East Asian Capitalism: Diversity and Dynamism

Randall White is the author of Voice of Region: On the Long Journey to
Senate Reform in Canada and Global Spin: Probing the Globalization
Debate.

Volume 2 in the Hongkong Bank of Canada Papers on Asia series features
papers on “the origins and prospects of the Japanese keiretsu, the
Korean chaebol, business groups and family networks in Southeast Asia
and Taiwan, and the evolving industrial structure of China’s socialist
market economy.” The editors contribute an introductory essay that
summarizes the results of the four papers and concludes with some brief
remarks on implications for Canadian business.

If the volume has an underlying theme, it is that East Asian capitalism
really is different. We learn that the “lessons of western economic
development do not apply directly or easily” to South Korea or to
Taiwan; that in Southeast Asia one finds “a diversity of business
actors operating in rapidly-growing [but] politically-controlled market
economies”; and that even “on the surface Japan’s business system
is markedly different from that of western countries.”

Intended for general business and other interested readers, this volume
is reasonably accessible, well edited, and elegantly produced.