A scholar's original and illuminating interpretation of what makes
Japan a power to be reckoned with in the global village's
marketplace. Moving confidently back and forth through history,
Samuels (Political Science/MIT) offers a wealth of perspectives on
the geopolitical and socioeconomic implications of the phrase that
is the title of his absorbing text. As a rallying cry, the phrase
dates back to the 19th-century Meiji Restoration when reformers
resolved to overcome the stagnation caused by the Tokugawa
shogunate's isolationism. While freed from the shackles of a feudal
past, the author shows, Japan remained insecure about its post-1868
future in a world presumed to be hostile. Militarist regimes
engineered a catch-up mobilization of resources that led to Japan's
calamitous defeat in WW II. After that, Samuels observes, the
nation's leaders simply shifted course. Protected under the
security blanket afforded by America's Cold War with the Soviet
Union, Samuels reports, Japan devised a three-part policy that made
technology an indigenous part of the national culture and dispersed
it throughout the domestic economy while nurturing the local
enterprises that could employ it to advantage (it also became an
indispensable element of national security). At the same time, he
points out, the country's multinationals geared themselves to
accommodate defense as well as commercial work, thereby gaining
considerable protection against cyclical swings in procurement.
Although aggressive efforts to counteract the lingering effects of
late development strike some critics as retrograde mercantilism,
the author argues persuasively that Japan's continuing drive for
unassailable autonomy (in aircraft, communications, and other
strategic industries) is firmly rooted in ancient ideologies and
institutions designed to serve the public interest. A genuinely
fresh framework in which to evaluate the challenges a Pacific Rim
colossus poses for the West. Photos and helpful tabular material
throughout. (Kirkus Reviews)
Since World War II, Japan has become not only a model producer of
high-tech consumer goods, but also-despite minimal spending on
defense-a leader in innovative technology with both military and
civilian uses. In the United States, nearly one in every three
scientists and engineers was engaged in defense-related research
and development at the end of the Cold War, but the relative
strength of the American economy has declined in recent years. What
is the relationship between what has happened in the two countries?
And where did Japan's technological excellence come from? In an
economic history that will arouse controversy on both sides of the
Pacific, Richard J. Samuels finds a key to Japan's success in an
ideology of technological development that advances national
interests. From 1868 until 1945, the Japanese economy was fired by
the development of technology to enhance national security; the
rallying cry "Rich Nation, Strong Army" accompanied the expanded
military spending and aggressive foreign policy that led to the
disasters of the War in the Pacific. Postwar economic planners
reversed the assumptions that had driven Japan's industrialization,
Samuels shows, promoting instead the development of commercial
technology and infrastructure. By valuing process improvements as
much as product innovation, the modern Japanese system has built up
the national capacity to innovate while ensuring that technological
advances have been diffused broadly through industries such as
aerospace that have both civilian and military applications.
Struggling with the uncertainties of a post-Cold War economy, the
United States has important lessons to learn from the way Japan has
subordinated defense production yet emerged as one of the most
technologically sophisticated nations in the world. The Japanese,
like the Venetians and the Dutch before them, show us that butter
is just as likely as guns to make a nation strong, but that nations
cannot hope to be strong without an ideology of technological
development that nourishes the entire national economy.
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