Conclusion: The Evolving Diversity and Interdependence of Capitalisms and Conditions for Regional Integration

Abstract

The process of globalization has nurtured a large variety of socioeconomic regimes at odds with the hypothesis that USA’s capitalism would define the canonical form of modernity. Different types of capitalism are interdependent on each other through the trade of final and intermediate goods and services in the processes of regional integration in both Europe and East Asia. These processes entered into a structural crisis in Europe during the 2010s, but they continue to operate in East Asia. Polity and supranational institutions building has limited the economic dynamism of Europe, whereas the primacy of business over regional political objectives explains the resilience of East Asia. This book proposes two synthetic criteria concerning the dividing line between the success and failure of a regional integration project. Firstly, everything is up to the compatibility of various and more or less heterogeneous national growth regimes within the rules of the game that result from intergovernmental bargaining. Secondly the exchange rate regime matters for the viability of contrasting growth regimes and fix exchange rate regimes are to be associated with alternative policy instruments such as income policy, redistributive tax system or/and industrial policy. If the project of disciplining globalization through regional integration fails, the specter of a nationalist will haunt the world.