EUROQUAKE: Europe's Explosive Economic Challenge Will Change the World

by Daniel Burstein ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 26, 1991

An alarmist's dour evaluation of the implications of a more or less united European Community for the economic well-being of the US. While the Continent has long been scheduled to become a borderless marketplace by year-end 1992, Burstein (Yen/, 1988) argues that recent events could make the 12-state league an appreciably more powerful competitor than previously anticipated. He points out that the collapse of the Berlin Wall and subsequent reunification of Germany has given the EC unique access to erstwhile members of the Warsaw Pact--Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, etc. Whether sometime Soviet satellites will prove the next Southeast Asia or the next South America remains an open question; nonetheless, Burstein insists, European business is gaining strength and momentum everywhere. In the meantime, he asserts, Japan Inc. is penetrating the common market originally envisioned as means of keeping it at bay. Burstein bases much of his case for the prospective dominion of Europe and Japan on perceived differences in economic philosophy. While corporate America and Washington put their faith in laissez-faire free enterprise, he notes, rival capitalists rely on leadership and governance from Bonn, Brussels, Tokyo, and other capitals. Federal intervention has accomplished much in the US, the author contends, citing the Manhattan Project, rural electrification, and the space program. He offers only general counsel, however, on retrieving the situation, including enjoining the US government to employ its might to promote American business interests, and advising his fellow citizens to take a longer-term view, eschewing their self-defeating focus on short-run rewards. A worst-case scenario that assumes that an aggregation of still autonomous nation-states can become a sociopolitical federation as well as an economic juggernaut within the foreseeable future. These considerable uncertainties apart, a timely wake-up call.

Pub Date: March 26, 1991

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1991

Categories: NONFICTION