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The critical junction – Unless Germany charts a new business course, it will lose out to the rest of the world economy

Görlach, Α. (2015) “The critical junction – Unless Germany charts a new business course, it will lose out to the rest of the world economy“, The European Magazine, 02 Μαρτίου.

 

Sigmar Gabriel lives in the 19th century. For the German Minister for Economic Affairs, the list of what matters isn’t long: industry, German cars and so forth. Digital innovation? New business models? Not for him. He is, rather, stirring up tension with Google, enthralled by the destruction of the corporation. If, at the start of the 21st century, the German Minister for Economic Affairs is perceived to be more attuned to the realities of an older epoch, it is more than appropriate to ask whether he really thinks that in fifty years we will still be selling cars to the Chinese or whether Google or Apple might put the car of the future on the market.

In 1959, the English novelist Charles Percy Snow described in his highly regarded lecture “The Two Cultures” how England missed the critical junction of the 19th century. The Brits were too snobbish to consider altering their highly esteemed educational canon – unlike the Germans, who said “no problem”, leading to the birth of the applied sciences here. The exceptional engineering sciences are the foundation of the success of “German engineering”, of which Germany continues to reap the benefits.

 

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