Intellectual
alienation spawns hazy policy
By JEAN-PIERRE
LEHMANN
(This article, which first appeared in the Japan
Times of January 20, 2003,
is reproduced here in Eyes on Japan by kind permission of the
author.)
WASHINGTON — The main purpose of my visit to Washington at the
beginning of 2003 was to carry out discussions on U.S. perspectives,
policies and strategies for the Doha Development Round, in particular, and
global economic policy in general. Meetings were held with U.S. government
departments, foreign embassies, international organizations (including the
World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the International Finance
Corporation), academic institutions, think tanks, research institutes and
the editorial offices of foreign-policy publications.
In all of these discussions
Japan was conspicuous only by its absence. A few of my interlocutors
included people well acquainted with Japan, who nevertheless all asked the
same question: "Why is Japan so paralyzed?" And, as they all
emphasize, it is not just paralysis at the policy level, but also, with
very few exceptions, at the intellectual level.
Early January saw the
publication of the A.T. Kearney/Foreign Policy Magazine Globalization
Index. The index is based on four main criteria: political engagement,
technology, economic integration and personal contact (international
travel, international telephone traffic, etc.). Out of 61 countries, with
Ireland in first place and Iran in last place, Japan is ranked 35th,
between Botswana and Uganda.
Of course, one can quibble with
the methodology, as one can with all such indexes. The point, however, is
that there is an overall pattern in all such exercises where Japan
invariably scores very low on globalization. Japan is an outlier.
In identifying the causes of
Japan's increasing self-imposed alienation from the international
community, the intellectual dimension is critical. It is the intellectual
climate that is the most alarming aspect of Japan's current crisis and
future dismal prospects.
In many of the columns in this
series [ed. 36-part series "Japan in the Global Era" for the
Japan Times] I have drawn attention to the parochialism and
mediocrity, with a few exceptions, of Japan's
universities. This condition equally applies to its think tanks and
research institutes.
One "good" example,
among many, of the reactionary intellectual scapegoatism that defines a
considerable amount of Japanese thought and writing these days can be
found in an article that appeared in the magazine Seiron in March
2002 by Yutaka Ohama.
Ohama stridently argues that
globalization is the "imperial standard" of the United States
aimed at destroying the Japanese system. Of course, one finds kooks of
this nature all over the world. The sentiments expressed by Ohama are ones
that would find considerable sympathy in, for example, France, either
among extreme rightist politicians such as Jean-Marie Le Pen or fanatical
antiglobalists such as Jose Bove.
In the case of Ohama, however,
the problem — indeed the cause for alarm — is that he is a senior
research fellow at the Tokyo-based Institute for International Policy
Studies, or IIPS; has worked for trading firm Mitsui & Co.; and has
degrees from Tokyo University and a masters in business administration
from Stanford University. In other words, he is someone whom one would
expect to be a force for globalism rather than a spewer of chauvinistic
claptrap.
Not only Ohama himself, but
indeed IIPS as an institution illustrates what is dangerously wrong with
Japan in the global era. Albeit supposedly focused on international policy
issues, the entire research staff of IIPS is composed of Japanese
nationals.
The late founding director of
IIPS, Seizaburo Sato (whom I knew quite well), used to appear fairly
regularly in international forums, but the current members hardly ever
seem to venture intellectually outside Japan.
At the IIPS
Web site, Ohama is said to be undertaking research on "global
trade issues." Well if he is, he is keeping the fruit of his research
very much to himself. No one outside Japan seems to have heard of him, and
I have certainly never come across him in any international trade policy
discussion forums. Nor is it at all clear what the IIPS position is in
respect to trade policy.
Ohama is representative of the
sclerotic Japanese system in many ways. The fact that an institution such
as IIPS should be so intellectually sloppy no doubt in part arises from
its origins.
The chairman of IIPS is former
Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. Nakasone is, of course, a stalwart of
the Liberal Democratic Party, which many people hold accountable for the
mess Japan is in at present. This is a view I also subscribe to — for
many reasons.
If Nakasone is a "liberal
democrat," then I am a Benedictine nun! In other words, the
"liberal" and the "democrat" in the LDP are entirely
empty and meaningless labels.
One is accustomed to this kind
of dishonesty in totalitarian societies: For example, the erstwhile German
"Democratic" Republic had nothing democratic about it, ditto
with spades in respect to the "Democratic" People's Republic of
Korea, better known as North Korea. But in pluralistic open societies,
words are supposed to have meanings.
Every member of Parliament
among the British Liberal Democrats would be able to define what the
party's core values and beliefs are. The Japanese LDP has no core values
or beliefs — and I challenge anyone to tell me the contrary. It is
instructive to compare the two parties' Web sites: www.jimin.jp
for the LDP and www.libdems.org.uk
for the Liberal Democrats. The latter includes a good deal on beliefs and
principles, the former nothing. As the LDP has ruled Japan for close to
six decades and the words "liberal" and "democrat" do
not mean anything, why should anything in the policy realm mean anything?
Political dishonesty, cynicism
and skullduggery are not, it goes without saying, limited to Japan, but
they are not as blatant elsewhere as in Japan. The quote from the
Economist I have frequently used applies: "Nothing in Europe or
America — nor in most other democratic countries — approaches the rot
in Japan."
The LDP along with the other
pillars of the postwar Japanese establishment — the bureaucracy, the
universities, the media and big business — crafted an intellectual and
moral climate based on linguistic vacuousness and dissimulation. The fact
that for close to six decades no substantial intellectual challenge was
posed to the LDP to articulate and adhere to core principles of
"liberalism" and "democracy," especially from those
who would consider themselves to be liberal democrats, explains the
political paralysis the country finds itself in now.
Thus Ohama, a prominent member
of IIPS — supposedly an institution adhering to the principles of
liberalism — can publicly take a quite reactionary line without any
sense of discomfort and also without much risk of being challenged in what
has become an intellectually "challenged" society. Thus
reactionary utterances such as those of Ohama are now everyday Japanese
intellectual fare.
Where are the genuine Japanese
voices of globalism and liberalism? They do exist, but they tend to be
found in peripheral corners of Japanese society and often abroad.
An article
by a Japanese that directly and forcefully challenges the reactionary woolly
kind of establishment thinking appeared in November last year, where, among
other things, the author wrote: "the long-term global risk from the
continuing death spiral of the Japanese economy could be more serious than
any threat posed by Iraq." The author is Hiromi Murakami, a Japanese
woman based in Washington.
©Jean-Pierre Lehmann 2003
for the Japan Times. All rights reserved
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Editor's note:
Jean-Pierre Lehmann is professor of international political economy at the
IMD (International Institute for Management Development) and a founding
director of the Evian
Group, Lausanne, Switzerland. He has authored and
co-authored several books on Japan. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Prof. Lehmann for kindly allowing
me to republish the above article here in Eyes on Japan. |
This page last updated 2008-06-16
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