Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber's The American Challenge* is a particularly repulsive book. It is about the operations of American capitalism in the Western European economy. According to Servan-Schreiber, Europe is in danger of colonisation by American business, whose superiority is based on a number of interrelated [illegible] business management.
There may be some degree of truth in [illegible] argument but he does not appear to have correctly gauged the extent to which the productivity gap (between American and European business) is closing. Ernest Mandel has pointed out that only in a few fields does American industry still enjoy real technological advantage over European and Japanese competitors — such as in computers and aircraft. In many other fields, technological advantages have either disappeared, or are disappearing — for instance in steel, automobiles and electrical appliances, The implication of all this is an increased invasion of the American market by European and Japanese goods. Thus 10-15% of America's market for steel is now supplied by Japan and Western Europe, and the same sort of figures apply in the automobile market,
In addition, concentration amongst European capitalists is taking place and can be expected to increase — the merger of Citroen and Fiat announced for 1970 creates a corporation producing 2 million cars a year, equivalent to the third largest American car firm - moving up to the second largest if the present rate of growth in the American and European industries is maintained. American industry will be faced with enormous difficulties given that its labour costs are two to three times those of Europe, Of all this Servan-Schreiber has nothing to say.
Despite the inadequacies of the analysis, it is interesting to see the liberal economist come out into the open about the real nature of capitalist imperialism when he thinks his own 'civilisation' is threatened. 'It is a historical rule that a country politically and economically strong makes direct investments (and thus gains control) in less developed countries, Thus European capital used to flow into Africa — not for simple investment but to gain economic power and exploit local resources', What is Servan-Schreiber's solution? It is certainly not revolution for this is an out of date dogma. He has quite a different role for the Left to play in meeting 'The American Challenge'. It should 'exploit the capital of confidence it enjoys among wage earners to obtain greater expansion and then negotiate (!) the advantages thus secured from all social classes to obtain a different distribution of society's income (!)'. The political raison d'etre of the book couldn't be put plainer than that.
For this exercise in class collaboration, our hoped-for prize is the attainment of 'Post-Industrial Society' discovered by the crystal gazing of (Mr Megadeath) Herman Kahn in conjunction with the Hudson Institute. How Kahn actually arrived at all his conclusions about the features of the 'Post-Industrial Society' and about what countries would reach it by the end of the century, Servan-Schreiber doesn't bother to tell us. What matters is that according to Kahn we aren't going to make it. 'In a later colloquium in Paris, Herman Kahn suggested, to please his audience, that France and Germany might belong to this select group (of Post-Industrial Societies) but it isn't in favour to tranquillize us in this way for his study says just the opposite'.
Particularly striking throughout Servan-Schreiber's book is his continual stress on what he terms 'The Second Industrial Revolution' — The critical importance of the new productive forces rooted in advanced technology and what has been termed in other circles 'The reintegration of intellectual labour into the productive process'. The world-wide student revolt is an expression of the fact that these productive forces cannot in the long run be contained within the existing set of capitalist property relations, Despite his stress on these new forces, Servan-Schreiber has not grasped this — though perhaps he has an inkling when he calls for 'the liberation of imprisoned energies by a revolt in our social methods — a revolution to revitalise elites and even relations between men'. However, a much more thorough revolution than Servan-Schreiber advocates will be necessary to liberate these new forces. This points to quite a different course for the Left than the one he wishes it to adopt.