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Overview As Asian markets and economies experienced a drastic slide beginning in the summer of 1997, threatening the stability of other world markets and potentially dampening the technology boom that had been driving world development, the editors began a look at the effects of cultures and economic systems on social and technological change. Following is a Q& A interview with James Fallows. Beginning in 1999, Fallows was media columnist for The Industry Standard. He also is the former editor of U. S.
News and World Report, was a senior editor and correspondent in Asia, and Washington editor, for The Atlantic Monthly and is the author of two books on Asia, Looking at the Sun and More Like Us. The interview was conducted June 30, 1998. Entrepreneurship and Asian Resilience In the decade since you wrote More Like Us, we have seen a progressive? and now, suddenly, radically different? Asian economic picture unfold, from riches to declining markets and default. How do you see the differences between Americans and Japanese in terms of the way they handle economic damage control and recovery, and any changes in their self-perceptions?
Are the Asians any more contrite, and are Americans any more detached in their self-assessments? Fallows: I feel abashed in offering generalizations about Asian attitudes to stresses of this sort, since so many different cultures have so many different traits. Traditional Malays describe themselves as being fatalistic about adversity, while seeing the ethnic Chinese in their midst as more resilient, for example. But I think between America and Japan, one contrast is fair to note. On the whole, Japanese culture prides itself on stoicism? an ability to withstand real hardship and sacrifice.
Thus it takes pride in its recovery from the horrors of defeat and the indignity of post-war occupation. American culture, I would say, features instead an optimistic things will get better spirit. After a bankruptcy, after a divorce, after being laid off, people are encouraged to think that the next venture they start will turn out well. In practice, both of these ethics can equip people to bounce back from difficulties, but they do so in different ways. More Like Us comments on what you call creative destruction in regard to both U. S.
and China societies, and gives us reason to believe that the seeds of entrepreneurship can originate in a racially homogenous totalitarian country (China) or in a multi-cultural democratic system (U. S. ). Is Chinas future role to become the Superman of innovation and enterprise, the center of new entrepreneurship and the spawning ground for new ideas and inventions, replacing the American tradition in that role? From a 1998 view, will China perhaps become the most capitalistic of all? Fallows: First, about the premise of the question: while China as a whole has a sense of racial specialness and separateness from the West, I would not think of it as a racially homogenous country. There are huge differences north to south, east to west.
Nonetheless, it? s clearly true that this culture does reward many American style productive traits, from a practical problem-solving orientation to a desire for each person to have his own (or family? s) enterprise. The market tradition seemed not to be extinguished even during the Mao years.
Whether in the long run this is destined to be the most capitalistic society, I couldn? t say, nor could anyone, I think, since so many historic, military, and other factors are involved. But their prospects are good. Regarding the Japanese perspective of common good of the people first that you mention in both your books, do you sense any stress fractures in this outlook, especially among younger Japanese who have come of age in the past 5 - 7 years and have to deal with the economic problems caused by their predecessors and elders? Are they perhaps becoming more independent and entrepreneurial in spirit as a result? Fallows: I am sure that changes in both directions are underway; the question is the rate of change, compared to how robust the traits are.
It is possible that today? s economic strains really will erode them. On the other hand, it? s worth remembering that outsiders have consistently overestimated the rate of change on these fronts. We? ll just have to watch and see.
Why does the entrepreneurial spirit you describe in Looking at the Sun survive and thrive so strongly in China, but seems not to have made the narrow leap to Japan? Fallows: Here is one guess: China has been so large and populous for so long that an every man for himself, or really every family for itself spirit has been necessary. Japan has thought of itself as small and contained enough to be run with a more group-conscious spirit. Also, as a number of cultural historians point out (most recently Sheldon Garon, in Molding Japanese Minds), there have been concerted efforts by Japanese public officials for a century or more to promote the collective spirit. This emphasis may have dampened the entrepreneurial potential of the country. Can the tradition of high personal savings rates in most Asian cultures help mitigate the current financial crisis?
Is this a factor, or did it drop by the wayside over the past decade in countries such as South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia? Fallows: Yes, this will make a huge difference? and does help explain the different predicaments of different Asian countries. Taiwan, Japan, and Singapore have VERY high savings rates? and they are the three in least urgent distress during the financial crisis. (Japan has tremendous stagnation, but not Indonesia-style collapse). Indonesia and Malaysia and Thailand are much less frugal in this sense, and are walking on thinner ice.
Will the Asian economic recovery likely include more or less government regulation of economic policies in the respective countries, or are we likely to see yet another set of economic models that are still quite different from the Western free market philosophy? Fallows: My guess is: A quite significant long-term difference in Asian and Western models. It is possible that the two approaches really will converge. But the cultures, histories, and social preferences of many Asian societies differ enough from America? s to make long-term difference possible, too.
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