of the global market and then use it as a mediator to make the society truly comfortable for us to live in or the society where we wish to live.
｡?AOKI
Professor, Advanced Technologies Research Center, University of Tokyo
One thing - Dr. Shiraishi summarized it very well. When we think of Asia, we have to think of the nations, the markets, the societies, the cultures and one more thing, an individual.
I am not talking about individualism in the context of European individualism and Asian groupism. In our daily life we have to feel how powerless an individual is in all aspects. This is so in Japan and the same in other Asian nations.
A while ago Dr. Nandy said that despite religious difference, we are in the state of - so to speak - a double-edged sword and have a mutual understanding. However, I am afraid unless we clarify the individual-to-individual problem, we won't be able to reach that state.
I found a lot of important point in these talks but the point is how an individual will create, participate in, or move the market, the nation, the culture or the society. So I would like to hear you talk more about what is an individual in Asia.
｡?IOKIBE
Speakers from India, Korea and Australia spoke in relations to their own nations respectively. I felt uniqueness of each nation. After all, as Dr. Aoki said, there are the nations, the markets, the societies and the cultures but the ultimate problem is an individual, who works on them, creates them and responds to them.
｡?Yuko TANAKA
Professor, Faculty of General Education, Hosei University
My comment is related to what Dr. Aoki said just now, an individual. When I listened to Dr. Lee, I felt he was saying very important things like the relations with the nation, the citizens, society and the market, in particular the citizens, society. And I want to know what those relations actually are For example, when we think of an individual, one individual is a member of the nation, also a member of the society and a member of the market. If there occurs a contradiction, it will become an individual's contradiction and such a contradiction in turn will be reflected in an individual's relations with them. So when we try to analyze the relations, such analysis may help us understand the relations better but it may disrupt our understanding and I think we should be careful about that. What do you think?
Another thing is, Dr. Reid said globalization may destroy culture but on the other hand globalization protects regional culture or allows it to survive if we regard globalization as modernization. I agree that we should not leave opposing concepts as they me. Instead, we should reconsider them or break down the framework of the opposing concepts. By doing so we will be able to look at them from a different point of view. I was very much spurred by his speech. My question is, as I said before, what will happen in an individual's mind.
｡?IOKIBE
I think Dr. Tanaka's question to Dr. Lee and her comments to Dr. Reid are based on her own study of the Edo Period, which was unexpectedly intentional. She showed us a new, attractive picture of the Edo Period.
｡?Phisit PAKKASEM
Chairman, Thai Investment and Securities Public Co., Ltd. (TlSCO)Group
I think there are several books coming out to start a reappraisal of prevailing economic philosophies. Would it be capitalism, socialism or communism? But one thing we can see now is the collapse of socialism. Therefore capitalism emerged as an absolute rule again. What does "capitalism" mean? I remember in early 1950s the Catholic priest in Georgetown University wrote a very interesting book -- the so-called para-capitalist society. He predicted that communism would collapse. There will be something in between at the end of century. And now recently Lester Thurow, a former dean of MIT business school, has written a new book called "The Future of Capitalism", very interesting. At the moment people seem to make an association between globalization and market mechanism.
But underneath that you will find, as Lester Thurow says, there is a tremendous element of monopoly in it. What is happening now is clearly that type of capitalist society. This exists under the new brand name of globalism and so on, under the flagship of the U.S.A, IMF and WTO. So we have to examine what kind of marketplace you would like to live in the next century.
In Asia we are facing an economic crisis now. But we have to look beyond that. People in Asia are very much for a pro-growth capitalist society. But more than half of the Asian population still lives in poverty. So there is a dark side to
