Asian Economic Systems

295 Pages·2013·2.738 MB·English

by  Steven Rosefielde

ASIAN
ECONOMIC
SYSTEMS
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ASIAN
ECONOMIC
SYSTEMS
Steven Rosefielde
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
World Scientific
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ASIAN ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
Copyright © 2013 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
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ISBN 978-981-4425-38-4
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About the Author
Steven Rosefielde is a Professor of Economics at
the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
and a co-director of the Japan Foundation’s
Center For Global Partnership project on Two
Asias: The Emerging Postcrisis Divide. He
received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard
University, and is a member of the Russian
Academy of Natural Sciences (RAEN). He has
taught in Russia, China, Japan, and Thailand.
Most recently, he published Russia in the 21st Century: The Prodigal
Superpower, Cambridge University Press, 2005, Masters of Illusion,
Cambridge University Press, 2007 (with Quinn Mills), Russia Since 1980,
Cambridge University Press, 2008 (with Stefan Hedlund), Rising Nations,
Amazon, 2009 (with Quinn Mills), Red Holocaust, Routledge, 2010,
Democracy and its Elected Enemies: American Political Culture and
Economic Decline, Cambridge University Press, 2013, and Prevention
and Crisis Management: Lessons for Asia from the 2008 Crisis, World
Scientific Publishing, 2012.
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Preface
The origins of this Asian economic systems text can be traced to the mid
1970s when the author trained in Soviet economics and comparative
economic systems began to wonder how Japan would fit into an economic
universe that appeared divided between communist planning and capitalist
markets. However, serious research on Japan and Asia was deferred until
1990 when I first traveled extensively in Japan and China. During the
nineties I returned to Japan every year teaching and researching on various
projects, mostly connected with Russo–Japanese relations.
Thereafter, I gradually expanded the scope of my knowledge by
teaching and researching for extended periods of time in Japan, China,
Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Sri
Lanka, and deepened my grasp of the integrated region as co-director of a
Japan Foundation funded project on the global economic crisis’s impact
on Asia.
I studied conventional applied micro, macro, financial, development
and regional trade issues, but also made a considerable effort to under-
stand the cultures of Japan, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia,
which ultimately led me back to my original point of departure, interpret-
ing the Asian moment from a coherent systems perspective.
The task proved difficult because Asia could not be narrowly forced
into established systems frameworks centered on market and plans, and
the factors that made Asia distinctive involved humanistic and religious
issues that largely fall beyond the purview of neoclassical economic
theory. However, eventually synthesis was achieved by remembering that
the autonomous, individualist premise of neoclassical theory is not the
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viii Preface
only viable approach to rational utility seeking. Self-seeking outcomes are
not always best from humanistic, cultural and social perspectives, despite
the positive influence of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, and consequently
Asia’s economic systems could be modeled as potentially viable alterna-
tives to democratic free enterprise that sacrifice some aspects of competi-
tive individual utility maximizing for other benefits.
The result presented in this text is a set of five Asian alternatives to the
neoclassical paradigm that crystallize Asia’s distinctive potentials and
serve as a framework for interpreting a vast array of applied economic
issues.
No attempt is made to definitively judge these system’s comparative
merit, or future possibilities either on free standing, or supranational,
regional or World Governmental bases. Further, readers are encouraged to
make their own normative judgments.
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Acknowledgments
Asian Economic Systems is a complex reflection of diverse lifetime
professional interests. My teachers: Alec Nove, Leonard Shapiro, Abram
Bergson, Alexander Gerschenkron, Wassily Leontief, Evsei Domar,
Simon Kuznets, and Kenneth Arrow shaped my early attitudes. Their
influence was enhanced over the decades by Emil Ershov, Vitaly Shlykov,
Jan Rylander, Quinn Mills, Bruno Dallago, Robert Levy and many others.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the abandonment of command
communism everywhere (except North Korea) deepened my understand-
ing and led me to abandon the neoclassical individualist notion that ideal
governments everywhere should and could be consumer sovereign, maxi-
mizing individual welfare either through perfect markets or perfect
planning.
Robert Levy, George Kleiner, Stefan Hedlund, Yoji Koyama, Masumi
Hakogi and Ken Morita sensitized me to the importance of culture and
neoinstitutional economics. Their insights helped crystallize my experi-
ences in Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and
Myanmar during the past 25 years. Innumerable scholars contributed to
my understanding of Japan, China, and Thailand including Masaaki
Kuboniwa, Haruki Niwa, Yasushi Toda, Martin Bronfenbrenner, Kumiko
Haba, Philippe Debroux, Edith Terry, Dwight Perkins, Jonathan Leightner,
Teerana Bhongmakapat, Kaemthong Indaratna, and Peter Pham. Mark
Peterson tutored me on South Korea. Richard Shek illuminated
Confucianism.
Various Asian institutions facilitated the development of this text by
hosting my research including: Ryukoku University (1992–1993),
Hiroshima University (1994), Australian National Univerity (1994),
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