Posted on 03/03/2009 11:49:49 AM PST by mojito
Recent events mark Japan’s return to the world’s stage, or at least so it seems. Tokyo was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s inaugural overseas destination. Last week, Prime Minister Taro Aso was the first foreign leader to visit the Obama White House. All this suggests that Washington sees Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, as a powerful nation. If only we saw ourselves the same way.
The truth is, Japan is a mess. Mr. Aso’s approval rate recently hit 11 percent, and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party is in open disarray. His predecessor barely lasted a year. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan just offers more of the same. This is largely because we have become a nation of bureaucrats. What passes for national policy is the sum of various ministerial interests, often conflicting or redundant, with jealously guarded turfs and budgets.
There can be no justification for all those mostly unused airports. Or for roads that lead nowhere. Or for the finance minister who appeared to be drunk at the Group of 7 meeting this month in Rome. Our problem is so deep that it sometimes seems that no political party can tame the bureaucracy and put in place a coherent national agenda.
But what most people don’t recognize is that our crisis is not political, but psychological. After our aggression — and subsequent defeat — in World War II, safety and predictability became society’s goals. Bureaucrats rose to control the details of everyday life....
....The “egalitarian” Japan was a creature of the 1970s, with its progressive taxation, redistribution of wealth, subsidies and the dampening of competition through regulation. This all seemed to work just fine until our asset-price bubble popped in the 1990s. Today, the hemmed-in Japanese seem satisfied with the knowledge that everyone around them is equally unhappy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
How many different times does central planning have to fail before the central planners get the message?
It’s still the New Yoprk Times. Japan’s crippling economic problems began in the 80s with their socialist “Japan Inc” crap. I worked at a company that was the target of those planned Japanese companies.
My comments at the time were, what do you think they can accomplish?
Answer is, nearly destroy Japan’s economy for now two decades running. Central planning doesn’t work, we kicked their butts in every way.
Japan still hasn’t admitted what went wrong, they suffered a 12.9% GDP drop Q4-2008
There’s nothing wrong with either economy that couldn’t be solved by hosting a necktie party for the bureaucratic overlords.
". . . the very men who are most anxious to plan society would be the most dangerous if they were allowed to do so . . . From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a small step." F.A. Hayek
The author is correct that there are big problems, but I have a very hard time with some parts. That Japan is bureacratic —this is NEW? Or that ordinary Japanese are hard-working, but have some collectivist (group) views on things —this, too, is a recent thing?
I couldn’t disagree more.
This article is very interesting, but the Japanese author was clearly writing for a western audience.
There are many problems, but the only one that is really, really new is the low-as-the-floor birthrate, which is a big deal, and I don’t know how they’re going to solve that one —few Japanese know, either. A solution popular among westerners is to simply say the men there should treat the women better (the guys get it in the rear, too...).
And then it’s a fact that some of the challenges facing Japan are beyond it’s control —stiffer competition from Asian tigers, China, etc...a poor USA...
This was a good post.
"Contrary to widespread prejudices in favor of keeping Japan “pure,” we desperately need to dilute our blood. Our aging nation will need millions of university-educated middle-class immigrants "
I'm not saying he's not right, but do you know how RARE this view is in Japan?
Perhaps they're not xenophobes, but my experience is...well, you just don't hear taxi drivers and cops in Japan speak like this, OK? It is rare even for intellectuals to say anything like this, even when drunk.
This is almost the first time I've ever heard this from a Japanese person, and I'd wager this author has worked outside Japan for many years.
This is exactly the kind of article that an NYT editor would love, which is why we're seeing it.
Next time I hear of uuyoku SOUND-TRUCKS driving around blaring about the desperate need for Japan to dilute their pure blood, then I'll sit up and take notice...
I also found the call for increased immigration most unusual.
Of course, the author does not say where the new immigrants are to come from: China? Korea? Indonesia?
And as the author knows well, university educated middle class immigrants to Japan, even were they allowed in, would have birth rates nearly as low as the Japanese themselves.
This author is the guy who wrote a controversial essay a couple of years ago. I can’t remember exactly what the content was and will have to look it up.
Well, there's their damn problem, right there. Socialist and Socialist Light political parties.
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