> The problem is that countries who don't want to compete on the marketisation of everything will lose out eventually.
It goes both ways though, when shit hits the fan if your economy is based on airbnb and food delivery you're fucked.
Look at Russia, half the GDP of Germany but twice the steel production, 4 times the wheat production, 1st producer of fertilizer, huge amount of gas, &c. They had roughly the same military budget as Germany in 2020, yet the german army virtually doesn't exist.
It depends if you think our current mass productivism/consumerism practices are a bubble or the end game of humanity, history seems to prove that it goes in cycle of good and bad times. Poor countries would probably even fare better than most in case of major events, the bigger they are the harder they fall.
Germany is much richer than Russia because their economy adds much more value to raw inputs. Their industry produces much more refined, valuable goods. For example, before the idiotic invasion of Ukraine, Germany imported huge amounts of Russian gas, that was used by industry to created refined, valuable goods.
Also, it is weird that you chose to comment about the German military. First, due to WW2 era agreements, they are severely limited in how they can deploy their military. Japan is similar. Also, Germany spent 50B EUR last year on their military, and that is set to rise by another 10-20B EUR this year with some extra, one-off spending. These are not small numbers!
It goes both ways though, when shit hits the fan if your economy is based on airbnb and food delivery you're fucked.
Look at Russia, half the GDP of Germany but twice the steel production, 4 times the wheat production, 1st producer of fertilizer, huge amount of gas, &c. They had roughly the same military budget as Germany in 2020, yet the german army virtually doesn't exist.
It depends if you think our current mass productivism/consumerism practices are a bubble or the end game of humanity, history seems to prove that it goes in cycle of good and bad times. Poor countries would probably even fare better than most in case of major events, the bigger they are the harder they fall.