This important book provides a cogent critique of the nature of Southeast Asian capitalism. It argues powerfully that the crises in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines as well as South Korea are due not to excessive market regulation, but to too much financial liberalization and a consequent undermining of effective monetary and fiscal governance. While recognising some macro-economic problems and abuses of state intervention in the region, the authors also highlight the nature and implications of current IMF and domestic policy responses which are exacerbating the crises. They show how the herd behaviour of panicking stock markets and injudicious official responses transformed an inevitable correction of overvalued currencies into wholesale collapse.

Part I introduces the crisis; highlights the inadequacies and failure of international financial governance; shows how different these crises are from the earlier Mexican collapse; and investigates the policies which the IMF is now insisting on. In Part II, the situation in each country is presented in terms of the historical background, the course of the crisis so far, and the reactions of the various governments.

The analysis contained in this book raises profound questions which resonate way beyond the Asian region itself. They relate to the appropriate role of the state, the policies of the IMF and the viability of the deregulated free market capitalist model which these and other Third World countries have been encouraged, not to say bullied, into pursuing.