File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9710, message 369


Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 10:16:12 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
Subject: M-I: Asia - really a boom


james m blaut wrote:

>I'm curious about your extravagant statement that the "Asian boom... will
>... rank as the most  extraordinary episode of expansion in the entire
>history of catpialism."

Using Angus Maddison's numbers and periodizations (in his OECD volume,
Monitoring the World Economy - his periodizations being 1820-70, 1870-1913,
1913-29, 1929-50, 1950-73, 1973-92) I sorted the major countries and
regions of the world by their per capita GDP growth (measured on his PPP
basis). The #1 (of 106 period/region combinations) was Japan 1950-73, at
8%. #2, S Korea, 1973-92, at 6.9%. #3, S Korea, 1950-73, 5.2%. Next, China
1973-92, 5.2%. Then Germany in the golden age, 1950-73, 5.0%. So Japan at
its best was nearly twice Germany, and nearly three times the world golden
age average of 2.9%. (Incidentally, Russia 1929-50 was #12 [3.5%], and
Russia 1950-73 was #13 [3.4%], well ahead of the rather wimpy U.S. golden
age figure of 2.4%).

Looking at relative income performance also puts Asia in a class by itself.
Most regions of the "developing" or postcolonial world lost ground in the
post WW II period, or even over a longer period of time. Look at the table
below. ("Offshoots" is short for "Western offshoots," Maddison's name for
the U.S., Canada, Australia, and NZ.) Not shown are Korea, which went from
9% of U.S. incomes in 1950 to 46% in 1992, and China, which went from 6.4%
in 1950 to 14% in 1992. The "Asia ex-Japan" numbers are pulled down by the
weak performance of South Asia, notably India's fairly dismal growth record.


                            off-                            Lat     Asia
           world   W Eur   shoots  Japan   S Eur   E Eur    Amer   ex-Jap
Africa
growth
1820-1870   0.7     1.0     1.4     0.1     0.6     0.6     0.2     0.1     0.1
1870-1913   1.3     1.3     1.8     1.4     1.1     1.0     1.5     0.5     0.4
1913-1929   1.1     1.1     1.5     2.4     1.3     0.1     1.5     0.7     0.9
1929-1950   0.8     0.7     1.6    -0.2    -0.3     2.4     1.5    -0.9     0.9
1950-1973   2.9     3.9     2.4     8.0     4.9     3.5     2.6     2.5     2.1
1973-1992   1.3     1.8     1.4     3.0     1.7    -1.2     0.6     4.2     0.2

GDP per,
capita,
% of US
     1820   51.4   100.3    93.6    54.7    64.5    58.3    55.5    42.1
35.0
     1870   37.5    85.9    99.3    30.1    45.2    41.9    32.6    23.3
19.5
     1913   30.0    69.8    98.7    25.1    33.0    29.3    28.6    13.3
10.8
     1929   27.3    63.5    96.3    28.2    31.2    22.8    27.9    11.4
9.6
     1950   23.4    53.5    96.7    19.6    21.2    27.2    27.3     6.7
8.3
     1973   26.1    74.0    96.8    66.3    36.3    34.6    28.6     6.9
7.7
   1992/4   24.5    77.7    96.5    86.4    36.0    20.4    24.3    11.0
5.8


Using more conventional measures (non-PPP incomes, reported by the World
Bank), Thailand had an averge growth rate of 7.6% from 1980-90 and 8.4%
from 1990-95; Malaysia, 5.2% and 8.7% respectively; Indonesia, 6.1% and
7.6%; Singapore, 6.4% and 8.7%; and China, 10.2% and 12.8%. These numbers
are virtually without parallel in economic history. The U.S., by way of
comparison, had 3.0% and 2.6%.

This isn't to say that the growth wasn't badly distributed (though East
Asian income distributions are pretty even compared with Latin America and
even the U.S., and Japan has one of the most egalitarian income
distributions in the world, flatter than Hungary in the 1980s, when it was
still nominally "socialist"), or that it wasn't destructive, and the rest.
But there's no point in denying its power.

>I take it we are talking about
>
>-- two rather small countries, Taiwan and Korea, whose solid capitalist
>growth can be explain ed by historic factors (mobilization of pretty much
>all the capital of mainland China in the case of Taiwan; the US involvement
>in the case of Korea;

Explaining the causes of the growth and acknowledging their booms are two
different things. South Korea is not a small country; its population is
about 45 million, which puts it roughly in the same class as the UK and
France; that's three times the population of the Netherlands and seven
times that of Sweden. Taiwan's population is about 21 million - not big,
but not small either - twice the size of Belgium, and 2/3 the size of
Canada. And many small countries have done quite dismally.

>As to Japan, it doesn't fit the boom model although steady growth took
>place over, what? three decades, and Japan has been a capitalist center
>for a long time.

Yes, but as the numbers above show, its pre-WW II development was not all
that impressive, and it did quite badly in the mid-19th century.

>So: What boom?

So, *that* boom.

>This is important, for at least two reasons. (1) All the propaganda about
>progress in the "industriaing world" needs to be confronted with facts. (2)
>The political implications. Many of our comrades point to these "tigers,"
>this "East Asian miracle" as evidence that capitalism is developing the
>Third World and is progressive (see Willoughby responding to me in the new
>S&S). As you know, this is not happening.

The East Asian boom is a fact, and a profound refutation of all those
people who go on about late capitalist "stagnation." There are many
brutalities about East Asian development; it's still capitalist
development. But it's also a living refutation of the idiocies of
Anglo-American laissez faire, and shows the efficacy of state development
planning. For Marxists looking for the seeds in the new in the belly of the
old, it deserves a lot more attention than mere debunking.

Doug





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