ABSTRACT
Beyond the question of moral and cultural values, this chapter explores the heritage and future of Asian social practices and institutions. Can the prevalence of personal relationships over formal law be called a remnant of the past? Is there not a difference between the construction of political democracy and the complete surrender of social practices which are not based on the rule of law? These issues are important because they may help to distinguish between the rule of law and the rule by law of authoritarian systems, or between formal systems and informal practices and social institutions in Asian democracies. If these distinctions are valid, they justify the claim to a particularistic Asian identity which uniform Western rules cannot completely supersede. The issue is important to economic reformers in the wake of the Crash. For if you can build a new set of economic rules by fighting deviant practices (such as corruption or fraud), it is another thing altogether to replace time-honoured practices and institutional arrangements with laws which are resented as adverse to the social fabric.
