Confucius and East Asian modernity ethic

The assumption of the 1960s when the modernization theory in vogue at Harvard that the worldwide process of rationalization, defined in terms of industrialization, urbanization, Westernization and modernization, would wipe out cultural, institutional, structural, and ideational differences is no longer tenable.

Globalization is inevitably a process of homogenization. The conspicuous presence of English in any form of international discourse, the spread of fast food, United States-style entertainment, and youth culture are obvious examples. Yet the thesis of convergence, meaning that the rest of the world will eventually converge with the modern West, in particular the US, is at best an American dream.

In the 1980s, development economists and comparative sociologists advocated the thesis of reverse convergence occasioned by the so-called miracles of Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons (South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan and Hong Kong). "Asian values", "network capitalism", and "the Asia-Pacific Century" were advanced as alternatives to Western modernism.