ABSTRACT
The rise of East Asia, headed by Japan, and followed by the so-called ‘Four Little Dragons’ (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore), and increasingly by the ‘Big Dragon’ itself (i.e. China), has been the most important phenomenon of postwar economic history. Not only have these countries raised the living standards of their people at a rate unprecedented in human history. During this period, they have also, through their spectacular successes in many export markets, forced the policy-makers, managers, and workers of the older industrial powers of Western Europe and North America to accept that they may have to change at least some of the ways in which they organise their national systems of production and distribution.1
