The first chapter of this volume, “Capitalism in Asia,” is the introduction to Capitalism and Capitalisms in Asia: Origin, Commonality, and Diversity, and starts with the claim that “Asia is on rise”. The writers of the Introduction as well as the editors of the book, Hyun-Chin Lim, Jan Nederveen Pieterse, and Suk-Man Hwang observe that “the world is witnessing a power and wealth shift from Europe to Asia … (and) the advent of ‘Asian Century’” (p. 2) It is true that in spite of being latecomers, Asian countries have achieved remarkable economic growth in a relatively short period of time and now spearhead the 4th industrial revolution. Their capitalist economies are also proved to be remarkably resilient by successfully dealing with the onslaught of globalization and neoliberalism, and by overcoming such crises as the East Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s and the 2008 world financial crisis.
However, the editors are not sure that Asian capitalism can be an alternative to the Western one, because, despite remarkable development dynamism, Asian economy has been plagued by “widening economic equality, social conflict, political instability, environmental degradation and so on” (p. 2). Thus, they want to compare Asian capitalism with the Western one to find out whether Asian capitalism converge on or diverge from the original model of Western and American capitalism and to test the possibility that Asian capitalism can provide an alternative model to Western capitalism. They also want to explore the regional diversity and commonality of capitalism among Asian countries.
To tackle these questions, the editors suggest several theoretical and methodological perspectives including the varieties of capitalism (VoC) and comparative capitalisms (CC) perspectives. Obviously the varieties of capitalism perspective has been one of the most influential theories since the turn of 21st century, spawning many different versions and theoretical debates. At the core of the VoC lie the institutions and rules that coordinate economies. Among the institutions that constitute a capitalist economic system, market is pivotal, influenced by the state and society at large. Depending on the relationship among the three, liberal market economies (LME), coordinated market economies (CME), and state-led market economies (SME) can be distinguished, and European countries typical of these categories, such as LME dominant in the UK, CME in Nordic Europe, and SME in France, can be identified.