SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Japan was peculiar in its institutional make-up, in its dependence on commitment over kinship, of group over individual, or of proper station over rational choice, but these characteristics were not immutable, immiscible, or essential to the Japanese achievements of industrial modernization and military might. The British were in advance of other Western nations in considering Japan as object lesson. A truly 'foreign' or 'oriental'Japan was of no use to anyone outside it. Accountancy offers little security to those attempting an interpretation of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Holland had failed because commercial achievement had appeared in the absence of sustained, internal technological development. The fate of Holland was sealed by events without. In contrast, China failed even to arise commercially because the institutional structure prohibited productive relations developing between elitist, potentially worthy culture and the arts of commerce and technique.