20points · 3d ago

The German Mittelstand

kieranvelasquez.substack.com·by Michelangelo11·3d ago

Discussion 3 comments

bestnew

⌘↵ to post · markdown supported

lz400·2h ago

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

Incipient·1h ago

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).

jonstewart·44m ago

> Advancing the precedent set by Alfred, generations of Krupps would continue to develop the region through various private and public works, for almost a century into the 1920s. > > With their basic needs addressed and the workforce inculcated with the “Kruppianer spirit,” the firm crossed the fifth ring. They forged an empire that, by the late 1950s,

<insert Goose meme> “What did Krupp make in the 1930s?”

This was kind of an interesting article but could have been a great deal shorter and wasn’t particularly insightful.