U.S. Capitalism: A Tarnished Model?

摘要

The apparent success of the U.S. model of capitalism as it developed in the 1990s and early 21st century encouraged many business and policy elites to regard it as an ideal form that should be adopted by other countries and regions. The recent collapse of the U.S. financial system and the current recession are, however, likely to limit the attractiveness of this U.S. model in both OECD countries and industrializing economies. In this article, I review the key features and limitations of the postwar U.S. economic model as well as the challenges to this model from the success of many Japanese firms doing business in the U.S. market and the rapid rise of the Asian "tigers." Given the current situation, it is likely that the influence of the fully fledged market fundamentalist model, imposed on many Eastern European countries in the early 1990s, will be greatly diminished, and attention focused much more on alternative forms of capitalism. Most of these involve the state taking a more proactive role in economic development and regulation, albeit in "market friendly" ways.