What will happen to Europe’s high labor and environmental standards as the European Community creates its single continental market? The example of European regulatory federalism, bolstered by stronger political parties and trade unions, may be instr
America and the World
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Citizen Kawasaki: Race, Unions, and the Japanese Employer in America
Some economists have hailed the new model of management and employee relations that Japanese corporations practice at home and are allegedly bringing to America. The story of Kawasaki isn’t so encouraging.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Delectable Materialism: Were the Critics of Consumer Culture Wrong All Along?
It takes an immigrant, or a Soviet visitor, to celebrate the culture of consumerism. Why, as a nation, are we so eager for material improvement, yet so skeptical of materialism?
Posted inAmerica and the World
Rejoinder: Who Do We Think They Are?
Ever since I argued in the Harvard Business Review last year that we should pay less attention to corporate nationality and more attention to whether our nation’s work force was gaining the skills and competences it needed to compete, I’ve had the curious sense of being shoved — quite against my will — to the […]
Posted inAmerica and the World
The New Industrial Culture: Journeys Toward Collaboration
The competitiveness of the U.S. economy depends on changes inside firms, particularly their willingness to take risks in reshaping four key relationships. Competitiveness, it turns out, depends on new kinds of collaboration.
Posted inAmerica and the World
They Are Not Us: Why American Ownership Still Matters
You don’t have to be a Japan-basher to want American-based firms to thrive. As long as separate nation-states do business by different rules, it isn’t One World yet.
Posted inAmerica and the World
Canada’s Health Insurance and Ours: The Real Lessons, the Big Choices
Contrary to a well-financed campaign by the AMA, Canada’s record in health care is exemplary. But is a Canadian model feasible in the U.S.?
Posted inAmerica and the World
Dubious Crusade: The Push for Agricultural Laissez Faire
The Bush administration is pushing an international agreement to do away with agricultural subsidies. But we have never practiced—for good reason—the policies we are preaching to others.
Posted inAmerica and the World
Beyond the Guns of August
At this writing, American and Iraqi forces still face each other warily across the Saudi sands. Sooner or later, Iraq will likely have to reverse course. But beyond the question of how and when the immediate military crisis will be resolved, the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait has given momentum to the development of a post-Cold […]
Posted inAmerica and the World
Atlas Unburdened: America’s Economic Interests in a New World Era
In 1944 Western statesmen redesigned the global economic order. The end of the Cold War and the new economic realities of the 1990s call for an equally far-sighted reconstruction and clear grasp of America’s interests.