The Enigma of Japanese Power (52 page)
Read The Enigma of Japanese Power Online
Authors: Karel van Wolferen
Tags: #Japan - Economic Policy - 1945-1989, #Japan - Politics and Government - 1945, #Japan, #Political Culture - Japan, #Political Culture, #Business & Economics, #International, #General, #Political Science, #International Relations, #Public Policy, #Economic Policy, #Social Science, #Anthropology, #Cultural, #Political culture—Japan, #Japan—Politics and government—1945–, #Japan—Economic policy—1945–
As the System makes another great advance in its campaign to eradicate Japanese leftism, it moves ever closer to fulfilment of the dream of a depoliticised state. In the West, too, this is an old dream. The vision of cooperation in one magnificent joint effort to improve human life, and the rewards for this in the form of loving care, has inspired many social engineers and Utopians before and after Marx.
Part of the dream is that a lost paradise can be regained. This notion received its best-known scholarly endorsement in 1887 with the publication of
Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft
by Ferdinand Toennies. He postulated a dichotomy in which the world of traditional villages, a
Gemeinschaft
, was one of supposedly intimate human bonds, governed by a sense of solidarity rather than by politics. That world had been replaced for most Westerners by the artificial, unfriendly
Gesellschaft
, where cold rules had replaced warm understanding. Even though nobody has found convincing evidence that a
Gemeinschaft
, free of power struggle, ever existed, this dichotomy has had a tenacious and inspiring hold over several generations of romantic dreamers and commune builders in the West. It parallels the
nihonjinron
contrast between the intimate, organic and warm, traditional Japanese community full of ‘human feeling’, and the calculating, mechanistic and untrusting world of the West in Japanese imagination.
The other part of the dream is the familiar notion of replacing frivolous and wheeling-dealing politics with rational, unselfish and scientific government, in which the nation enjoys the full and systematic benefit of advanced, modern, technocratic expertise. The removal of messy parliamentary procedures and other constitutional hindrances to the carrying out of a national goal has been contemplated by Western political thinkers often enough. It is summed up in Saint-Simon’s famous dictum about the administration of things replacing the government of persons. And it is contained in the Marxist view of the future.
A social life in which rational planning would substitute for self-seeking politics is enticing in that it promises solutions to problems that have plagued humanity throughout history. As Isaiah Berlin put it:
Where ends are agreed, the only questions left are those of means, and these are not political but technical, that is to say capable of being settled by experts or machines like arguments between doctors or engineers. That is why those who put their faith in some immense, world-transforming phenomenon, like the final triumph of reason or the proletarian revolution, must believe that all political and moral problems can thereby be turned into technological ones.
88
To turn Berlin’s argument around, under the ‘administration of things’ the only question is what the planning would be for. For the Japanese System the answer to this has been clear since the Meiji period: keeping order and becoming strong. And since 1945 the administrators have, without discussing ‘ends’, consolidated, adjusted and planned for the priority of unlimited industrial expansion as if this were a self-evident good, which is indeed how they see it.
The consolidation of the System has brought an apparent great stability. The question of whether the stability is more apparent than real becomes urgent only when developments that the administrators cannot cope with cause a crisis. And in 1988 it seemed that no domestic tensions could in the foreseeable future reach crisis proportions. The unacknowledged problem of legitimacy has been dealt with in an effective way, certainly more effective than before 1945. It is unlikely to become acute so long as the components of the System can prevent an authoritarian take-over by one among them. The strong tendency towards conflict is suppressed; conflict, as we have seen, is not recognised as politically acceptable.
Yet a completely depoliticised social system does not and cannot exist.
Gemeinschafts
in Toennies’s sense are an illusion, and the irony of the Japanese System, as we have seen, is that it is entirely politicised. The political motivations and functions of the businesses and business federations that form the System’s solid core are conspicuous. The contemporary conglomerates do not simply exercise political influence as they do in the West, but they have become integral and totally indispensable organs of the body politic. This fact, together with the unquestioning priority given by the administrators to unlimited industrial expansion, is an essential factor in the context of Japan’s international relations, one that, unlike domestic tensions, could very well lead to crisis.
There are two main threats to the hallowed Japanese order: from Japanese and from foreigners. Both, over the past century and a half, have at times loomed large enough to frighten the ruling élite. The political events leading up to and following the Meiji Restoration can be seen as a sequence of domestic and foreign threats to established power relations, together with the reactions they provoked. For roughly six decades after that, a newly emerged bureaucracy guarded Japan against domestic disorder of thought or behaviour, using for its purpose the gradually evolving surrogate religion of ‘national essence’, as well as the military-bureaucratic institutions for social control described in Chapter 14. Since around 1955 the threat of domestic political disorder has been even more effectively dealt with through the awesome control capacities of the postwar System. But beyond the reach of these domestic measures there remained the second threat, the one from outside, a threat that by its very nature constitutes a perennial source of disquiet. The outside world simply does not lend itself to traditional Japanese techniques of social control.
