On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Richard K. Moore wrote:
> The global development model is substantially different now than it was for
> the first two decades or so of the postwar period. During that period
> development in the core had a national focus, as had been the case for
> centuries. But as the perspective of TNC's has become increasingly global,
> and with neoliberal downsizing of governments' budgets and prerogatives,
> government's role in economic planning is diminishing, along with the
> public benefit from corporate growth.
This is true in America and Britain, but certainly not in Germany or
Japan. There's a difference between what Governments say they're doing,
and what they actually do: Germany and Japan talk the monetarist talk, but
in fact, they've acted like good old-fashioned Keynesians. West Germany
has been spending $100 billion a year since 1990 to finance the bailout of
East Germany; the money has come from Keynesian deficit financing, not
West German wages. Japan has been letting speculators go to the wall,
while bailing out its big banks. Both countries have pushed their interest
rates to superlow, liquidity-stimulating levels, far lower than in the US,
where rates are slightly restrictive. Both countries still have huge
developmental states, public financing of higher education, public
investment in R & D consortia, nationalized/public health
care systems, and relatively generous pension and benefits schemes which
cover most of their working population.
One good example here is the financing of universities in Germany: they're
free to the public. The Conservatives want to introduce American-style
loans for students, so what did the students do? Stage the biggest
student strike across Germany since 1968. Some form of neoliberalism may
triumph in Europe in the far future, but right now, the resistance to such
is vast and growing.
> There may well be "German" and "Japanese" companies in the same keiretsu at
> some point (if not already). But Japan, Germany or the EU, as nations,
> don't play any particular role or gain any particular benefit from whatever
> success that keiretsu might enjoy. The creation of the EU is irrelevant to
> these developments, and the people of the EU nations can expect no
> significant long-term benefits from the arrangement.
The point is that most of the German and Japanese economies
are locked up in keiretsu networks of one sort or another, while only a
small minority of American firms have similar arrangements. This is
important, because what keiretsu do is to cheapen the cost of capital
for members of a given network, and boost the long-term productivity gains
in a given national economy. It's not just a marketing arrangement, it has
to do with a fundamental shift in the mode of production (this is why, to
me, the core of the EU is not Germany or any nation-state in particular,
but what we might call the Eurokeiretsu which comprise the economies of
Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the Benelux countries, Switzerland, Austria,
northern Italy and to some extent southern and eastern France).
GM has to worry about Warren Buffet and Wall Street takeovers;
Daimler-Benz is 25% owned by Deutsche Bank and can concentrate on
producing the finest cars in the world, using one of the most skilled
and educated workforces in the world. Toyota and most of the big
Japanese firms are similarly well-protected against meddling rentiers.
Again, this could change in the future, but in 1998, the industrialists in
Japan and Europe still have the upper hand over their rentier and
financial class juniors.
-- Dennis