ABSTRACT
An Optimal Development Path (ODP), by definition, indicates a normative socioeconomic development, meaning that any actual corresponding development may differ from it to some extent. The actual development paths of the modern colonial powers, such as Great Britain, the Netherlands and France, might have constituted the examples of socioeconomic development derailed widely to the right of their respective ODPs. The policy stance was named as the Ishibashi Line after the journalist-turned politician and Japanese Keynesian Tanzan Ishibashi who emphasized the business first ideology; where business recovery had to be achieved before the consumption recovery. Such Culture-ignoring business-first development, perhaps, may have represented the combined case of market failure, policy failure and Culture failure, which has made the Japanese path destined to the Credibility Trap. The normative ODP reminds us of the importance of Balanced Socioeconomic Development that is basically different from the lopsided and short-lived development models by various economists based on modern civilization.