Since a threat to their own sense of security is automatically seen as a threat to the security of the nation, Japan’s power-holders and their articulate spokesmen have long portrayed Japan as a country particularly vulnerable to uncontrollable outside forces. From the Meiji period until at least the 1970s this ever-present anxiety, sometimes merely latent, sometimes acute, supplied much of the energy for the effort to catch up.
In the half-century following the end of Japan’s seclusion, the capacity of foreign powers to upset Japanese socio-political arrangements had to be countered by increasing the country’s industrial and military strength. Russia and the Western states had to be made to see Japan as an equal strategic entity. The most famous slogan of the Meiji period was ‘fukoku kyohei’, ‘rich country, strong military’, and the response to the real or imaginary external threat was an effort to make Japan invincible. Industrialisation at a furious tempo was taken for granted, for in the perception of the power-holders it meant nothing less than political survival, both Japan’s and their own. Catching up with the strongest in the world became an obsession – not just a government priority but the highest aim of all patriotic Japanese. To a degree virtually inconceivable to Westerners, many Japanese – with no religion beyond mere socio-political demands – found the ultimate meaning of life, their existential lodestar, in the survival and welfare of the nation.
Catching up also meant control beyond the waters surrounding Japan. In the Meiji period as well as during the Taisho democracy no Japanese with a political voice would have had it otherwise. The political parties went along with the military and the bureaucrats in their plan to make Japan a dominating power. ’The issue was not domination but
how
that domination was to be achieved and by
whom
– diplomacy and economic penetration managed by the Foreign Ministry, political parties and business leaders or military conquest managed by the military establishment.
1
Success with the ‘strong military’ part of the programme was, of course, more readily demonstrable. And judging by the response of the Meiji press, expansionist goals were highly popular. The newspapers supported the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, as well as the insubordination of the Kwantung Army that led to the war in Manchuria and ultimately to the Pacific War. The notorious Hibiya Riot of 1905 and the ensuing confrontations between police and public in many parts of Tokyo (prompting a declaration of martial law) were protests against the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth. In the following decades, Japanese imperialist expansion was as much in favour with the articulate public as the idea of universal suffrage.
Even so, for one segment of the élite the ‘rich country’ part of the national mission provided an even greater inspiration. A number of Meiji period writers and officials, swept along by the vogue for Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism spoke of a ‘peacetime war’ among nations, stressing the ultimate necessity of economic development and seeing the military as a tool in the forceful creation of foreign markets and sources of supply.
2
The primary task of the Naimusho (established in 1873) in its first ten years, before Yamagata Aritomo turned it into the main headquarters of the social-control bureaucrats, was the promotion of domestic industry. Its first minister, Okubo Toshimichi, one of the most powerful among the earliest oligarchs, despaired when he discovered on an investigative mission to Europe that the West was too far ahead for Japan ever to catch up.
3
He objected strongly to the plans for a Korean invasion – plans that led to the first major split in the oligarchy – on the grounds that Japan could not afford any such adventures and should think only of strengthening itself economically. Using 70 per cent of the newly established Naimusho’s budget, Okubo helped establish a large cluster of government factories; merged a government marine transport firm with Mitsubishi’s shipping company to eliminate United States and British dominance in the area of transport; sent export study missions to the West; built a trading system that bypassed foreign agents; gave financial support to the silk, farming and other industries; and sponsored national exhibitions to propagate the advantages of fast industrialisation.
4
Japan has had an industrial policy ever since the early Meiji period. Taking over enterprises started by the domains, the oligarchy added to them national railway and communications networks and armaments, mining and shipbuilding industries. As Meiji industrialisation took off, government control over the economy became automatic, since the government either put up the capital itself or encouraged private investors to do so by according them protection. Wasteful parallel investment was thus minimised. In practically all major industries, the Meiji government took the initiative. In the early 1880s it switched from direct control over many factories to indirect protection, by virtually giving away what it had built. In 1881 it established a Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce to help regulate this policy and draft the laws that formalised earlier transactions between the oligarchs and their entrepreneurial friends and money-lenders. An economic oligarchy came into being, consisting of politically privileged financial houses that were beholden to the ruling oligarchy and its bureaucratic élite. The
jinmyaku
networks – built on kinship, marriage, bribes or friendships dating from school – that played such a striking role in the course of Japan’s modern economic development were already functioning.
