MERCANTILIST STRATEGY, RONALD REAGAN, AND FILLING ‘THE DUSTBIN OF HISTORY’: A COMMENT ON ‘HOW THE UNITED STATES USED COMPETITION TO WIN THE COLD WAR’

Abstract

In his essay, “How the United States Used Competition to Win the Cold War,” Warren E. Norquist argues that Ronald Reagan deliberately “used competition” to undermine the communist regime in the Soviet Union. But what does “competition” mean? The term usually refers to the strategies entrepreneurs and corporations deploy vis‐a‐vis their “competitors” in the market. However, Norquist doesn't provide a clear characterization of how states, in an adversarial context, compete economically with one another. His evidence suggests that the United States — typically a strong proponent of laissez‐faire economics — confronted the Soviet Union economically by deploying a surprising strategy, one congruent with mercantilism.

Citation

Hochberg, L. (2002), "MERCANTILIST STRATEGY, RONALD REAGAN, AND FILLING ‘THE DUSTBIN OF HISTORY’: A COMMENT ON ‘HOW THE UNITED STATES USED COMPETITION TO WIN THE COLD WAR’", Competitiveness Review, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb046429