ABSTRACT
The degree of Asian “dependence” on the outside world differed dramatically: In 1988, for example, total imports and exports for Japan amounted to 17 percent of the GNP, a rather small proportion of its economy. If the neo-Marxist theories failed to enlighten Asian leaders concerning the process of development, widespread praise for free market capitalism as the source of progress seemed less than adequate. The East Asian governments usually intervened in their economies in order to promote the accumulation of private capital, to attract foreign capital, to build export industries, to curb trade unions, and to provide a basic infrastructure—from schools to dams to road—as an essential undergirding for development. One specific variant of the culturalists’ argument is to credit East Asian success to the Confucian ethic. Asian governments also initiated a series of policies that encouraged whatever entrepreneurial talent was latent in their societies.
