Very well reply the other half of the class

What happens to an economy that all industries are controlled by foreign groups What is it important These questions were raised in my class by students of the school of management where I teach in a debate on the rise of economic nationalism in Europe. It is a very heterogeneous class. All these students took different paths in business. Some are young, others average age, others still about to enter the instalment of the seniors.

As you might expect, the class was divided on this subject. On the one hand there were those who saw no problem with that foreign purchasers took almost an economy. The moment where there is a wealth creation, doesn't matter to them who are the creators. There is no reason to leave an activity to incompetent national contractors if foreign competitors are able to perform the task in their place. An approach perfectly Thatcherite economic life, in fact. It is said that Thatcherism led to a "Japanization" of the economy, at least in the manufacturing sector. Japanese companies were likely to respond to the appeals by the thatchériens and to invest in the United Kingdom, y providing best practices in quality control, management of the processes or labour relations. The opening of the British economy to foreign investment, Japanese or other was, obviously, much good to honour the competitiveness.

Very well, reply the other half of the class. And national security in all this What happens if foreign firms to lay off all - going, if they did not pay taxes, if these foreign contractors are in fact disguised terrorists Can you risk losing all technological potential in is relying entirely on non-nationals Is it not legitimate to want to protect some strategic sectors of foreign control

Europe is therefore not only want to do band apart and entanglement in issues related to economic nationalism. Is - doing evidence of antipatriotisme to entrust foreign control of domestic production Is - this love his homeland to tolerate rampant protectionism, which lists barriers and student fortresses, thus preparing the ground for a possible economic war I think, for my part, economic nationalism is, ultimately, the interests of person. As an old saying in Japanese, it is better philosophy of life that is run after person and exclude no one. But, according to another of these maxims, the surest way to win at the sumo is to go to the game dressed in rather than his own campaign from another, better than itself to this game. The first of these aphorisms summarizes his only economic globalization. The second is rather a mercenary vision, but it is precisely this approach which Thatcherism has worked well for the British manufacturing industry.

Having advocated economic openness, my analysis would be incomplete if I spoke not the problem of the balance of current operations. If we do run after person and exclude no one, and, therefore, if we end by entrusting any Japanese to foreign manufacturing industry while Japanese companies manufacturing elsewhere, across what may be the consequences for our balance of payments Should we worry about see our accounts then become significantly negative

According to many thinkers, there is little significance for the balance of payments of countries that goods and capital circulate freely and effectively across borders. For them, US current-account deficit makes the world a great service in terms of demand creation, given that this application and the funds from current account surpluses to finance are perfectly complementary. Of course, but on condition that these imbalances will worsen not to the point of starting to exert pressure on the currency markets and exchange rates, as this almost be the case these past two weeks.

Is there a single solution that can meet the conflicting requirements of these two currents of economic nationalism and globalization Can a common world currency to answer Can this model be applied to as large scale that it creates as many problems in the twelve countries of the euro area It remains for me to ask my students what they think of this new series of puzzles.