Japan And South Korea Achieved Modern Economic Growth

How Japan and South Korea Achieved Modern Economic Growth Japan started taking steps towards economic growth around 1868 with the Meiji Restoration; but they did not really begin to make leaps and bounds toward a market economy until after their independence in 1951 where they developed quickly through industrialization. Japan was â€Å"the first non-western country to join the ranks of the advanced nations, but it also has outperformed most of them† (Sato 1989). Carl Mosk has a great model for this rapid economic growth that will be discussed in depth in this paper. South Korea also achieved amazing economic growth which is now aptly named the Miracle on the Han River. This is the story of how they came back from the destruction caused by the†¦show more content†¦Both rural and urban areas benefited from this before industrialization hit. In a 1907 Daily Mail British Newspaper article titled â€Å"Small Holding in Japan†, General Booth states â€Å"Tens of thousands of families obtain sufficient support from a fift h of the quantity of land that we are reckoning on†¦on a small farm belonging to one of my soldiers--a peasant farmer outside Kobe--consisting of an acre and a quarter of land, he obtained a generous livelihood for himself...† Tokugawa is another small town in Japan that exemplifies the agricultural activity that launched the proto-industrial production and led to a starting point for modern economic growth. The urbanization, developed road networks and river channeling into irrigation ditches in Tokugawa supported paddy rice, tea, cotton and fruit growth (Smith 1988). Major cities like Osaka and Edo, now known as Tokyo, used the agriculture from Tokugawa for craft production. The crafts were then dispersed to other rural areas. This opened all kinds of new doors for rural Japan. Education in craft specialization led the country into the next stage of economic growth (Minami 1994). Investment led growth, meaning, not export led, is what really pushed Japan’s progress. Both big and small businesses around Japan used their new found specializations to invested in the government and the country. â€Å"Rising domestic savings made increasing capital accumulation possible† (Mosk 2004). At this point, with their