Achievement Orientation, Social Self-Identity, and Japanese Economic Growth

Bibliographic Data

ID8368805
AuthorsGeorge A Devos (corresponding author)
Year1965
Volume5
Issue12
Pages575-589
Publication date1965-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Survey (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-4687 • E-ISSN: 1533-838X
PublisherUniversity of California Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/2642650
OpenAlexW2101961314
LanguageEN
Citations received12

The propositions set forth in this paper are two-fold. First, given Japanese culture, especially its expressive values related to the prevalent patterns of psychological organization found among Japanese of the late Tokugawa period, it is not surprising that Japan developed quickly into the first industrial power of Asia. Second, the ethno-economics and political theory developed by the Japanese themselves as an ideology directing their modernization is best understood from the standpoint of Japanese culture and personality variables, and a simplistic application of either Western classical economics or Marxian theory is not helpful to an understanding of the relative success of Japanese industrialization. A Critique of 19th Century Economics from a Cross-Cultural Perspective One cannot develop a valid science of economics that holds for all societies without seeing man as a social-psychological animal as well as one governed by political or economic principles in the production and distribution of goods. Both Marxian economic theory and that of classical economics, creatures of 19th century social science, place too heavy emphasis on man as functioning rationally toward the achievement of instrumental goals. The Marxian dictum that religion is an opiate would seem to refer to a vast spectrum of seemingly irrational behavior on the part of unenlightened or duped masses who refused to be motivated to a proper extension of their own interests through revolutionary self-assertion. In similar fashion, in the vision of theorists of a free economy (related to the Protestant religious ethic of personal salvation and blended at the end of the 19th century with social Darwinism), economic success is equated not only with self-justification in religious terms, but is viewed as evidence of biological superiority in a competitive world where only the fit deserve to survive. With this later philosophy, it is entirely consistent to consider specific races and societies as relatively inferior, and sometimes requiring the guidance and supervision of those who have demonstrated their fitness to govern others. In the latter half of the 20th century, such self-satisfied appraisals of social and intellectual superiority, among theoreticians at least, have given way to new philosophies. The communist revolutionary ideology is being countered by attempts at some form of evolutionary capitalism which seeks to find social means whereby human economic standards everywhere are raised, lest unregulated explosive population growth in many societies eventuates in irremediable political upheaval. Yet, proponents of both

Aesthetics · Art · Economic system · Economics · Identity (music · Orientation (vector space · Political science · Social group · Social identity theory · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Psychology

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