Privatisation as a solution to industrial problems has been a major characteristic of Japanese economic policy. Whenever it has seemed safe to do so, the bureaucrats have divested themselves of the bothersome task of direct management. The custom continues, as the handling of the national railways and telecommunications in the mid-1980s indicates. The officials lose little practical jurisdiction, while the economy gains in efficiency thanks to new incentives, the spreading of risk and a controlled form of competition that promotes ‘natural selection’. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Meiji bureaucrats easily retained nearly full control over the strategically important mining, heavy manufacturing and transport sectors.
The second large catching-up campaign began in the 1950s, after post-war reconstruction had been completed, and continues today. Evincing the same single-minded dedication, it has enabled Japan to outstrip every country except the United States in economic prowess. Again, it was prompted not only, nor even primarily, by what the West understands by economic motivations. The primary goal of Japan’s economic pursuits has not been to expand the choices and comforts of its citizens. On the contrary, economic growth has often taken place at their expense, being directly associated with the notion of national security. And since the ‘strong military’ part of the national mission has had to be scrapped, the economic effort has this time had to bear the entire burden.
Whereas in the Meiji period hasty industrial development was considered vital for national security, today nothing less than industrial dominance will do. That Japan’s officials take this for granted is evident if one reads between the lines of their articles and listens closely to their statements. The world must understand, they seem to imply, that they cannot allow
any
of their industries to fail in the face of foreign competition.
5
Most foreign observers in this century have attested to the unquestioning dedication with which Japanese devote themselves to their tasks. Two decades after the end of the war, with national reconstruction well behind them, salarymen of the same company, seen in a group together, still exude a sense of missionary zeal. In the 1960s especially, Japanese firms gave the impression of being involved in a permanent contest. Competition was, in fact, controlled, but they were incessantly seeking to raise themselves in the business hierarchy, and top rankings within the various sectors were widely publicised. Even housewives and schoolchildren, who might be expected to care little about such matters, had a pretty good idea of which firm loomed largest in which field. Such publicity, and the unanimous impression given by the media (before the pollution scandals) that all this was wonderful, helped generate a phenomenal propelling force. But to be among the top firms at home was only a beginning; the race with the mighty international corporations was already well under way. In conversations with engineers and executives of the large electronic manufacturers in the mid-1970s one sensed that basically they all lived for one thing only: to catch up with and outstrip IBM. Visiting the offices of Fuji Photo Film Company the day after the announcement of the ‘dollar shock’ (resulting from Nixon’s decision in 1971 to stop the convertibility of the dollar into gold, thus forcing a revaluation of the yen), I found a group of distressed, ashen-faced salarymen who explained that their international sales plans, and hence their prospects of catching up with and overtaking Kodak, had received a set-back from which the company might never recover.
The catching-up disposition has been such an important aspect of Japan’s emergence as a major economic power that it is worth examining its ramifications in an area of Japanese life not directly connected with the political economy. ‘Progress’ in Japan has frequently and for long periods been more immediately measurable than it has been for Westerners. At the outset of its recorded history, in the sixth century, when it was a primitive tribal society without a writing system, Japan had the momentous experience of coming into contact with T’ang China, the most sophisticated civilisation on earth at the time. The adoption of cultural forms with a thoroughness rarely if ever paralleled in history established an attitude towards self-improvement that has been handed down to this day.
Characteristic of this attitude is the notion that there is a ‘perfect’ way of doing things. In learning a skill – especially in connection with Japanese music, the traditional theatre arts, or judo, aikido, kendo and karate – the emphasis is on automatic, endless, non-reflective repetition of what the teacher does. Mastery is reached by removal of the obstacles between the self and the perfect model, embodied by the teacher.
The idea that the student might have an inborn potential that is uniquely his or her own has had hardly any influence, even in the non-traditional arts. Foreign conductors and music teachers almost uniformly remark on the great technical skill of Japanese performers, together with their relative lack of capacity for personal expression. This reflects in part a lack of courage in a conformist society, but also the fact that musicians who have never studied abroad have rarely been taught that it is they who must interpret the music. The ‘perfect’ way of doing anything is comparable to the rigid expectations in communal behaviour; the performer must, as it were, live up to the model. According to Japanese learning methods, the skill or art has an authoritative and predetermined existence demanding subservience. There is no room for idiosyncratic variation to suit the practitioner’s individual aptitude or taste.
