TV Reviews : New World Economy in ‘Made in America?’

“Economists have taken us down the wrong road,” harrumphed business analyst W. Edwards Deming on PBS’ Sunday broadcast of “The Deming of America.” The United States isn’t training its work force, he adds, and U.S. companies are self-destructing by thinking only three months, not three decades.

If he tuned into PBS starting tonight, Deming would find one economist who agrees with him--Robert B. Reich, whose four-hour “Made in America?” (tonight and Wednesday, 7-9 p.m., KVCR Channel 24; 8-10 p.m., KCET Channel 28 and KPBS Channel 15) extends some of Deming’s ideas into the battleground Reich repeatedly refers to as “the new global economy.”

Each hour of “Made in America?” attempts to apply general notions--of applied technology, education and training, state-of-the-art production, trade--to specific situations. This, combined with Reich’s puckish presence and MTV-speed graphics, make this one economic survey cunningly designed for maximum tube comfort.

Reich wants to demystify at the same time he wants to bring our problems home. It’s never better stated than in the first hour, in which we see Jaron Lanier, the American mind behind virtual reality technology, having to sell his product to eager Japanese buyers for want of any customers at home. Why? U.S. venture capitalists are still thinking short-term, while foreign investors often outpace them in the race for consumer-oriented applications of such advanced technologies as Lanier’s.

While Reich quashes the myth that American workers are unproductive, he points out that the U.S. production pace lags far behind other industrial powers and up-and-comers such as Malaysia, intent on educating and training a nation for highly skilled jobs. Reich visits a model U.S. school for future-oriented training, North Carolina’s School of Science and Mathematics, but also observes how bottom-line oriented politics might force major funding cuts in this vital project.

Without such public investment married with the kind of private investment displayed by Chrysler and its LH car program (seen in the second hour), the U.S. economy, Reich argues, is headed into a cul-de-sac. That’s where the “losers” are, while the “winners” anticipate changes in the global economy, adapt and grow. They resist protectionist urges, while world players (such as designer Bill Blass, whose product is tracked around the globe in the third hour) put free trade to their advantage.

Reich, a key adviser to Bill Clinton, may have a lot more to say about this after November.