Japan vs Korea

[Greg Nowell]

Commenting on my own comment, I forgot to mention that "predatory dumping" is
not, to my knowledge, discussed by List, who, however, says some extremely
sophisticated things about price levels and the solvency of hte banking system.
So your reference to List makes me wonder whether you are in fact familiar with
the argument I'm making.  Check out those graphs in Machine that Changed the
World and tell me domestic demand doesn't affect the Japanese auto industry.
-gn.

Greg Nowell wrote:


> We'll have to agree to disagree here.  I see a fundamental link to domestic
> consumption in the success of the Keiretsu. -gn.
>
> Dennis R Redmond wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 11 Jun 1999, Greg Nowell wrote:
> >
> > > You are unaware with how "predatory tariffs" aka dumping work.
> >
> > I'm quite aware, thank you very much, but Japan Inc. did not follow the
> > script written by Friedrich List. The keiretsu are not really about
> > consumption, they're about production; consumption was driven during the
> > post-WW II period by American military Keynesianism, and nowadays by
> > global credit bubbles. Japan in 1950 was around one-tenth as rich as the
> > USA; West Germany was only a third as wealthy as the US in 1960. So
> > exports to the US were an obvious solution at that point. Nowadays, the
> > situation is more complicated, because the keiretsu have become global
> > production and trading networks, with facilities, plant and equipment
> > across the planet, and the US, Japan and EU have become far more
> > permeable to cross-investment than in any Manchester liberal's wildest
> > dreams.
> >
> > One could argue that the soga shosha, the big trading companies of the
> > keiretsu, were essentially the keiretsu's version of a consumption policy
> > -- which makes sense, since much of the literature I've seen on Japan says
> > that their service sector is highly labor-intensive and inefficient; the
> > soga shosha were thus the monopolistic middlepeople, who squeezed captive
> > consumers for funds which are then the seed-capital for fresh investment.
> > I hear this is changing, though, as Japanese consumers are
> > turning to hyperstores and discounters.
> >
> > -- Dennis
>
> --
> Gregory P. Nowell
> Associate Professor
> Department of Political Science, Milne 100
> State University of New York
> 135 Western Ave.
> Albany, New York 12222
>
> Fax 518-442-5298

--
Gregory P. Nowell
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Milne 100
State University of New York
135 Western Ave.
Albany, New York 12222

Fax 518-442-5298