role to family holding companies and financial companies in the Middle East seeking to most effectively navigate through the volatility of the current financial crisis. Mr. Rossman has spoken on these topics at conferences around the world in such diverse places as London, New York, Istanbul, Baku, Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent, Stockholm, Washington DC and Houston and he has lived in both Turkey and Kuwait. He studied religion and history at Nyack College in Nyack, New York and did his master's work in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston, Massachusetts.