Endangered Species: Why Muslim Economies Fail

In 1963, average per capita income in the Arab world was higher than the per capita income of South Korea. Today, it is half that of Korea, which is now the 11th-largest economy in the world. What's worse, during the past 20 years, growth in per capita income for Arabs has been the lowest in the world except for sub-Saharan Africa.

In another corner of the world, growth, optimism, and hope have forcefully driven out poverty, pessimism, and despair. The East Asian economic miracle of the last two decades is no longer a mystery: China, Japan, and the tiger economies of Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong have set powerful new standards for the developing world to meet.

The vibrant economies of East Asia have consistently demonstrated the power of dynamic transformation by showing how effective modernization strategies can be created and implemented while at the same time protecting their own traditions, starting with authoritarian rule and a role for the state.

By contrast, the Middle East is locked in a death-dance with the West. Endangered Species documents critical lessons that the Arab world can learn from Beijing and Tokyo, not from the Washington consensus.