Flexible Circulation in the Pacific Rim: Capitalisms in Cultural Context

Disagreements about the nature of global capitalist restructuring often arise from different conceptions of the degree to which economic practice is socially embedded. Scholars who follow an economistic view believe that sociocultural relations are either irrelevant or epiphenomenal to the location of production and circulation of capital in an advanced capitalist economy. In contrast, those who believe in the embeddedness of economic practice argue for the importance of preexisting social and spatial structures which influence all business behavior. In this work I follow the latter approach by examining a modern capitalist system that is deeply embedded in sociocultural relations, yet extremely successful in the contemporary international economy. I show further that the use of extended family ties, business trust, flexible credit, and the gift exchange of information in elite Hong Kong Chinese business society is not only relevant to contemporary economic decision making, but indeed has been particularly effective throughout the period of extensive financial deregulation and privatization of the past decade. These theoretical concerns are addressed in a case study of the investment and development of the former Expo lands in Vancouver, British Columbia, by the family of the Hong Kong property magnate Li Ka-shing.