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policies: Mahathir said he did it, the IMF said they did it. The truth is the natural resilience of economies did it (Paul Krugman, August 25, 1999).1 In the aftermath of East Asia’s spectacular economic collapse in mid-1997 even the most optimistic predictions gave at least a decade before Asia could fully recover.2 Yet, in early 2000, an IMF study triumphantly noted that “the financial crises that erupted in Asia beginning in mid-1997 are now behind us and the economies are recovering strongly” (IMF 2000a). Indeed, the economic recovery between the second quarter of
The well-being of Europe’s citizens depends less on individual consumption and more on their social consumption of essential goods and services – from water and retail banking to schools and care homes – in what we call the foundational economy. Individual consumption depends on market income, while foundational consumption depends on social infrastructure and delivery systems of networks and branches, which are neither created nor renewed automatically, even as incomes increase. This historically created foundational economy has been wrecked in the last generation by privatisation, outsourcing, franchising and the widespread penetration of opportunistic and predatory business models. The distinctive, primary role of public policy should therefore be to secure the supply of basic services for all citizens (not a quantum of economic growth and jobs). Reconstructing the foundational has to start with a vision of citizenship that identifies foundational entitlements as the conditions for dignified human development, and likewise has to depend on treating the business enterprises central to the foundational economy as juridical persons with claims to entitlements but also with responsibilities and duties. If the aim is citizen well-being and flourishing for the many not the few, then European politics at regional, national and EU level needs to be refocused on foundational consumption and securing universal minimum access and quality. If/when government is unresponsive, the impetus for change has to come from engaging citizens locally and regionally in actions which break with the top down politics of ‘vote for us and we will do this for you’.
, the fall of the won resulted in further competitive devaluation throughout 3 The Asian financial crisis Table 1.2 Indonesia Korea Malaysia Philippines Singapore Thailand China Hong Kong (SAR) Taiwan Japan USA Changes in real GDP (%) 1996 1997 1998 8.0 6.8 8.6 5.8 7.6 5.5 9.6 4.5 5.7 5.0 3.7 4.5 5.0 7.5 5.2 8.4 −1.3 8.8 5.3 6.8 1.6 4.5 −13.7 −5.8 −7.5 −0.5 0.4 −10.0 7.8 −5.1 4.8 −2.5 4.3 Source: World Bank (2000). East Asia. Faced with such mounting problems, the Korean government initially approached Japan for financial aid, but the request was turned down
poor child in sub-Saharan Africa. Toilet Twinning is a charity with a similar premise, which offers participants the opportunity to ‘twin’ their toilet with a latrine in a poor region of south-east Asia or sub-Saharan Africa. Sir Richard’s Condoms is a condom company that likewise donates one condom to a ‘developing’ country for each condom purchased. This chapter explores these three cases of
quickly took on a life of its own. Soon thereafter, Paul Krugman would argue that crony capitalism lay at the root of Indonesia’s, indeed, East Asia’s, financial woes. Krugman’s emphasis on crony capitalism, while not without merit, is too simplistic. After all korupsi, kolusi dan nepotisme (corruption, collusion and nepotism), has long been pervasive in Indonesia. It was hardly an obstacle when Indonesia notched up impressive economic growth-rates for some three decades prior to the crisis. Back then, crony capitalism was politely referred to as the “government
currency and a widening of current-account imbalances. As the Asian crisis vividly illustrated, a pegged rate can encourage excessive foreign-currency borrowing, as the perceived exchange-rate risk is deceptively small. As was noted earlier, the US dollar pegs resulted in massive competitive losses in many East Asian countries after 1995, when the dollar began to appreciate against other major currencies. The choice of the US dollar as the anchor for a pegged exchange-rate regime could be appropriate for a small open economy when at least the following conditions are
’ (Habermas, 1987). A strongly embedded capitalist economy may involve more negotiation and collaboration than a minimally embedded one, but the former is not immune to market forces. When a system crisis strikes – like that experienced recently in East Asia – the local forms of embedding may provide some resistance, but they also form some of the conduits along which market pressures – such as those that follow from a collapse of the currency – flow. Sometimes the pressures can sweep the networks away. Furthermore, stable forms of embedding, including networks and
countries forced into severe austerity experienced very severe downturns and the downturns were more or less proportional to the degree of austerity’ (p. 72). 27 See for example: Le Monde, 2 March 2013, p. 7; IHT, 2/3 March 2013, p. 1; Jacques de Saint Victor, Le Monde, 5 March 2013, p. 17. 28 See P. Krugman, ‘Austerity all’Italiana’, IHT, 26 February 2013; M. Wolf, ‘The sad record of fiscal austerity’, Financial Times, ft.com, 26 February 2013. 29 Wolf, ‘The sad record of fiscal austerity’. 30 Paul De Grauwe, ‘Lessons from the Eurocrisis for East Asian monetary
instead glean only Economics as indoctrination 55 a superficial understanding of the world while devoting most of their time to abstract models. Here are some things you might expect an economics graduate to know but which are not typically required to pass an economics degree: • what international institutions like the IMF and World Bank do and how they are run • what happened during key events in twentieth-century economic history, like the Great Depression, Bretton Woods, the East Asian financial crisis and end of the Gold Standard • how multinational firms like
situations. It will be nicer if our attention span could be spent elsewhere than simply thinking: ‘Oh, am I being too stereotypical?’ Kim, a South East Asian student also studying in the US, noticed that as a person with her ethnic background she felt more accepted