Prof Ungku Aziz’s and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's admiration (in a recent dialogue session) for the East's better work ethics than the West, seems to forget that the hard-working culture of the Japanese, the Koreans and the present-day Chinese, is all due to their history of famine and devastation and Mao's ideological suppression.
Korea and Japan suffered immensely as a result of the war and Korea further by the cruelty imposed by Japan while Japan herself was reduced to ashes (like Germany) by the Allied’s bombing. During these episodes both practically sank into the abyss and would do anything to get back on their feet.
Thus, with Western money and technology, Japan and Korea copied and worked like slaves for their companies and were told that going home early or taking leave was a disgrace. This was made easier by the fact that both societies still retained an ancient master-serf socio-economic culture, which was done away with in China when the communists took over.
Thus with a bit of regimentation and patriotic exhortations, the Japanese and Korean workers worked like mad and with lower wages and costs, they easily killed off the West's auto and ship- building industries, etc.
The Americans too worked like slaves after the Great Depression of the 1920s, so also did Germany and the British after the War and being a much more egalitarian societies, they recovered pretty quickly.
They might have surrendered their supremacy in certain industries but new ones like computers, arms manufacturing and popular culture products were discovered and reinvented and strengthened which still brought them great wealth.
As for the Japanese and Korean workers, great comfort have now also made them 'lazy' and they refuse to work for the same companies forever and are demanding more time off to go on foreign holidays. This has resulted in Japanese and Korean companies moving to China to cut costs and with the new 'undemanding' Chinese workers.
This has also happened to Singapore whose youngsters now dream of becoming ‘white men’ and many high achievers have left the stifling living conditions imposed by Lee Kuan Yew and his successors.
As for China, under Mao everyone had clothes to wear and food on the table but communism was very much against the Chinese culture which had an ingrained business streak (as shown by their neighbours Hongkong and Taiwan).
Mahathir often called the Malays 'lazy' but if he had studied the rural Malays who answered the government’s call during Razak's time to migrate to Kuala Lumpur, he would have found that they, too, worked like slaves to pay bills and lived in squatter areas because they had no one to fall back on unlike life in the kampung .
Except for those who became rich invariably through improper means. The Chinese and the Indians in Malaya had to work even harder to make enough money to return home someday, although things have changed since then.
Despite its breakneck progress, China is already paying a heavy prices in environmental degradation, a pervasive Western lifestyle and the invasion of popular culture.
Unlike Japan and Korea which could survive any economic downturn and depression, China is still lacking in this area. Question is, how is China and its neighbours going to cope in the event of a great economic downturn or Great Depression as a result, of say, a barrel of oil surging pass US$200?
