Dear Adam,
You missed the point, but parrot the commond wisdom well. The
historical evidence runs against Horatio
Alger explanations for Japan's development. Japan had decades of
industrialization before WW II, but was not able to equal the wealth of
the richest countries (re-read post below). "High savings rates and
highly educated workers" are NECESSARY but not SUFFICIENT conditions for
a launch into the first world (ironically, the Wall Street set now
argues that Japan's high savings are a contributing factor to their
continuing recession).
The US role in Japan’s post WW II development came primarily in the form
of
assisting the development of their economy through massive
sub-contracting, and clearing the space for a Japanese co-prosperity
sphere. It's no mistake that before WW II Japan realized its continued
development was incumbent upon attaining this, and that it DID attain it
and launch into the first world after the US allowed its creation. In
other words, economic empire was the missing piece of the puzzle, which
the exigencies of the Cold War provided to Japan. Did Japan take
advantage of it through a highly planned development effort in what some
have called "the only communist country that works"? Yes!
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Sommers
Adam Kessler wrote:
>
> 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!