World markets, national models / Why the Asian Crisis

Testo disponibile solo in lingua inglese.
This article analyses the financial crisis that exploded in the Far East in June 1997 and highlights its fallouts on the real economy and domestic policy of the countries hit, as well as on international relations in the region. The phenomenon is viewed as a particular manifestation of the broader crisis of "global" capitalism as a result of the blending of two different models of capitalism – the American and the Japanese – and the lack of international bodies capable of governing the turbulence provoked in recent years by huge flows of speculative capital. After pointing out the principal causes of the ongoing crisis, the author concludes by offering his recipe to solve it: it is, he argues, necessary to introduce a series of economic and institutional reforms in the countries involved and to avoid, at all costs, embarking on the path of the regionalisation of the global economy, which would lead to a perilous confrontation between Asia and the West.