الصراع على القمة

by Lester Carl Thurow, أحمد فؤاد بلبع (ترجمة)

كان الصراع على القمة أكثر الكتب مبيعا في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية في عام 1992 ، فهو كتاب حافل بالمفاجآت. يقول لستر ثارو إن الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية كانت في القرن العشرين قوة عظمى عسكرية في عالم ثنائي الأقطاب إلى جانب الاتحاد السوفييتي ، و ستكون في القرن الحادي و العشرين قوة عظمى عسكرية وحيدة لا تنازعها في ذلك دولة أخرى. كما كانت قوة عظمى اقتصادية ، و لكنها لن تكون كذلك في القرن المقبل ، بل ستكون دولة في عالم متعدد الأقطاب. و قد كان الانعطاف غير المتوقع الذي قدمه لستر ثارو هو أن أوروبا الموحدة حول ألمانيا ، و ليس اليابان أو الولايات المتحدة ، هي التي ستكسب المنافسة الكونية في القرن المقبل. و هو في ذلك يجيب في استفاضة عن السؤال الذي يطرحه ، و هو : من سيملك القرن الحادي و العشرين؟
يقول ثارو إن أهم خاصية للمنافسة الجديدة في القرن المقبل أنه سيكون من أبرز مقومات النجاح فيها اكتساب مهارات أساسية جديدة ، و ابتكار طرق تفكير أساسية جديدة. و يدعم حججه بما يلي : أنه لن يكون في هذا القرن فائزون واضحون ، و لكن الخاسرين يمكن أن يدمروا ، و أن المقدرة على التعاون الفعال مع الخصم المباشر ستكون شرطا أساسيا للبقاء ، و أنه لكي تزدهر الولايات المتحدة في هذه البيئة فإن أفكارها عن الموارد الجوهرية يجب أن تدرس بعناية ، و أن تكون لديها قدرة تنافسية في الصناعات السبع الرئيسية اللازمة للمحافظة على مستوى المعيشة المرتفع ، و أن التعليم هو السلاح الأكثر فعالية في الحرب الجديدة ، و لذلك لا بد لها أن تغلق الفجوة في التعليم ، و أن على الولايات المتحدة أن تتكيف بطريقة جديدة و غير مألوفة لتصبح لاعبا ناجحا في المباراة الاقتصادية الجديدة.

Genres: Economics, Business, Nonfiction, History, Management

367 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Lester Carl Thurow (born 1938) is a former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of numerous bestsellers on economic topics.
Thurow was born in Livingston, Montana. He received his B.A. in political economy from Williams College in 1960, where he was in Theta Delta Chi and Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, and a Tyng Scholar. Thurow was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, and went to Balliol College, Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics, graduating in 1962 with first class honors. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1964.
Thurow is on the board of directors of Analog Devices, Grupo Casa Autrey, E-Trade, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.. Thurow was also one of the original founders of the Economic Policy Institute in 1986.
Thurow is currently an economics columnist for, among others, the Boston Globe and USA Today. He was previously an economics columnist for and on the editorial board of the New York Times, and was a contributing editor to Newsweek.
Thurow is a longtime advocate of a political and economic system of the Japanese and European type, in which governmental involvement in the direction of the economy is far more extensive than is presently the case in the United States – a model that has come to be known as "Third Way" philosophy.
His best selling book, Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe and America published in 1993, compares economic growth and living standards among Japan, Europe, and the USA.
His other books include:
Fortune Favors the Bold: What we must do to build a new and lasting global prosperity (2003).
The Future of Capitalism: how today's economic forces shape tomorrow's world (1996).
The Zero-sum Solution: building a world-class American economy (1985).
Dangerous Currents: the state of economics (1983).
The Zero-sum Society: distribution and the possibilities for economic change (1980).
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Reviews

[Wei Ming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aged badly, interesting read, quite well written for its time. The book essentially predicts the economic future of the early 21st century. Written in 1993 in the aftermath of the fall of the USSR, it is interesting to see what top economists predict. China was written off as being too poor to actually become a major power. He writes that China could grow at 10% a year for a decade and still be minor compared to other countries bc they started off with such a low base. However, he fails to realise that after 20 years or 30 years this compounding effect really adds up. He also writes that the main thing that drives economies is investment, specifically investment in technology and education. He posits that complete EU integration will make it the economic powerhouse of the 21st century. I guess it is too soon to say. We are at an inflexion point in the EU project, and things could easily go both ways. If EU were to go on the path of further integration, they could and probably would end up setting the global standard for trade. However, this would likely lead to an erasure of national sovereignty in many of the EU countries, which I am not sure if many EU citizens would be okay with. The book also fails to predict Japan’s bubble bursting and the Japanese economy essentially being stagnant for the past 30 years in a disastrous deflationary spiral. The book is wrong on just about every prediction, but is still well written and interesting for its time. His suggestion is for USA to adopt more policies that incentivise saving, investment and the state to take more lead as in Japan or EU. He also suggests for Japan to move from export based growth to domestic consumption based growth which sounds a bit contradictory to me. At the end of the day what we learnt in H2 economics is that aggregate demand and supply in an economy has to both increase in tandem and it doesnt rly matter how as long as it works. CIGX whatever man if it works it works.

[hamad · Rating 2 out of 5]

After taking another look at this ancient book in 2018 it appears that most of thurows predictions have so far failed in that Europe is a mess and nowhere near integration but the other way around unraveling and the venture capitalists have become the merchant bankers that he said they could not be. Binning this and confirming my view of prognosticators as buffoons and soothsayers regardless of erudition especially when lacking a clear and objective methodology.

Two points for some interesting observations.

Some books just age horribly.

[Yves · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not dare express publicly my doubts about the future of the EU when LCT - then dean of the SCM at MIT - was so vocally buoyant about it. Noticeably, he did not spot the decline of Japan and the rise of China.

[Hank · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was impressed at the time, but hasn't aged well.

[Mika]

Comencé este libro porque estaba en mis estantes y ya no tenía ningún otro en físico para leer, asi que nunca tuve expectativas.
La Guerra del Siglo XXI habla de la economía de diferentes potencias mundiales de manera completamente entendible, el problema con este libro es que está estancado en el tiempo, fue lanzado en 1993 y desde ese año a la actualidad la cantidad de cambios que ocurrieron en el mundo es asombrosa. En los casos que plantea tiene razón, pero ya pasaron. Es como si me predijeran el pasado, lo cual vuelve esta lectura aburrida, ya que conozco lo que va a suceder, pero al mismo tiempo enriquecedora, ya que posee terminología de la materia económica y algunos datos estadísticos interesantes.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

read while lpreparing my MBA