Inter-Asia's Company Towns

Abstract

The employer provided everything—wages, housing, post office, parks, canteens. Such a model of the “company town,” where a single corporation dominates in multiple capacities as employer, landlord, service provider, and quasi-regulator over a dwelling area, has endured across borders and time. The term can portray textile mills in 18th-century England or coal and steel towns in early-20th-century America just as fittingly as it does today’s network of “supply chain cities” that span East and Southeast Asia and beyond.

This chapter studies Inter-Asia’s supply chain cities—in particular, manufacturing sites in East and Southeast Asia. More than physical spaces, these sites represent a form of legal entrepôt, created by law and capable of shaping laws and norms through diverse pathways, including regulatory fragmentation and coordinated advocacy. In comparison to another gilded-age moment of industrial development—early-20th-century United States—these modern company towns exemplify the uniqueness of Inter-Asia’s corporate forms, exercise of power, and regional integration.