„To me that’s communism!“
That was the succinct comment of a US top manager to whom I had just explained the German model of co-determination.
In large German companies, 50% of the members of the supervisory board are elected by the employees. The shareholders are also only entitled to 50% of the seats, although they hold 100% of the shares.
I could understand that this client thought this was incompatible with his ideas of capitalism. He really did come from a different world.
In Germany, hardly anyone considers this unique model or the German economic system as a whole to be communist. The term ‚Soziale Marktwirtschaft / Social Market Economy’ was coined for it 75 years ago.
And hardly anyone with a modicum of economic competence will claim that these 75 years have been a complete failure. Today, Germany is the fourth largest economy in the world behind the USA, China and Japan. And Germany has a much smaller population than these three countries.
The German model of the ‘social market economy’ is certainly not perfect. But it has proven to be competitive so far. Whether it will remain so in the future remains to be seen.
My advice to Robert – that was his name – was: “You don’t have to like this model. However, if you want to be successful as a manager in Germany you definitely need to understand it“.
I hope that the money for Robert’s intercultural training with us about Germany and the Germans was well invested.