The most striking sign of how much Asian cultural patterns have influenced Asian capitalism is the economic equality in Asian nations in the past two decades of explosive growth. But in high-performing Asian economies, the results have been different. In other words, everyone got richer. At the dawn of the Asian century, East Asia has brought more people from poverty to middle-class status in a shorter period of time than any other region in history. The difference between what average workers and bosses earn seems to be vastly smaller in Asia. . . .
Japanese companies maintain much greater parity between the pay at the top and at the bottom.
Business Week magazine reports average U.S. chief executives at the end of 1990s make about 157 times as much as the average U.S. factory worker. To pay that much to one 'member' of a company undermines the sense of family, group harmony essential to any corporate entity in that group-oriented society. . . . In Korea, the figure is just as high. If the state as a whole is safe and civil, all the citizens will be safer and more secure. In essence, this is a modern version of Confucius' teaching that life's central loyalties run both ways.