Capitalism can roughly be divided into American Capitalism and European Capitalism, Within European Capitalism there exists French Capitalism, German Capitalism and British Gentleman Capitalism. Besides the above, note another, different type of Industrial Capitalism, the so-called "Japanese Capitalism". Such Capitalism is also called "Japan Incorporated". After all, it has been recently acknowledged that each capitalism possesses its own background of history, custom and culture so that they each form a different system.
Not only that but an Asian value which is different from the European one has been recognized. When we look at Asia, we often find Asia is not a single geographical block but consists of individual countries. Based on this idea, the consequence of the last 50 years is the surfacing of these cultures. Contrary to the emphasis on politics and economics, culture has also played an important role.
From the cultural point of view for the span of last 150 or 200 years, I think the cultural power balance between Europe (or the West) and Asia tilted to the European side 150 or 200 years ago. This time frame was a critical period of cultural distinction. In other words, it was the time when Europe clearly imposed a concept of the minimization of Asia. Looking at the longer span of 500 years, Maritime Asia, (I'm not sure whether we can really call it "Asia" though), appeared in human history, and Europeans as well as Japanese were utterly fascinated by Maritime Asia. It was the beginning of the presence of Maritime Asia that was sought after by Europe, America and Japan, those now contributing to Asia's globalization. This concept was revealed in the book entitled ,"The Age of Commerce South to Asia" by Anthony Reid, and it was true. It is commonly said, in Southeast Asia or Asia, modernization (or Westernization) was embarked upon in 19th century when the European expansion had reached Asia, However, the prototype of such modernization or Westernizalion existed in Maritime Asia 500 years ago so that we should go back to that era for the starting point.
When did globalization start? It started about 500 years ago.
It is significant to observe this time frame in many senses; for example, the colonization of American continents started 500 years ago. Christopher Columbus had arrived there setting off the colonization of America. However, the place he really wanted to go to was India. The actual land he reached is located west of the original destination, India, so it was called West India or the West Indies. India (where they were initially heading) was referred to as the East Indies, modern Maritime Asia, or India and the Southeast Asian region. Actually the place acted as the crossroads of Asia, Europe and Japan and as birthplace of globalization, leading the entire world to globalization. The place attracted all kinds of people; Persian. Indian, Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati and others, so it may not be appropriate to categorize them all as Indian. Anyway, all those people headed there including the Chinese and Japanese. Therefore, the place can be designated as the origin of globalization.
The reason why the dominant current of modernization originated there is because the culture in Japan or Europe was not as sophisticated as that in Maritime Asia. Culture Rows from upper cultures downward; as a result, culture flowed unilaterally from Maritime Asia to both ends of Europe and Japan. The trend influenced Japan and Europe to develop entirely new lifestyles. In a word, the trend brought new culture.
In the 14th century, one third of the European population had been lost to the black plague. Initially, people rushed eastward to look for spices (especially black pepper) as medicine to cure the plague. The Chinese came to this region.
So did the Persians and Indians. Indians traded in commodities, such as silk marvelous dyes, Indigo, and sugar.
The Chinese traded tea, raw silk, silk fabrics and beautiful ceramic wares. Those were things they had never seen before that were very fascinating to buy. Dakkah Muslin made by the Bengali in India was famous world-wide for being as beautiful as balm cricket wings, which Europeans, particularly the British, hankered after most, Actually, the European Industrial Revolution originated from the desire to make muslin. One of the inventions of the Industrial Revolution was the mule spinning machine, invented by S. Crompton, also know as the Muslin Wheel. Europeans brought weapons and silver in return, causing them to suffer from a bad, one-sided deficit,
As I mentioned before, as culture Rows downward, those who are in the lower position must bear an enormous burden in terms of financial and military disadvantages in order to obtain that which is precious either by depriving or purchasing. What was the solution to fill the cultural gap? They wanted to manage without buying. How? The answer was to be self-sufficient. That's how the Japanese and West Europeans brought into production for the first time in the human history the concept of exchanging one thing for another. They used to buy in silver, that was common sense for Southeast Asia or Maritime Asia as a whole scope of
