Asian values not so Asian over time
BARNETT
ARTICLE: "Why Private Colleges Are Surging in India," by Paul Gladner and Peter Wonacott, Wall Street Journal, 29 March 2007, p. B1.
ARTICLE: "Mergers and Acquisitions No Longer Shock Japanese," by Martin Fackler, New York Times, 29 March 2007, p. C1.
I often think back to all the writings about how capitalism in Asia was going to be so different from that in the West. They are more communal, more statist and less given to hyper-competitiveness and the edge-seeking behavior of Westerners.
And yet watch socialist India accept a boom in private education and the Japanese allowing for M&A--even hostile takeovers! Their "distinct" forms of capitalism are looking more familiar by the day.
Yes, differences will always remain, but years from now it's not like we're going to look back and recognize only common ancestors, as so many breathless analyses of yesterday made it out to be. Instead of converging toward something not quite us or them, their evolution seems to mirror ours plenty, with each rationalizing stage seeing their further acceptance of behaviors and policies that--only years earlier--would have been unthinkably "cruel" (the loss of past custom) and "heartless" (watch especially the similar "breakdown" in social relations).
There's Hindu and Shinto and Confucian, and then there's the reality of modern life.
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