Confucian Culture And Competition Law In East Asia

"The modern concept of competition law as a proper activity of the State (or group of States, in the case of regional integration areas), and the philosophical orientations that underlie that concept, are largely 'western' inventions. Shortly after the enactment of the first modern antitrust law in the world in Canada in 1889, the United States promulgated the Sherman Act in 1890, and throughout the 20th Century this iconic Act had an enduring and growing international influence. In many dimensions, the dominant paradigms of the competition laws of the United States and the European Union have been assumed to be models fit for emulation in the competition laws of nations around the globe. While the United States and European Union models have important differences, they both embrace (notwithstanding vibrant academic debates) the conceptual foundations of classical and neoclassical economic principles. The extent to which these models resonate and are received as 'transplants' in other parts of the world, and in the present case East Asia, is an ongoing matter of inquiry and debate"--

This work explores the tension in East Asia between the trend towards a convergence of legal practices in the direction of a universal model and a reassertion of local cultural practices. The trend towards convergence arises in part from 'globalisation', from 'rule of law programs' promulgated by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank, and from widespread migration in the region, whilst the opposing trend arises in part from moves to resist such 'globalisation'. This book explores a wide range of issues related to this key problem, covering China in particular, where resolving differences in conceptions about the rule of law is a key issue as China begins to integrate itself into the World Trade Organisation regime.

A workshop sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1989 brought together more than two dozen scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore Confucian ethics as a common intellectual discourse in East Asia. The participants included specialists on the societies of China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore as well as scholars who specialize in comparative studies. In nine intensive sessions, they probed the ways in which the Confucian ethic has shaped perceptions of selfhood, dynamics of familial relations, gender construction, social organization, political authority, popular beliefs, and economic culture in East Asia. This book is a distillation of the essence of their multidisciplinary and cross-cultural examination of these issues. It seeks especially to illuminate claims that Confucian ethics have provided the necessary background and a powerful motivation in the rise of industrial East Asia, the most dynamic region of sustained economic growth and political development since World War II.

Shows how cultural factors have influenced the development of competition law in China, Japan and Korea.

The massive and complex process of change in East Asia over recent decades has brought about a transformation in the nature of law and legal institutions in the region. Whilst the process of change has to some degree mimicked western models of law and legal change, there have been significant differences in approach due to the different social foundations of East Asian societies. The more obvious of these has been the variety of ways in which rule of law ideas have been adopted in many East Asian countries where the role of the state is more dominant when compared with Western models. This volume brings together a selection of the most important writings on East Asia of researchers in recent years, and shows the broad range of questions which researchers have been addressing about the effect of law reform and legal change in societies dominated by traditional values and political forces, and at a time of massive economic change.

Confucianism and Reflexive Modernity criticizes the paradigm of Asian Value Debate and defends a balance between individual empowerment and flourishing community for human rights in the context of global risk society from an enlightened post-Confucianism perspective.

Spruyt takes an inter-disciplinary approach to explain how collective belief systems organized three non-European societies c.1500-1900, and how these polities engaged the European colonial powers.