re: the crisis of the Mittelstand in competing VS China, I'm reminded of this tweet. It's a fictitious illustrative case not a serious study but I think it describes some of the root challenges of western industrial culture when it comes to competing against China
I don't think the fundamental premise is much of an issue - it's what a (mostly) free market is meant to do. Someone sells a chair for $100, someone else believes they can sell it for $80, so they do. There are two main complicating factors (outside of brand reputation and possibly some others?)
1) quality - someone accepts the $80 chair which is a little bit more wonky
2) the $100 company spent a few years developing the technology to steam and bend timber to make the chair so they're marking up based on R&D and ip. The $80 chair company just copied the other tech
There is absolutely a lot of profiteering (charge what we can, not what we need to) happening, but honestly I believe that happens everywhere, including China (trivial case - wild price swings on aliexpress - they're maximising profits).
re: the crisis of the Mittelstand in competing VS China, I'm reminded of this tweet. It's a fictitious illustrative case not a serious study but I think it describes some of the root challenges of western industrial culture when it comes to competing against China
https://x.com/AngelicaOung/status/1921364873444986888
I don't think the fundamental premise is much of an issue - it's what a (mostly) free market is meant to do. Someone sells a chair for $100, someone else believes they can sell it for $80, so they do. There are two main complicating factors (outside of brand reputation and possibly some others?)
1) quality - someone accepts the $80 chair which is a little bit more wonky
2) the $100 company spent a few years developing the technology to steam and bend timber to make the chair so they're marking up based on R&D and ip. The $80 chair company just copied the other tech
There is absolutely a lot of profiteering (charge what we can, not what we need to) happening, but honestly I believe that happens everywhere, including China (trivial case - wild price swings on aliexpress - they're maximising profits).