Jim Manzi's conservative reform manifesto in National Affairs has attracted all sorts of praise on the right. And Manzi does have some interesting observations and decent proposals. His main premise is that there's an inherent tension between economic dynamism and social cohesion. Conservatives, he argues, must oppose the Democrats' growth-stifling social democratic agenda without going so in the other direction that they allow the the social fabric to rend.

The weakness of Manzi's essay is that it does almost nothing to establish its key premise that President Obama's agenda will stifle growth. Almost all the work of establishing this point comes in this section:

From 1980 through today, America's share of global output has been constant at about 21%. Europe's share, meanwhile, has been collapsing in the face of global competition — going from a little less than 40% of global production in the 1970s to about 25% today. Opting for social democracy instead of innovative capitalism, Europe has ceded this share to China (predominantly), India, and the rest of the developing world.

If you read that passage quickly, or even very slowly and repeatedly, you probably think Manzi is saying that, since Ronald Reagan took office, United States has enjoyed dramatically faster economic growth than European social democracies. (Ross Douthat, citing this passage, reaches that conclusion.) In fact, Manzi isn't showing that at all.

First of all, let's note that while he concludes with a swipe at "social democracy," Manzi is comparing a unit he calls "Europe." I emailed Manzi, and he explained that "Europe" includes, well, all of Europe -- not just social democratic western Europe but eastern Europe, the Ukraine, and Russia, which are not social democracies by any means.