Operationsfeld Weltmarkt oder: Vom souveränen Nationalstaat zum nationalen Wettbewerbsstaat

Abstract

The world is a »global village«. Distances and time difference have nearly become meaningless due to modern transport and communication technologies. Therefore corporations from all regions of the world are competing on all markets. The freetrade »ideology« has become tough reality. In conseguence, towards the end of the 20thcentury, the nation state is left with only few possibilities of influencing the economic development; the world economy's »central processing unit« are the money and capitalmarkets. Nation state-orientated development projects have therefore failed in the East (collapse ofreal-existing socialism«) as weil as in the West (»beyond Keynesianism«) and in the South (»end of the development state«). Furthermore, even the modern welfare statedepends on the state's ability to intervene in the economic sphere. The welfare state's clientele is mainly defined by the (national) citizenship. Free trade is happily dismantelling the welfarestate arrangements, but at the same time, the social resources of economic development are being undermined. This is why competition theorists are rediscovering the »productiveresources« of social competences, of consensus and communication to increase the»competitiveness« on open world markets.