Japan's crisis of the mind
By MASARU TAMAMOTO(This
article, which fist appeared the New York Times of March 2, 2009,
is reproduced here in Eyes on Japan by kind permission of the
author.)
Yokohama, Japan
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. We became a nation with lifetime employment, a corporate
system based on stable cross-holdings of shares, and a large middle-class
population in which people are equal and alike.
Conservative pundits here like to speak of
this equality and sameness as being cornerstones of “Japanese”
tradition. Nonsense. Throughout much of its history, Japan has had social
stratification and great inequality of wealth and privilege. 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.
Since the middle of the 19th century, our
economic success has relied on the availability of outside models from
which to choose. Our model for social security took inspiration from
Bismarck’s Germany, state planning from the Soviet Union, public works
from the Tennessee Valley Authority, automobile assembly and manufacturing
from Ford. Much of Japanese innovation has involved perfecting what others
have created. Sony is famous for its Walkman, but it didn’t invent the
tape recorder. Japan’s rise to economic greatness was basically a game
of catch-up with the advanced West.
So what happened once we caught up? Over the
past two decades, the answer has largely been paralysis. Japan’s ability
to imitate outside models was mistaken for progress. But if progress is
defined by pursuing a vision of a desirable future, then the Japanese
never progressed. What we had was a concept of order and placement, which
is essentially stasic.
In the West, on the other hand, the idea of
progress rests on establishing individual autonomy and liberty. In Japan,
bureaucratic rule offered security and predictability — in exchange for
personal freedom. The problem is that our current political leaders
can’t keep their side of the bargain. Employment security can no longer
be guaranteed. The national pension and health plans seem to be insolvent
in the long run. People feel both insecure and unfree.
Signs of despair are everywhere. Japan has
one of the highest suicide rates among rich countries. There may be as
many as one million “hikikomori,” from teenagers to those in their
40s, who shut themselves in their rooms for years on end. Then there are
all those “parasite singles” — or unmarried adults living with their
parents. But by far our most serious problem is a declining and aging
population. Given present trends, total population will likely decline
from around 130 million to under 90 million in 50 years or so. By that
same time, 40 percent of Japanese could be over 65.
If we want to survive as a nation, we must
shed our deeply rooted resistance to immigration. 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 with high productivity, people
who will put down roots and raise families, whose pride and success will
be the affirmation of new Japanese values.
Japan desperately needs change, and this will
require risk. Risk-taking is not common among the bureaucratically
controlled. You won’t find many signs on Japanese beaches saying,
“Swim at your own risk. No lifeguard on duty.” If that sign were to
appear, many Japanese would likely ask the authorities to tell them if it
is safe to swim. This same risk aversion translates into protectionism and
insularity. The ministry of agriculture, for example, wants to increase
self-sufficiency in food. There is not nearly enough critical thinking and
dissent in the Japanese news media.
Still, the idea that the Japanese are afraid
of risk has no basis in history, for better or for worse. Remember Pearl
Harbor? In fact, Japan’s passiveness today is in large measure a
calculated and reasonable reaction to its behavior during the Second World
War. But today, this emphasis on safety and security is long past its
sell-by date.
We have run out of outside models to imitate.
We must start from scratch, embracing an idea of progress that is based on
innovation, ambition and dynamism. Doing so will take risk — and
extraordinary leadership. But the alternative is to continue stumbling
down a path of decline.
© Masaru Tamamoto 2009 All rights reserved
This page last updated 2009-12-31
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