ea the successful adaptation of Japanese methods. That is, the state guaranteed cheap credits to the industrial conglomerates if they would pursue state-determined lines of growth and development. The same could be said of Taiwan. These factors combined with Authoritarian styles of government by Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan and Park Chung-hee in Korea suggests that rather than attributing the success to the benefits of Confucianism, it was a typical state-directed or command capitalism which initially introduced from the outside by US pressures and aid.19At the same time Confucianism was invoke by both Chiang Kai-shek and Park Chung-hee as a 'fig leaf for legitimacy' as the legitimacy of their rule was a problematic factor in the process of social, political and economic development. Once again we see the use of traditional Confucian values called upon by leaders at their convenience in order to assert some legitimacy.Thus there seem to be two schools of thought with respect to the idea that Confucianism either aid or impedes economic development of Northeast Asian economies. The first is the position taken by American based scholars such as Rodercick MaFarquhar and Tu Wei-ming which suggest that Confucianism has been helpful in Advancing these countries economically and as such there is an "Asian model" which is an alternative to the West. MaFarquhar points out that "if Western individualism was appropriate for the pioneering period of industrialization, perhaps post-Confucian collectivism is better suited for the age of mass industrialization.14 Tu Wei-ming points to the way Confucianism can be used to overcome "the deficiencies of capitalism in the West" such as social division. However Dirlik points out that such explanations primarily come from the West and mostly from the United States such that the most recent re-invention may in fact be and 'American Confucianism'.15The other school of though disregards Confucianism as an explanati...
