The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East
By the beginning of this century it was already commonplace to speak of the
U.S. as a "hyperpower," to talk of its military, political, and economic clout
as unprecedented in world history, and to assume that American dominance would
continue at least throughout our lifetimes. It is conventional wisdom that
America will have no serious rivals for at least a generation. But the American
position is far more fragile and ephemeral than much of the world believes.
Clyde Prestowitz shows the powerful yet barely visible trends that are
threatening to end the six-hundred-year run of Western domination of the world.
The trends include America's increasingly unsustainable trade deficits; the
equally unsustainable (and dangerous) buildup of massive dollar reserves in
places like Japan and China; the end of America's position as the world's
premier center for invention and technological innovation; the sudden entrance
of 2.5 billion people in India and China into the world's skilled job market;
the role of the World Wide Web in permitting many formerly localized jobs to be
done anywhere in the world; and the demographic meltdown of Europe, Japan,
Russia, and, in later decades, even China. Three Billion New Capitalists
is a clear-eyed and profoundly unsettling look at America's and the world's
economic future, from an author with a history of predicting the important
trends long before they become apparent to others.
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A Washington Post Best Seller
One of Business Week's Top Picks
One of Foreign Affair's Top Ten Sellers of 2005
Buy Three Billion New Capitalists Now!
| Praise for Three Billion New Capitalists | |
"Clyde Prestowitz warned us twenty years ago about the price we would pay
for ignoring our trade deficit; now he sums up the failures and risks of
America's current international position with eloquence, and offers a policy
alternative to a trend that cannot be allowed to continue."
"Clyde Prestowitz's new book is a winner! He zeros in on the emergence of
market economies in China, India, and the former Warsaw Pact nations. He
makes a compelling argument that this is the most important new force
shaping the world today. This book should provide the incentive for
government and business leaders to reshape their strategies to deal with
this dramatic force."
"Globalization is not what you think it is-a seamless integration of the
global economy and world financial markets. The Chinas and Indias of the
world challenge those of us in the West to rethink the standard US-centric
framework of globalization. Prestowitz gets it-and provides a long overdue
wake-up call that urges us to consider a very different world order."
"Clyde Prestowitz spells out how America's current economic, fiscal and
trade policies are leading toward a new global economy where China and India
rule and the U.S. lags far behind. This is a sobering warning that should be
read-and remembered-by anyone who cares about America's economic future."
"In his provocative and thoughtful analysis, Clyde Prestowitz lays out in
rapid-fire succession the unique forces that are reshaping the global
economy, and the failure of the United States to grasp that its relative
economic superiority, competitiveness and power are slipping away. In the
candor for which he has become justly famous, Prestowitz takes the facts,
however uncomfortable, and connects the dots to compel only one
conclusion-that the United States' position in the world is neither
birthright nor immutable, and absent concrete policy reform, our economic
dominance and global influence are in genuine peril."
"Once again, Clyde Prestowitz is the canary in America's economic coal mine. We ignore his counsel at our peril."
"A provocative read that is sure to spark much-needed discussion and debate
among business leaders, policymakers and economists about globalization and
the impact it has on the sustainability of the American dream."
"Clyde Prestowitz has always been ahead of the curve in understanding and
explaining the trends that shape our global economy. In THREE BILLION NEW
CAPITALISTS, he once again combines lively and interesting explanations with
lucid and even prescient analysis."
"Clyde Prestowitz has done it again. Usually, a book following a successful
one is a letdown. Not this time. Prestowitz focuses our minds on the rise of
Asia in the context of globalization and the new IT technologies, and argues
that the time has come for the United States to rethink its strategic
economic options. This is a thoughtful, thought-provoking book that must be
read."
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| Reviews of Three Billion New Capitalists | |
Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East
Ex-Reagan administration trade official Prestowitz follows up
his critique of U.S. unilateralist foreign policy in Rogue Nation with
this perceptive diagnosis of the nation's economic decline under
globalization. While China and India focus on trade and industrial
policies and turn out competent workers who put in long hours at a
fraction of American wages, the U.S., Prestowitz argues, struggles with
crushing trade and budget deficits, a zero savings rate, failing
schools, dwindling investments in scientific training and research, a
collapsing dollar and a debt-dependent economy that will face an
"economic 9/11" once foreign creditors bail out. The argument echoes
Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, but
Prestowitz's analysis is more thoughtful than Friedman's
pro-globalization cheerleading. He criticizes, from firsthand
experience, Washington's cavalier embrace of free trade and aversion to
industrial policy ("they'll sell us semi-conductors and we'll sell them
poetry," notes one Reagan administration economist) and argues cogently
that the research and development apparatus and high-tech
entrepreneurship that is supposed to save America's economy is likely
instead to follow the manufacturing base offshore. It's a lucid and
sobering forecast.
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