[REVIEW] The Japan That Never Was
Jun. 15th, 2004 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldA CD I'd ordered--Sinéad O'Connor's Troy (The Phoenix From The Flame) Remixes--came in today. I think I'm really fond of Sinéad.
Regardless of the music I'm listening to, I feel that I should present to my readership the last academic-type book that I'll be reading through my connections with higher education for quite some time. The Japan That Never Was: Explaining the Rise and Decline of a Misunderstood Country, by Dick Beason and Dennis Patterson (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2004), examines the questions of just how Japan managed its remarkable economic boom until 1991 yet has suffered a severe slump since the pricking of the Nikkei stock-prices bubble, and of whether or not its unusual economic trajectory stems from innate differences in Japanese political culture. Beason and Patterson's conclusion? That Japan is a normal country, with a bureaucracy that, in responding to the electoral concerns of the Liberal Democratic Party, distorted and slowed economic growth somewhat through the adoption of an industrial policy. When Japan's post-war economic model encountered serious problems in the early 1990s, owing to the overexposure of Japanese banks in excessive investments in overpriced property, the Japanese political system was unable to respond, since the Liberal Democratic Party, declining in strength, depended heavily upon the beneficiaries of the country's industrial policy and couldn't afford to alienate them with reforms. Thus, the past decade's economic stasis.
It's a simple enough thesis, but it's quite well-sourced and plausible. (The writing style is a bit iffy, with too many commas where they shouldn't be, but we'll let that pass. Everyone needs an editor, right?) Most importantly, The Japan That Never Was doesn't fetishize Japan's various differences. Rather, it makes a compelling case that despite Japan's real and significant cultural distinctiveness, it's still a technologically advanced First World country with a well-educated and prosperous citizenry and a growing post-industrial economy, and as such it's constrained to evolve along certain paths. In its own quiet way, The Japan That Never Was is, in its own quiet way, one of the most complete demolitions of the concept of Asian values and radical Asian difference from the West that I've read.
Regardless of the music I'm listening to, I feel that I should present to my readership the last academic-type book that I'll be reading through my connections with higher education for quite some time. The Japan That Never Was: Explaining the Rise and Decline of a Misunderstood Country, by Dick Beason and Dennis Patterson (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2004), examines the questions of just how Japan managed its remarkable economic boom until 1991 yet has suffered a severe slump since the pricking of the Nikkei stock-prices bubble, and of whether or not its unusual economic trajectory stems from innate differences in Japanese political culture. Beason and Patterson's conclusion? That Japan is a normal country, with a bureaucracy that, in responding to the electoral concerns of the Liberal Democratic Party, distorted and slowed economic growth somewhat through the adoption of an industrial policy. When Japan's post-war economic model encountered serious problems in the early 1990s, owing to the overexposure of Japanese banks in excessive investments in overpriced property, the Japanese political system was unable to respond, since the Liberal Democratic Party, declining in strength, depended heavily upon the beneficiaries of the country's industrial policy and couldn't afford to alienate them with reforms. Thus, the past decade's economic stasis.
It's a simple enough thesis, but it's quite well-sourced and plausible. (The writing style is a bit iffy, with too many commas where they shouldn't be, but we'll let that pass. Everyone needs an editor, right?) Most importantly, The Japan That Never Was doesn't fetishize Japan's various differences. Rather, it makes a compelling case that despite Japan's real and significant cultural distinctiveness, it's still a technologically advanced First World country with a well-educated and prosperous citizenry and a growing post-industrial economy, and as such it's constrained to evolve along certain paths. In its own quiet way, The Japan That Never Was is, in its own quiet way, one of the most complete demolitions of the concept of Asian values and radical Asian difference from the West that I've read.
