The secret to success of East Asian economies Essay examples -- Intern

Since the end of the second world war, many East Asian economies have seen a â€Å"miraculous† growth. And with so many other nations still in poverty, economists and leaders are turning their eyes towards the â€Å"East Asian tigers† to see if they can replicate their results. When looking at the facts it is obvious that the the circumstances facing the East Asian nations were quite different than the ones that nations face today. But outside of these differences a loose model of the East Asian miracle can be utilized in Third World nations today and, considering the high success rate of so many of the East Asian economies, would most likely see positive results. The secret to success of East Asian economies is the hand that the government has had in industrial affairs. Starting in the 1950s nations like china began taking steps towards centralized government through reform. One example of this would be the Chinese land reform of the 50s under the new Mao Zedong's communist regime (Blecher, 2010:p.27). This land reform took away the oligarchic control of the landlords, changing the feudalistic policy of landlordism over to a more capitalistic form of socialism in which the government has the control. This is clearly a very vital part of the industrialization process as many nations that have failed with the agrarian reform continue to find themselves struggling to get out of poverty. A modern example of this would be Brazil, where the rural landlords have stalled any sort of reform that might dismantle their rule over peasants farmers and tenants (Kay, 2002:p.1076). The institution of land reform was a vital part of industrialization in East Asia, unlike other nations it was introduced before the economies had gotten on their feet and w... ... to ever truly practise total free trade, only even opened its borders in the 19th century (Chang, 2003:23). Despite this, Industrialized nations, with the United States at the forefront, continue to advocate for more 'freedom' in the economies of developing nations, claiming that there is no other way to be free from poverty. By doing this they make themselves out to be hypocrites calling for more market-freedom when in fact nations who practice state intervention, as they did during earlier stages, have seen more economic success. Two great examples would be China and India who both have a high level of state involvement in their respective markets, yet both nations have become the model for developing nations in the 21st century (Chang and Grabel, 2004:13). But for whatever reason the West continues to advocate a policy that they themselves have barely used.