"What really benefited East-Asia was a grey-collar culture, a national, egalitarian educational system and corporatism rather than a white-collar, classist and academic culture more common in say, England."I can't agree more, as I saw what you say for a fact when working in Asia (mainly in Japan and to a lesser extent elsewhere—as I'd spent less time in those other areas). The work I was doing at the time meant that I mingled daily with ordinary workers and I could see firsthand the way the work culture worked.
I recall several instances that struck home to the extent that I've never forgotten them—and I've recounted them to others on many occasions since to illustrate this cultural difference, for they manifest in different (and very sensible) patterns of work (the approach to certain types of work are altogether different to those one typically sees in Western cultures). Once such instance involved a very well known Japanese car manufacturer (where for a time I found myself working in a Japanese car manufacturing plant along with the workers (it's too involved to explain how this came about, you'll just have to take my word that it's fact).
Needless to say, car manufacturing plants are complex beasts especially when they involve JIT (Just in Time), automated assembly, robots etc. as well as skilled manual labor—all simultaneously occurring together. Here, the instance that stands out is how the cleaner/floor-sweeper was employed. Unlike in the West where his job would have been clearly defined to only one type of task—here, that being to keep everything at floor level clean—his 'equivalent' position in Japan was in fact much more complex (also his work was much more varied and thus more interesting for him). Instead of just having to keep the floor clean he had full responsibility for everything that happened in his section of the factory from right at floor level to 30cm above it. This meant that his work and responsibilities involved the following:
(a) Keeping the floor clean and ensuring that things/miscellaneous objects were not left in the wrong place that would hinder production.
(b) He had full responsibility to ensure that any damage to the floor's work surface was fixed immediately/ASAP and that included ensuring any damage to the painted surface was immediately repainted.
(c) He was fully responsible to ensure that any damage to the robot tracks (copper strips embedded at the floor's surface that robots followed to move and deliver stuff) were fixed immediately (as the copper was exposed, the tracks could be easily damaged (an open-circuit could bring things to a halt, hence if damage occurred there then it was of considerable urgency to have them fixed). Moreover, any failure meant that the monkey was on his back to have things up and running ASAP—but what's truly significant was that he had full autonomy to act immediately without first having to seek approval from his supervisors—as he had both the authority and resources at his disposal to do so (if his supervisonrs hadn't already been made aware of the problem, which is most unlikely given the plant's excellent submarine-like Christmas tree fault system that alerts everyone across the plant, then they'd have been informed afterwards).
(d) He was responsible for ensuring that all ancillary plant and equipment between floor level and 30cm above it was working and fully maintained (that included facilities such as power outlets (which included both 110 and 220V outlets at every point), note: all power utility outlets were within this 30cm range. (Excluded from his responsibility was plant specifically related to the manufacturing process, industrial machines, presses etc. although he'd be part of the team involved in helping to fix them).
(e) He was responsible for ensuring any damage to the walls within this 30cm range was fixed (this also meant responsibly for keeping them clean and when necessary having them repainted.
Clearly, this worker had considerable responsibilities and that he'd been properly trained for the work, in fact he wasn't just a cleaner but rather a skilled worker who had to have at least trade-level skills in several trades and the guys who did this work took it very seriously indeed (they considered what they did to be absolutely essential to the production process).
I don't have time to discuss the production line fault system except to say that when a production fault occurred all workers responded in ways that would make a drill sergeant very happy (frankly, it was amazing to witness).
This and other instances were an eye-opener to me, the way things happened there I reckon just couldn't be implemented in the West, and similarly to you I'd put this down to both the egalitarian educational systems common throughout Asia as well as to workers having a different type of attitude to work—one that's instinctively much more collaborative (they've a very clear sense of the common goals).
______
BTW/Afterthought: I reckon you're right about Germany, it's always had a strong apprenticeship culture from ancient times and it's always paid attention to skill and craftsmanship and not just learning a trade for its own sake (that became evident to me years ago when I was working there). If any part of European cultural work practice can be reasonably equated to that existing in Asia then the German approach to training and apprenticeships has to be the closest (although I reckon it's still quite different to what's seen in Asia).
Longstanding journeyman exams, (Gesellenprüfung), and even the more modern duales Ausbildungssystem, vocational training system in Germany along with the traditional time traveling around between an apprentice's training and full-time employment to gain experience shows that traditional apprenticeship culture in Germany was not lost to the same extent as it seems to have been in Anglophone countries, Britain, US, etc.
What mainly seems to have happened in Anglophone countries was that a major shift in thinking (a cultural shift) occurred after WWI and we saw a diminution in the influence of traditional guilds/guild halls followed quickly by an abolition of the need for an apprentice to continue studying to become a master craftsman. Failure of a perceived need to continue the master craftsman tradition meant a concomitant loss of respect for that once-revered position, and so on.
Why this occurred almost immediately after WWI is hard to say except that I reckon it had much to do with the fact that there are more woodworkers buried in battlefields of Flanders than for any other profession (the next tally being other tradesmen). Thus, after the War the tradition died out for two reasons: (a) there were too few skilled artisans left to take up the guilds tradition as traditionally structured before the War, and (b) that in the wake of this huge loss of personnel from the workforce the way the trades operated was streamlined (and this also included the way apprentices were trained).
Why this 'withering' didn't happen in Germany to the same extent given that there are just about as many Germans buried in Flanders as those from other nations, Britain, France etc. is a moot point and it needs answering. The only things I can think of are that German cultural values were different and that they were in fact stronger (Germany didn't start to industrialize until much later than did Britain—industrialization wasn't fully underway in Germany until Bismarck), and perhaps this delay contributed to the fact that values hadn't had time to weaken to the extent that they did in Britain and elsewhere. Moreover, it's likely that intrinsic German values also played a strong role, that being that ingrained cultural practices were harder to shift than elsewhere.
If anyone has thoughts or a better/more accurate answer then I'd be glad to hear it.