The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies [Hardcover]

Kenichi Ohmae (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 1995

The author argues that nation states have lost their ability to control exchange-rates and protect their currencies, and have consequently forfeited their role as critical participants in the global economy. Once efficient engines of wealth creation, nation states have become inefficient engines of wealth distribution, whose fates are increasingly determined by economic choices made elsewhere.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nations are becoming obsolete from an economic standpoint, declares Tokyo-based business consultant Ohmae (The Borderless World). He argues that the traditional nation-state, now beholden to domestic special interests, its government "an enemy of the public at large," has become an inefficient, even impossible, business unit in the new global economy. Instead of a world order based on discrete, independent nations, Ohmae envisions autonomous networks of what he calls "region states"?geographically linked economic zones that forge productive ties with the global marketplace by putting the right policies, information technology and infrastructure in place. Examples of emerging region states cited here are San Diego/Tijuana; Hong Kong and southern China; and northern Italy and the Rhine-Alps region of France. Although Ohmae overstates his case, his challenging primer gives managers, economists, politicians and policymakers new ways to think about global economic problems and opportunities.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ohmae, a former McKinsey & Company senior partner, has touted the global economy in The Borderless World (1990) and Beyond National Borders (1987). His new book spells out more specifically Ohmae's conviction that the nation state and the global economy cannot comfortably coexist. National boundaries are too porous, he argues, to control the flows of communication, corporations, customers, capital, and currencies, and most national governments are too focused on distributing wealth to be effective in creating it. Ohmae sees "region states" --natural economic zones of 5 to 20 million affluent residents, such as Hong Kong and contiguous areas of China, San Diego, and Tijuana or Silicon Valley--stepping into this vacuum, building links with the global economy independent of the nations that theoretically control them. For Ohmae, these changes raise practical, not ideological, issues: nation states should decentralize power and seek to serve as catalysts for the growth of region states, because this is the only sort of growth the global economy is likely to support. The usual free-market leap of faith lies at the heart of Ohmae's argument, but his ideas are provocative enough to appeal to readers struggling to understand the consequences of globalization. Mary Carroll

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 214 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (June 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029233410
• ISBN-13: 978-0029233412
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #833,199 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You must read beyond the title, June 26, 2001

By 

Aaron Smith - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies (Hardcover)

The title suggests that nation states and government in general are things of the past, a world-scale right-wing libertarian vision come to life. That's not quite true. Now 5 years after this book was written, in so many ways, the world either already is what Ohmae said it will be, or it is well on its way. The "End" is not so much a dissolution of national governments, but their growing irrelevance. Fewer and fewer consumers still regard Honda and Toyota as Japanese car manufacturers because so much of their assembly and even machining is now performed in the USA. If Motorola sells portable phones to Japan it does not necessarily benefit Americans, because the phones might be manufactured in Indonesia. The shareholders and other departments of the company might benefit because of new business generated, but it is possible that all employees and shareholders come from Asia or Europe themselves, even if Motorola was originally established in the US.

The nation state might last through the end of this lifetime (though unlikely longer than that), but it is less and less an economic entity, rather a final vestige of nationalistic sentiments, the modern and future "opium of the masses." Ohmae reminds us that terms like GDP and GNP are outdated and deserve reconsideration, considering that every large nation state has successful enterprises spaced out among uncompetitive industries and unproductive locales. Gross "Regional" Product might be a more accurate yardstick.

A good companion book to this one might be "Jihad vs. McWorld" by Benjamin Barber. That book emphasises that the so-called Transnational Corporations might as well be called anti-national corporations. Consumers scarcely know or care where the banks and manufacturers who provide them with goods and services call home, and the corporations care even less about the nationality of their customers, beyond the point that it might provide information about their purchasing habits.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ohmae does understand tomorrow's world., June 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies (Hardcover)

Ohmae has brilliantly managed to explain in a crystal clear way how the political and economic structures of mankind are starting to experience an impressive change. The book is very revealing in terms of how globalisation is already reshaping the way people interact, making national states unnecessary, costly and counterproducing, as they have just become obstacles in today's world. Ohmae has said in easy words what we all (in favour or against) knew or suspected but couldn't put so clearly: that what he calls "the world according to the United Nations", that colourful political map we all learnt in school, full of borders and flags representing different cultures, levels of income, geopolitical interests, etc., is simply over. With the end of national states comes a new and exciting era when individuals and their spontaneous order, their free associations and their voluntary alliances are important, not any longer the opinions, positions or decisions of government bureaucrats and politicians. With globalisation comes freedom to an extent we humans have no historic precedents for. This logically causes fear among all brands of right-wing or left-wing collectivists and, especially, among that chaste of elegant leaders living on our coerced tax-paying.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent free-trade ideas from a foreign point of view!, November 3, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies (Paperback)

If you are interested in international economics, this book is a must read. The fact that Kenichi Ohmae isn't an American makes it even better because he approaches the subject from a different perspective than most other authors you will likely come across. The only down side is that he repeats and reinforces his ideas throughout the book, rather than building on them. You can easily get away with only reading the first half of the book; but that first half is still definately a must read!