Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

136 WENDY A.SMITH
non-Malays also consult Malay shamans for help with the same range of human
needs and foibles: illness, love relationships, conflict, revenge, law suits, economic
gain and personal success (see Skeat 1967:568; Gimlette and Thomson 1983:32).
13 Magical practices remain dominant in the world-view of the people themselves as
responses to and explanations for the effects of rapid economic development. Thus
we see how the re-creation of tradition is often used to powerful effect by ruling groups
and others aspiring to wealth and power in rapidly industrialising societies
(Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Kessler 1992).
14 Despite the fact that workers in Iroha (M) were organised under a national industrial
union, not an enterprise union, this feature is important as it is a key element in the
ethos of flexibility in staff deployment in Japanese management systems, and this
flexibility did exist in the Malaysian venture at the managerial level.
15 Japanese managers always filled the posts of general manager/managing director,
administrative manager, factory manager and technical manager. There were usually
two other Japanese managers present as well, although from the mid-1970s their
roles went from ‘line’ to ‘staff’ positions: engineering development manager
(shadowing the local engineering manager) and production control manager
(shadowing the local production manager).
16 The prestige of a pensionable job in the civil service, apart from the economic
security of a permanent job and a pension after retirement, can be attributed to the
fact that the British gave such positions to members of the royal families as a way of
controlling their loyalty to the colonial regime.
17 Mercedes, Volvo, BMW.
18 This is a key element in Japanese corporate cultures–the company president may
perform lowly tasks such as picking up rubbish or mopping floors in order to set
company standards and encourage workers to do the same. In Malaysia, when some
Japanese managers and local managers tried this, they merely lost the respect of
workers by performing tasks below their status.
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