General Motors has lost its position to Toyota as the world's largest carmaker today, while many media outlets seem to think the news has more than just symbolic significance for GM as a company. Instead, we are talking about the decline of the American Empire.
The fact that Toyota's first-quarter sales surpassed those of General Motors reflects nothing less than "another milestone in America’s long decline from industrial pre-eminence," the New York Times said today. In Europe, where I live, the media has jumped all over what seems to be good news for many, with nuances aplenty about the decline of "the great American giant," says the French L'Expansion. Many more examples of similar pronouncements are readily available on Google News.
I've always been skeptical when it comes to sweeping statements about American companies and, more specifically, American technology. When it comes to technology and its spread and adoption around the world, who really cares where it comes from? In Europe, where I live, people I tend not to like discuss American issues and how and when the U.S. will lose its international influence, as if I had a stake in the matter--and if such matters were really that important, to begin with, for anyone. Today, I feel many media outlets are of that same mindset.
