A collection of perceptive essays from a top Asian scholar who
sheds considerable light on how Japan managed to become a
world-class economic power following its defeat in WW II. Among
other arresting judgments, Johnson (Pacific International
Relations/Univ. of California, San Diego; MITI and the Japanese
Miracle, 1981) contends that samurai capitalism is quite unlike its
Darwinian equivalents in Europe and North America on several
important counts. To begin with, he states, the island nation
engages in an effective form of producer economics that views
markets as means, not ends. In addition, respected government
ministries provide domestic industry with administrative guidance
that permits corporate enterprises to pursue essentially mercantile
goals without paying much attention to the interests of either
employees or stockholders. The author dates the ascendancy of this
prestigious, professional bureaucracy (which created what he calls
a developmental state) to the destruction of Japan's military
during the US occupation. Mounting trade deficits and the end of
the Cold War have induced Washington to reappraise America's
relations with Dai Nihon and the Far Eastern countries that have
followed its economic lead. For the most part, Johnson concludes,
neither US policy makers nor the mass media have a realistic
understanding of how Japan's commercial practices (which have
precious little concern for the welfare of home-front consumers)
differ from those in the West. Expanding on this theme, he examines
language barriers, Tokyo's bonds with nations comprising what it
once referred to as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and
the reform-resistant system that passes for democratic politics in
Japan. Addressed as well is the outlook for a renewal of the ties
that once bound the US to an ally that no longer appears to value
its gaijin security blanket. Authoritative perspectives on a
consequential country that remains indominatably foreign for most
of the West. (Kirkus Reviews)
Chalmers Johnson long has been America s most penetrating,
provocative analyst of Japan s political economy. . . . The
scholarship is superb, and the analysis persuasive and
enlightening. . . . An accessible, handy compilation of insights
that undergird revisionism the view that Japan s politico-economic
system differs far more from the Western model than most Westerners
realize]. . . . Juicy insights, such as Johnson s explanation of
structural corruption as it s revealed by the career of the late
Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, provide more than enough meat to chew
on and relish. Robert Neff, Business Week"
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