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Summary Of Joe Studwell's How Asia Works

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In How Asia Works: Success and Failure In the World’s Most Dynamic Region, Joe Studwell explores what led countries such as Japan, South Korea, and China to economic prosperity while countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines failed to ascertain opulence. He describes this separation of success as on that creates two East Asias. He presents his arguments in a four-part narrative detailing the step-by-step process through which countries complete the ascension process. He supports his claims with a 67-page long list of references from the Meiji Restoration all the way up to present day (2014 being that the book was published then). This essay will analyze and critique one main component from each step of his three-step recipe for …show more content…

He explains that export discipline and import protectionism were the only ways for the developing countries to advance. He touches on the fact that there will be a loss to the average citizen in that they will be paying an “invisible tax” in order to help industrial advancement via industrial policy. This invisible tax is what led to a financial surplus that could be invested into industrial advancement via industrial policy making. My argument is that he is arguing for the unremitting transfer of capital from the common household to exporting corporations, or in layman’s terms, essentially asking for the poorer citizens to release more of the small amount of money they have to finance the industrial sector in promises for better growth tomorrow. Thus this increases the level of poverty in the country. His argument also indicates that in order for this industrial advancement, there has to be a sacrifice of domestic competition, which would be a very large factor in the worlds most dynamic region. This domestic competition is what provides profit for countries and thus providing money to the population. This protectionism and export-focused approach o politics doubly attacks the domestic market and almost ensure a detrimental loss for the common population. Studwell’s argument on the financial situation lacks to provide any attention to the relationship of the capital surplus to the already-wealthy elite. With the excess capital found from the “invisible taxation” can be traced to the pockets of those involved in big business. Being that more capital is brought to benefit the corporations who export product, this also provides a benefit to owners of corporations and for a close relationship between policy makers (and thus policy) and big business owners. The fact that policies benefit big business so well, it also causes the problem of killing small businesses, especially without the benefits of

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