The World Is Tilted; The popular idea that America is one step smarter and more sophisticated than its rivals is a dangerous myth, and a threat to the global economy.

Byline: Clyde Prestowitz (Prestowitz is president of the Economic Strategy Institute and author of "Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East.")

For most of the last 50 years, globalization has been a win-win proposition, making America richer while lifting hundreds of millions in the developing world out of poverty and despair. Recently, however, it has begun to operate differently, undermining U.S. welfare while creating imbalances likely to end in a global economic crisis.

In this new mode, globalization is tilting the world like a giant sliding board game on which the "flattening" of old barriers is accelerating ...