- 02742 - 8 - Asian Capitalism and the Regulation of Competition : Towards a Regulatory Geography of Global Competition Law

This is a rather unorthodox treatment of global competition law and Asian competition law. We do not explore for the micro-economic ideal type of global competition law, nor do we survey the convergences with and deviations from this ideal type to be found throughout the countries of Asia. For this we would recommend, for a start, David Gerber’s Global Competition Law and R. Ian McEwin’s Competition Law in Southeast Asia. (Of course, there is no ‘global competition law’ in the positive law sense of the term. Here, following David Gerber, global competition law refers to and is identified by that projected point of convergence to which many argue that domestic competition law is or should be evolving. See Chapter 1, pp. 21–4.) Rather, this is an exploration, not of the possible unities of global competition law, but of its possible diversities. It is founded on a proposition that global competition law is best seen as encompassed not in a single ideal type, but in a multiplicity of ideal types – in the wide diversity of roles and functionalities that markets and market competition actually have in human society. Peter Hall and David Soskice have shown us that there are many capitalisms, not just one. This being the case, the same would hold true for capitalism’s way of structuring and regulating market competition. The future of global competition law does not lie in a particular ‘sovereignty’ but in pluralism.