The End of the Nation State

This work argues that nation states have not only lost their ability to control exchange rates and protect their currencies but, because they no longer generate real economic activity, they have forfeited their role as critical participants in the global economy. Ohmae contends that five great forces - communication, corporation, customers, capital and currencies - have usurped the economic power once held by the nation state. In this full-scale analysis of this global phenomenon, Ohmae explains how communications control the movement of capital and corporations across national borders, how demanding consumers determine the flow of goods and services, and how harmful governmental policies are increasingly disciplined by the actions of informed consumers, profit-seeking corporations and currency markets. The result, Ohmae shows, has been the rise of the "region state", the natural economic zones that have emerged, for example, between San Diego and Tijuana and Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. He describes how these region states have closer links to the globla economy than to their "host' nation.
Ohmae also argues that to establish a presence within these regional markets, corporations must jettison their "country strategies" and instead focus on special strategies for particular regions.
 
This work argues that nation states have not only lost their ability to control exchange rates and protect their currencies but, because they no longer generate real economic activity, they have forfeited their role as critical participants in the global economy. Ohmae contends that five great forces - communication, corporation, customers, capital and currencies - have usurped the economic power once held by the nation state. In this full-scale analysis of this global phenomenon, Ohmae explains how communications control the movement of capital and corporations across national borders, how demanding consumers determine the flow of goods and services, and how harmful governmental policies are increasingly disciplined by the actions of informed consumers, profit-seeking corporations and currency markets. The result, Ohmae shows, has been the rise of the "region state", the natural economic zones that have emerged, for example, between San Diego and Tijuana and Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. He describes how these region states have closer links to the globla economy than to their "host' nation.
Ohmae also argues that to establish a presence within these regional markets, corporations must jettison their "country strategies" and instead focus on special strategies for particular regions.