At 08:05 AM 1/24/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear Adam,
>
>I prefer to stay away from the tired academic debates on this issue, but
>here goes anyway... While not defending the Soviets, you must remember
>that the US poured huge sums of money into Germany and Japan after World
>War II. Additionally, they both benefited from maintaining small
>militaries and as serving a sub-contractors for the US in the Cold War.
>Germany for NATO and Japan for Vietnam. Japan being even a more special
>case in that it was encouraged to build the economic empire, a Japanese
>co-prosperity sphere, that the US before the Cold War had actually gone
>to war with Japan to prevent! Japan is especially instructful, for
>while Germany had high per capita incomes before WW II, Japan's were
>never really more than one-fourth those of the richest countries. In
>other words their 80 years of industrialization beginning with Mejii
>were somewhat effective, but never launched them into the first world
>until the exigencies of the Cold War gave them the final push (my friend
>Gunder may disagree with me on this. We'll see). I know this is all
>rather structural, and I don't wish to completely deny the role of
>agency here, but I do think these are important factors for
>understanding the development of these post-WW II areas.
>
>The Soviets on the other hand, had a net drain on their system by having
>to spend massively, in terms of their GNP, on their military. We can
>argue if this was by choice or necessity.
>
>Bear in mind this isn't a defense of the Soviets, just some factors
>which helped propel Germany and Japan's economies upward. Whatever your
>thoughts on Wallerstein may be, his concept of "development by
>invitation" has some relevance here.
>
>Best,
>
>Jeff Sommers
>
Jeff:
Just a brief response. Why, for example is Japan prosperous? It's a long
story, but I'll just make two statements about facts which do *not* explain
Japanese propsperity. (1) Japan is *not* prosperous because it received
foreign aid from the U.S some 40 years ago and (2) Japan is *not* prosperous
because it is able to exploit Thailand or Indonesia. Although offering
positive explanations of Japanese prosperity may be complicated, the first
steps are easy: (1) Japan enjoys tremendous levels of thrift and therefore
investment and thus was able to accumulate a large capital stock. (2) Japan
has a highly educated and hard-working labor force. And that's about it!