The Japanese industrial economy : late development and cultural causation : [a technological and institutional analysis]

This book reveals that the manipulation of culture was of more importance than the character of the original cultural stock in explaining Japan's modern industrialization. Thus the features of private enterprise culture that are so often isolated as keys to the nation's historical competitiveness may have been only temporary reflections of this wider process of cultural engineering: a necessary input into the program of technology transfer and late development.This book provides a highly reliable guide to the industrial economy and history and covers a wide ground; it will be of great interest to those involved in Asian studies, Japanese studies, plus economists and professionals in business and enterprise culture. Content: 1. Introduction : achievements and outcomes -- 2. Interpretations of Japan -- 3. Maturity : social problems of Japanese capitalism -- 4. Forging explanations : technology -- 5. Cultural engineering -- 6. The institutions of late development : private enterprise -- 7. Nationalism and globalism : Japan in world context. Prior to those quite recent social, commercial and industrial changes in Japan which have seemed to detract from its historical trajectory of ultra-fast growth, the nation was lauded as the best case of capitalist achievement.