The advantage of this approach is that it can produce great technical mastery in the performing as well as the plastic arts, and a serene beauty resulting from total self-confidence. But it has drawbacks too. Progress in a skill is measured by such narrowly defined standards that achievements not covered by these standards may well pass unnoticed. The self-consciousness that the traditional Japanese learning method generates in the earlier stages also tends to act as a brake. Since the style, the precise manner of presentation, is considered crucially important, uncountable repetitions are needed to eliminate this obstructive awareness of the self. Japanese students of traditional skills – and of modern sports – are not quickly allowed to leave their physical movements to take care of themselves so that they can attend to what lies beyond.
I believe there is political significance in this approach to learning. Exposure to the Chinese model came so early in Japanese political development, and T’ang China represented such vastly greater sophistication, that it provided no opportunity to compare governments, adding up, rather, to a lengthy traumatic experience. The power-holders who imported the outward forms of Chinese government almost in their entirety appear to have been motivated by an awareness of a new reality that they in some way had to live up to. I speculate that this is the origin in Japan both of the notion, especially in the arts and learning methods, that there are ‘perfect’ ways of doing things, and of the pervading sense of always falling short of these ‘perfect’ ways.
In the nineteenth century Japan suddenly came face to face with the strength and the technological marvels of the USA and European countries. This time the prevailing slogans preached that it was the material achievements of the foreigners that must be emulated, while keeping the Japanese ‘spirit’ intact. And emulate the Japanese did, on a scale few or no other people have done before or since.
By 1905 Japan had built up an industrial base sufficient to allow it to defeat Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5). The success of the Meiji oligarchy in stimulating economic development was followed by a further great boost for Japanese industry deriving from the First World War. This good fortune came to an end in 1920, and a chain of ‘panics’ caused successive ‘recessions’ and business dislocation. In fact, the Japanese economy continued to grow fast by international standards,
6
but this did not alter the general impression of uncertainty and disorder. Just when adjustments were having a salutary effect, the great Kanto earthquake of 1923 hit Tokyo and its environs. This was followed by deflation in 1925 and the financial crisis of 1927. Many companies, overextended because of the earlier boom, had to be rescued by government loans. The central bank had lent too much after the earthquake, and the resulting financial panic caused the collapse of thirty-seven banks and the rise to near hegemony of the five
zaibatsu
banks. All this happened against a background of increased tenant-farmer risings and much other social unrest.
Disorder had, in the view of the custodians of Japan’s security, reached unacceptable proportions and called for dramatic administrative action. When this came, it marked the beginning of the end for an economic system that despite its strong bureaucratic element still resembled in many ways the
laissez-faire
economies of the West. During the ‘Taisho Democracy’ period entrepreneurism flourished, and new businesses, regardless of whether or not they were connected with the bureaucracy, were able to expand into large firms. Profit-making was accepted as the proper function of business. There was a labour market, and an open capital market, as well as free trade of a kind Japan has not known since, and a free inflow of foreign capital. Following the banking crisis, however, Tanaka Giichi formed a cabinet, in April 1927, that was to introduce a new and more controlled approach to economic management. Tanaka Giichi, as seen in Chapter 14, was Yamagata Aritomo’s foremost protégé and similarly obsessed with the need for greater social control – he had numerous leftists arrested, and dissolved all ‘suspect’ organisations. A month after the formation of the Tanaka cabinet, the minister of commerce and industry set up a commerce and industry deliberation council within his ministry, with the purpose of examining what was ailing the Japanese economy and what the government ought to do about it. Chalmers Johnson, the originator of the term ‘capitalist developmental state’ (CDS), has pinpointed that development as the beginning of the industrial policy that led to post-war high growth. The economic bureaucrats started to think in terms of ‘industrial rationalisation’ and have never stopped doing so.
7
The ‘Showa depression’ of 1930–5, brought on by the 1929 Depression in the West, followed the many ‘panics’ of the previous decade and helped bring to positions of power the ‘reform bureaucrats’ with their theories of socio-economic control based on Nazi and Italian corporatist ideas. Simultaneously, one of Japan’s best-known ministers of finance, Takahashi Korekiyo, pursued an inflationary policy that was the first Japanese example of economic management of this kind. It worked, aided by stepped-up arms production. The heavy and chemical industries subsequently towed Japan out of the depression. Takahashi had always pleaded for economic rather than military expansion, insisting that ‘military expenditures exceeding the ability of the country to pay would not enhance true defense’.
8
For this attitude he was murdered by the super-‘patriots’ in the 26 February rebellion of 1936. This pivotal event in Japan’s political history also marked the demise of moderating forces on Japan’s fiscal policy in the face of military demands for optimum spending on the ‘national defence state’.
