Mr. Mahathir has concluded that large amounts of short-term capital from abroad are too disruptive of a system based on high savings rates and high levels of corporate debt. Condemned in the West, Malaysia's turn inward has summoned an eloquent silence from the rest of East Asia. If Malaysians succeed in rekindling growth, as they have a good chance of doing, it will be one more signal that Anglo-American capitalism will have to take its place as one alternative among others. We will eventually count division of the world into discrete economic blocs among globalism's lasting consequences. Many in the West have viewed Asia and other regions not as complex societies but as markets ruled by market logic alone.
Asian leaders are perfectly positioned to deliver a correction here.
They may fall short as principled democrats, but their economic success is intimately tied to the social cohesion that globalism challenges. It is well understood across the Pacific that globalization caused the Asian crisis and cannot logically be its cure. Some in the West have been confident for years that globalism is inevitable. Not'' is the clear response. Mr. Auerback is a partner in Veneroso Associates, a global strategic consulting firm.