Phases of Capitalism, Globalizations and the Japanese Economic Crisis

Abstract

It is hardly surprising that the recent economic instability in East Asia has spawned a cottage industry in crises analysis, approximating in output the writing on economic development which accompanied the meteoric rise of that region in the world economy. As with the latter work, so the atmosphere surrounding the production of literature on the ‘Asian Crisis’ remains highly politically charged. Furthermore, each current of writing has been marked by mono-causal theorizing; a tendency that has culminated in arid debates around binary oppositions such as ‘state vs. market’, ‘crony capitalism vs. market capitalism’, ‘Asian values vs. democratic values’, ‘catch-up development vs. mature economic development’ and so on. This chapter follows up on calls by critics of the above perspectives in the ‘Asia’ literature for a more multi-dimensional ‘structural’ analysis of the questions of Asian economic development and crisis.1 However, such analysis is itself fraught with pitfalls as it involves grappling with difficult epistemological questions and devoting increased attention to the elaboration of complex conceptual frameworks. Nevertheless, in comparative and international political economy it is my belief that a structural ‘level of analysis’ is mandatory for the production of enduring knowledge and as a necessary basis for carrying out fruitful historicalempirical studies.