Surveying the devastation in Germany or Japan in 1945, few could have predicted how rapidly reconstruction would ensue, or that it would be followed rapidly by breathtaking and sustained economic growth. The post-war economic and technological performance of the two nations has generated marvels and, not surprisingly, also a desire in many other countries to imitate them. To some degree, they are, however, inimitable. After all, prior to 1945, each of the two nations had already developed distinctive capabilities, organisations, behaviours, political traditions, and social norms. The revolutionary changes to the German and Japanese versions of capitalism that followed defeat therefore emerged from highly unusual circumstances. Recognising this, however, does not mean that lessons cannot be learned from looking at their post-war history. There are two broad sets of lessons. First, a number of institutional and organisational innovations developed in the two countries after 1945 can serve as inspiration for similar innovations in other countries. Second, analysis of their responses to issues such as globalisation, energy policy, and national security can yield useful insights for others. Overall, the track record of German and Japanese capitalisms in adapting to the global political economy since 1945 favours guarded optimism about the future.

To explain the economic miracles in Germany and Japan after the Second World War, we need to pay close attention to the networks of miracle makers, who drew upon skill and knowledge that existed before and during the war. Under Allied tutelage, and in cooperation with workers and other groups that had previously been excluded from decision-making, members of these networks fundamentally refashioned German and Japanese cooperative capitalism into something more suited both to the emerging post-war capitalist economic order and to peaceful existence within it. Most of the fundamental reforms to German and Japanese capitalism were in place by about 1950, as were the networks that would prove essential to producing the economic miracle. However, we need to bear in mind that the renewed and reformed systems of cooperative capitalism did not function well immediately; in fact, the West German and Japanese economies languished as the 1940s drew to a close. What proved essential were two things explored in the next chapters: first, fundamental recasting of manufacturing in firms of all sizes in both countries; and, second, vastly increased domestic consumption followed crucially by worldwide demand for all sorts of products as the capitalist world entered the Golden Age.