American Challenge

American Challenge by J. J. Servan-Schreiber

In 1967, the French were worried about the economic dominance of the United States. America seemed to dominate industrial production and innovation. Only small scraps were left for Europe. Often these "scraps" were offshoot of American companies, with small manufacturing operations in Europe. The first bits of the European Union had been started, with the treaty of Rome. However, there were challenges of agreement and enforcement, together with worries of external domination.

The author presents predictions for the future as well as an action plan for France. A "Federal EU" is detailed as a better plan. There is discussion of politics with criticism of both the right and left, with a desire for an "innovative left". Technology predictions were in some ways correct and others way off the mark. A chapter was devoted to supersonic transit. It was taken as a given that Boeing's SST would end up dominating the earlier-released Concorde. (Instead the SST never was produced, and the cancellation nearly destroyed Seattle.) The importance of computers and the knowledge economy was fairly accurate. However, it has failed to result in a massive reduction in individual working time. Instead, it seems that Americans work even longer than before. There was also a prediction that America, Japan, Canada and Sweden would be the few "high income post-industrial economies" by 2000. Europe was predicted to be in the next rung below. Well, by the time 2000 rolled around, most of Europe was fairly intermingled with the big 4. The big miss was Asia, with many east Asian countries (other than Japan) moving up the charts.

The book could easily be rewritten today from an American point of view with China substituted. There is worry today that China is dominating production. There is hope that more automation and more local production will help take back some of the Chinese dependency. America still does have a lead on research and knowledge. However, there is concern that some of that is ceded to China. Today, Americans complain of significant Chinese government supports. In this book, the French acknowledge significant American government investment in key industries. (Though the difference is the French thought they should also have government support rather than fight against it.) 

It was interesting in this time that Russia was already somewhat of an afterthought. There was earlier thought that the USSR would pass the USA economically. However, buy 1967 that economic growth had already appeared to be a mirage. The Vietnam War seemed to be the last standoff between the two powers before they concentrated on other things.