Asian Capitalists in Comparative Perspective: An Introduction

Abstract

Following the economic growth of the New Industrializing Countries in East Asia, several countries in South and Southeast Asia are now experiencing unprecedented fast development of their economies. This recent economic development in Asia has been accompanied by the emergence of new business classes. Supported by an active government policy and partly benefitting from collaboration with foreign capital, these entrepreneurs are generally thought to have become economically, socially and politically one of the most powerful categories within the emerging middle-class of Asia today. Over the past two decades there have been several studies that focus on these new business classes at the national level. The recent interest in big enterprise in Asia has led to several publications that together provide us with a comparative and historically insight into the emergence of this new class of Asian entrepreneurs operating at the national level: its way of conducting business, its ability to pursue its economic and socio-political interest vis-à-vis their groups in society and vis-à-vis the government, and its international link.