> Who got rich? And, on what basis? "East Asia"... ??
Yep. The fastest economic growth rates of any economic zone on the planet, plus remarkably equitable distribution of aforesaid growth in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, etc. They got rich by breaking the rules of the market, not playing by the rules of the market, as Amsden and Wade have shown. Really, really rich. Which doesn't mean that these societies are utopias or that they aren't trashing their environment and that their workers aren't horrendously exploited. But if we're going to change the world-system, we've got to understand this basic fact: East Asia is a net creditor to the US, to the tune of a trillion bucks. See http://www.mof.go.jp/english/e1c018.htm for the gory details.
> So, what would a socialist critique of the state look like, by your
> estimation?
It would criticize what exists, of course. But what exists in East Asia and Central Europe ain't Wall Street-style rentier madness. Maybe some day far in the future this might happen, but right now these zones are characterized by the developmental state in terms of form, and keiretsu capitalism in terms of content. Weird as it sounds, the EU really is a giant humongous developmental state, with its very own financing arm (the EIB, at http://www.eib.org).
-- Dennis