THE BIG TEN

Having identified Germany and Japan as America's principal challengers for economic dominion in A Cold Peace (1992), Garten changes his mind and policy recommendations in this didactic briefing on up-and-coming rivals. Drawing largely on work done while serving as undersecretary of commerce for international trade in the first Clinton administration, the author (now dean of the Yale School of Management) offers a survey of ten countries he categorizes as big emerging markets, or BEMs: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey. All of the disparate nations, Garten notes, are populous, rich in resources, and have become regional powers; in response to postCold War exigencies, they also are endeavoring to make democratic capitalism the ruling principle of their economies. While BEMs are among the Global Village's most rapidly expanding outlets for exports, he warns, doing business with them can prove difficult. Cases in point include restricted access to markets, corruption, cutthroat competition, and the theft of intellectual property. There is also the risk of clashes over cultural values, in particular, environmental protection, human rights, and labor practices. Asserting that America is ill prepared to take advantage of its opportunities in BEMs, Garten goes on to offer initiatives designed to retrieve the situation. By and large, his proposals (accelerating domestic economic growth, encouraging capital investment, controlling inflation, creating a new social contract, rethinking higher education) are longer on good intentions than details. And what he calls vigorous commercial diplomacy may strike less enthusiastic observers as going global with high-level jawboning and industrial policy. A call to arms for corporate America, more interesting for its details on new foreign markets than for its rather vague prescriptions. (illustrations, not seen)