Some retort that EA model represses both labour & capital because they read so much about Park jailing businessmen or the CCP disappearing them. Counterpoint: Japan Inc is where 'capital' & bureaucracy were collusive-symbiotic & doesn't make sense to say 'capital was disciplined'

@NewLeftEViews But besides, in postwar Japan, you cannot say a political entity was supreme over capital as you can do in the PRC. Japan Inc is very much a symbiotic relationship between big business and bureaucracy.

People who think the relationship between MITI and the big keiretsu companies was like the relationship between the CCP and private businesses, are just dumb. Sorry but you are.

@NewLeftEViews In prewar Japan, the zaibatsu families were not dominant! The military had been! In postwar Japan, big businesses entered a coalition with the bureaucracy. Where is the CCP-equivalent to exercise 'capital discipline' ??

@arpitrage People who use 'capital discipline' mean one of two things: (1) idiots think capitalists don't really respond to profit incentives if the tasks are too hard; and (2) more sophisticated believe capital is disciplined when they cannot influence the state to extract rents

@arpitrage (1) is just dumb but many morons believe it. (2) is also wrong because surely in EA there is MORE rent-seeking not less.

@arpitrage the best way to think about MITI is that it was a cooperative equilibrium within Big Business to supply public goods to them.

How on earth does anyone come away from reading Johnson's MITI book with its long descriptions of the incestuous relationship amongst MOF, MITI, big banks, & big business & supposing the postwar Japanese state was 'supreme over capital' in the same way the CCP is. ORIENTALISM!!

How on earth does anyone come away from reading Johnson's MITI book with its long descriptions of the incestuous relationship amongst MOF, MITI, big banks, & big business & suppose the postwar Japanese state was 'supreme over capital' in any way remsembling the CCP? ORIENTALISM!

@mausamiitb PRC companies are forced to compete in a Darwinian struggle reducing profits to nothing, something they clearly would rather not do. Japan & other EA did no such a thing. competition was limited to avoid 'ruinous competition', as capitalists had substantial voice in policy