Can Americans Make Anything Besides Deals?

Interesting column by Harold Meyerson in last week's Washington Post.

The question Meyerson addresses is whether the United States can learn from the example of others - in this case, Germany. The first part of the question is whether there is anything to be learned from other countries. Clearly there is.

The second part of the question is whether we are capable of learning from the successes of other countries. That's an open question.

Meyerson comments on the German model: "German manufacturers, particularly the midsize and small-scale ones that often dominate global markets in specialized products, don’t seek funding from capital markets (there’s a local banking sector that handles their needs) and don’t answer to shareholders. They make things, while we make deals, or trades, or swaps."

David Leonhardt, the New York Times economics columnist, wrote last week that Germany owed its edge in global competitiveness to a range of policies that could not be more different than ours: limiting home ownership, improving education (including vocational and technical education) and keeping unions strong — which is why “middle-class pay,” he noted, “has risen at roughly the same rate as top incomes.”

The German model differs from the laissez-faire approach to globalization that has dominated U.S. policy and discourse for decades, dooming many American workers to penury. Meyerson's article emphasizes the crucial distinctions between Germany’s stakeholder capitalism, which benefits the many, and our shareholder capitalism, which increasingly benefits only the few.

Can we learn from others? Let's give it a try.