Econintersect: Kishore Mahbubani is dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and author of ‘The 
New Asian Hemisphere’. He has an Op Ed in the Financial Times (7 February 2012) which discusses where western capitalism has gone wrong and how Asia is getting capitalism right. Dr. Mahbubani is very specific in his analysis and the entire article should be read to appreciate the full flow of his analysis and arguments. In this news post we will simply list the factors identified without the analysis.
The errors of the west that Mahbubani has identified are:
- Capitalism came to be regarded as an ideological good rather than as a pragmatic tool to improve human welfare.
- The role of regulation and supervision was forgotten.
- It was forgotten that for capitalism to survive all classes must benefit from it.
- The west came to believe that “markets know best” and that implementation of government economic policy was an ideological heresy.
- The populace in the west was never properly informed that retraining would be necessary to participate in a global economy.
There are further readings on comparisons between the east and the west in the weekly columns by Frank Li at GEI Opinion (link below).
Sources:
- Western Capitalism has much to learn from Asia (Kishore Mahbubani, Financial Times, 7 February 2012)
- GEI Opinion articles by Frank Li
