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In his previous New York Times best-seller
Head to Head, Lester C. Thurow described an economic
war among the world players surviving the cold war period
and showed us how the United States could emerge a winner.
Now, with the end of communism, and with the world's major
powers all pursuing the same economic system, he helps us
see what capitalism has become and where it is going.
According to Thurow, we are living in a
period of great economic change, when various factors are
playing off each other and radically altering the world.
But these changes also make for an exciting time, ripe with
enormous opportunities for those equipped to take advantage
of the storms ahead. In The Future of Capitalism,
he examines the major forces causing economic disequilibrium
and charts a course for profiting from today's world in
flux.
Like the shifting plates of the earth's
surface, world changes influence the economic game with
nearly imperceptible movements that have enormous effects
in the long term. In geology, entire continents are created
and lost through the plates' activity. Keeping with Thurow's
provocative analogy, the magnitude of the following changes
-- the "economic plates" -- cannot be ignored.
The conversion of the Communist world
to capitalism: With this one third of humanity added
to the capitalist world, major realignments are required.
The rise of man-made brainpower industries:
New advances in technology allow industry to be located
anywhere, shifting the emphasis away from physical capital.
Changing demographics: Social programs
must adapt to the growing numbers of elderly people without
income, and of others, young and old, migrating from poor
to rich countries.
A truly global economy: Anything
can be made anywhere, and sold anywhere else, which can
put national governments at odds with global business.
Lack of a dominant political or military
world leader: Now who will write the rules for the world's
trading system?
A new capitalism must emerge, one in which
the ownership of skills ("man-made brainpower")
instead of physical capital is the key strategic asset.
Economic success will depend on our willingness to make
social investments in infrastructure, skills, education,
and knowledge. Using specific examples from America, Japan,
and Europe, The Future of Capitalism challenges and
alters the way we view the economic backbone of today's
world, and examines how changes will affect the future.
Lester C. Thurow is a professor of economics
and former dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management. Thurow
is recognized throughout the world as a leading expert on
economic issues. Since the publication of The Zero-Sum
Society, he has been an important shaping voice in the
creation of political platforms and national economic policy
in the United States. He has been a contributing editor
to Newsweek and a member of the editorial board of
The New York Times.
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