>To what extent can the industrialisation of the NICS be understood as a
>consequence of Japan's emphasis on its perceived racial purity?
>As Sukhamoy Chakravarty muses:
>"Korea launched a strategy of export oriented industrialization from the
>mid-sixties onwards, when Japan had crossed the so called Lewis turning
>point in her economic development, making it necessary to obtain new
>sources of cheap labour. Given the character of Japanese society and its
>emphasis on racial purity, it was a much better option to forge new
>economic links with the Republic of Korea through subcontracting, etc.,
>than to encourage large scale labour immigration. This strategy also
>enabled the Korean economy to maintain a regime of excess demand, which
>could be met by an *import surplus*, which has persisted since the
>beginning of the sixties."
>Selected Economic Writings, p. 150
>
>At any rate, this does raise the question not only of the reasons for
>different immigration policies within the OECD but also the consequences
>these varying policies have had on capitalist dynamics.
I wonder if the Japanese thought the Koreans could never catch up to them, so Japanese firms didn't initially worry that the technology sharing that came with these subcontracting arrangements would lead to a considerable competitive threat by the late 1980s/early 1990s. Anyone know?
Doug