The Miracle

April 20, 2009
The dynamic Asian tiger economies, with their export-focused, state industrial policies, defy laissez-faire economic orthodoxies; this insightful history sheds light on their controversial achievements. Time
magazine’s business correspondent Schuman surveys behemoths China, Japan and India, middleweight powerhouses like Taiwan and Korea and oft-neglected developing countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, examining their economies through profiles of the government and business leaders. His evenhanded treatment of the “Asian model” notes both its successes—spectacular growth and technological progress—and failings—crony capitalism and sometimes stifling government regulation—while exploring the complexities and effectiveness of its various national versions. The clearest policy message is the author’s not entirely convincing endorsement of globalization and free trade, which, he insists, benefit South Carolina as much as South Korea. To reassure readers that free market verities still hold, Schuman includes stories about scrappy Asian entrepreneurs who built startups into world-class corporate juggernauts, sometimes helped and sometimes hindered by government economic planners. Schuman writes in the same vein of anecdotal pop-economic analysis as Thomas Friedman, with less grandiosity and more nuance; the result is a thoughtful, reader-friendly look at the crucial economic developments of our age.