Rule-Based Competition

There are many good reasons for promoting research and development, education and training, as well as technology at the national level to provide for future growth and employment at home. And one country can certainly learn from another how to increase productivity. However aggressive stances are not needed. If Krugman's article leads to a realization among political decision-makers that defining countries primarily as economic competitors is a mistake, it should result in greater international cooperation and policy coordination.

Rules are needed that do not completely preclude but nonetheless restrain unfair competition, among currencies, tax systems, industrial policy interventions as well as environmental and social standards. The world economic summits as well as informal meetings of the Group of Seven industrialized nations should regain the substance that they had in German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's time. In view of the present global challenge, which all countries face in coping with structural change in a socially acceptable and ecologically sustainable manner, the industrialized nations must cooperate more closely, not only among themselves but with the developing countries.