I did not use "capitalism" and "export of capital" to explain the rise of East Asia. What I did was to respond to Carl's position that neither capitalism nor imperialism was "good". I would however use an institutional explanation to explain the rise, namely the state. I would also agree that there are non-market and and non-state institutions. These include business associations, family ties, the Chinese diaspora in general that conduct economic transactions not on the basis of price or contractual agreements but internalize them on the basis of non-economic (trust-based) reasons. I would be extremely wary of using the long wave theory to explain East Asia. That would be teleological and remove the actors from the East Asian growth paradigm. As for whether 1.5 billion can be accomodated, I assume Mark Selden has not included the Indian population that are also expected to part of this bourgeois development. Anthony D'Costa
