East Asia and the Global Economy

Japan’s Ascent, with Implications for China’s Future

Stephen G. Bunker and Paul S. Ciccantell

Publication Year: 2007

After World War II, Japan reinvented itself as a shipbuilding powerhouse and began its rapid ascent in the global economy. Its expansion strategy integrated raw material procurement, the redesign of global transportation infrastructure, and domestic industrialization. In this authoritative and engaging study, Stephen G. Bunker and Paul S. Ciccantell identify the key factors in Japan’s economic growth and the effects this growth had on the reorganization of significant sectors of the global economy. Bunker and Ciccantell discuss what drove Japan’s economic expansion, how Japan globalized the work economy to support it, and why this spectacular growth came to a dramatic halt in the 1990s. Drawing on studies of ore mining, steel making, corporate sector reorganization, and port/rail development, they provide valuable insight into technical processes as well as specific patterns of corporate investment. East Asia and the Global Economy introduces a theory of “new historical materialism” that explains the success of Japan and other world industrial powers. Here, the authors assert that the pattern of Japan’s ascent is essential for understanding China’s recent path of economic growth and dominance and anticipating what the future may hold.

Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

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Even by the standards of academic publishing, this book has a long history. Stephen and I began working on this project in the spring of 1993. Based on his extensive fieldwork and teaching in the Brazilian Amazon and my own fieldwork in Brazil . . .

1 Growth and Crisis in the Japanese Economy

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pp. 1-25

At the end of World War II, a defeated Japan faced tremendous difficulties. U.S. bombing destroyed much of Japan’s industry and cities, and an occupying army controlled the country politically and economically. Japan lost its empire . . .

2 Economic Ascent and Hegemony in the Capitalist World-Economy

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pp. 26-54

Relations of production are profoundly social, but they occur within, are constrained by, and catalyze material processes.Material processes manifest a higher degree of regularity and generality than occurs in social processes, so . . .

3 The MIDAs-Steel-Ships Nexus

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pp. 55-82

In this chapter, we first describe the position of Japan materially and sociopolitically after World War II. We highlight Japan’s depleted domestic raw materials supplies, its poverty, the opposition of Japan’s neighbors to reestablishing trade . . .

4 Creating Japan’s Coal-Exporting Peripheries

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pp. 83-126

The Japanese steel mills and the Japanese state, with the initial support of the United States, constructed and then progressively reconstructed a model of raw materials access in coal that required complex processes of learning and negotiation . . .

5 Replicating Japan’s New Model in Iron Ore

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pp. 127-169

The Japanese steel industry in the late 1940s and early 1950s confronted the same problem with iron ore that it did with coal: how to gain access to and transport to Japan large quantities of bulky, low-value ore. For the first fifteen years after . . .

6 Transporting Coal and Iron Ore

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pp. 170-187

In the process of transporting raw materials to Japan, the Japanese shipping industry created economies of scale that lowered Japanese raw materials costs for the steel plants and their customers in the Maritime Industrial Development Areas . . .

7 The Restructuring of Global Markets and the Future of the Capitalist World-Economy

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pp. 188-218

We first summarize our analysis of Japan’s economic ascent and then compare this case to earlier cases of dramatic economic ascent that have transformed global industries and environments.We also analyze Japan’s economic stagnation, as well . . .

References

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pp. 219-244

Index

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pp. 245-250

E-ISBN-13: 9780801895883
E-ISBN-10: 080189588X
Print-ISBN-13: 9780801885938
Print-ISBN-10: 0801885930

Page Count: 264
Publication Year: 2007

Series Title: Johns Hopkins Studies in Globalization
Series Editor Byline: Christopher Chase-Dunn, Series Editor