Whatever the foreigners may do or think, it is far sadder to see so many Japanese leaving – or dreaming of leaving – when their country offers so much by way of natural and cultural treasures, as well as one of the world's most affluent economies. It's another case of «a wilted peony in a bamboo vase, unable to draw water up her stem.» The treasures are still in Japan, but people cannot enjoy them. Saikaku says, «Whether you happen to be a businessman or an artisan, never move from a place that you are accustomed to... There is nothing quite as painful to observe as people packing up their belongings while the pots on the stove are still warm.»
15. To Change or Not to Change
The question at the beginning of the twenty-first century is: Can Japan change? The picture is not without hope. Japan has made abrupt about-faces, to the point of completely reinventing itself twice during the past 150 years, and could possibly do so again. But what if Japan cannot change? In seeking an answer, let's take another look at the bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy is the core institution of government, for its mission is to intelligently allocate the resources of the state. If it provides that service efficiently, it does its job. Japan's bureaucracy, riven with corruption and guilty of massive misallocation of funds in almost every area, fails this simple but crucial test. An indurated bureaucracy is Japan's single most severe and intractable problem, responsible for bringing the nation to the brink of disaster in the 1990s. The Ministry of Finance, for all its mistakes, is just one of many government agencies, and the damage it has done cannot compare with the Construction Ministry's burying the nation under concrete, the Forestry Bureau's decimating the native forest cover, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry's needlessly damming the Nagara River, or the Ministry of Health and Welfare's knowingly allowing 1,400 people to become infected with AIDS. So angry is the public that the last decade has seen bookstores overflow with books attacking officialdom, from Asai Takashi's 1996 best-seller, Go to Hell, Bureaucrats!, to Sumita Shoji's 1998 The Wasteful Spending of Officialdom. The public is ready for change.
During the past few years, it has become fashionable to speak of Japan's «three revolutions.» The first occurred after 1854, when Commodore Perry arrived with his «black ships» and forced the opening of Japan. Within twenty years, Japan discarded a system of feudal rule that went back almost eight centuries, replacing it with a modern state ruled by the army, wealthy businessmen, and government officials.
After the nation's defeat in World War II, a second revolution took place, under the guidance of General Douglas MacArthur and the U.S. Occupation. MacArthur dismantled the army and broke the power of the prewar capitalists – and in their place the bureaucracy took over, creating the Japan we see today.
It's now time, many believe, for a third revolution, which will differ from the previous two in one important way: pressure from foreign powers sparked both of the earlier revolutions; they did not spring from among the Japanese themselves. This time around, however, there is no foreign pressure. Nobody outside Japan is concerned about the fate of its mountains and rivers; nobody will arrive in a warship and demand that Japan produce better movies, rescue bankrupt pension funds, educate its children to be creative, or house its families in livable homes. The revolution will have to come from within.
It could. Dissatisfaction is rife, as may be gleaned from the many angry and frustrated people who are quoted in this book. Some readers might wonder how I can say such harsh things about Japan. But it is not I who say these things. Fukuda Kiichiro calls Japan a Kindergarten State, and Fukuda Kazuya asks, «Why have the Japanese become such infants?» Kurosawa proclaimed that Japanese film companies are so hopeless they should be destroyed. Asai Takashi titled his book Go to Hell, Bureaucrats! Nakano Kiyotsugu complains, «I don't know why, but invisible rules have grown up everywhere,» and Professor Kawai carries this much further in his report to the prime minister, declaring that Japan's society is «ossified,» and that conformity has «leached Japan's vitality.» Dr. Miyamoto Masao describes Japanese education as «castration»; Inose Naoki compares Japan's environmental ills and bad-debt crisis with the unstoppable march to war in the 1930s. The people of Kyoto rose up and fought the construction of the Pont des Arts. In short, there is a strong and vocal body of opinion within Japan that recognizes its troubles and is increasingly prepared to fight for change. In this lies great hope. The question is whether the mood of dissatisfaction will ever gain enough momentum to seriously affect Japan's forward course. One can make good arguments for revolution, and – sadly – even better ones for another decade or two of stagnation.
In the realm of politics, the early 1990s saw unprecedented anger within an electorate that was among the world's most docile. In 1993, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost its majority for the first time in forty years, and an opposition coalition, led by Prime Minister Hosokawa, took over briefly. The opposition, however, was no match for the bureaucrats. When Hosokawa sought financial information from the Ministry of Finance, the bureaucrats stalled, and there was nothing that the prime minister's office could do. Within six months, Hosokawa was out, and former members of the LDP, now scattered into a number of splinter parties, took over again. The electorate settled back into apathy, and at present the old LDP stalwarts are firmly back in power, beholden as before to bureaucrats and large businesses. In the political sphere, the score is Status Quo 1, Revolution 0.
One of the sharpest observations made by Karel van Wolferen is that the Japanese bureaucratic system has never relied on public approval for its legitimacy and power; it works in a separate dimension, far above and removed from the democratic process. As we have seen, even when voters do oppose ruinous construction projects and sign petitions requesting referendums, local assemblies are free to ignore them, and usually do. Outside observers see criticism in the media and hear complaints from average Japanese, and jump to the conclusion that these feelings will be translated into political action. The dissatisfied Japanese people are going to rise up and take matters into their own hands! But so far this has never happened.
Nevertheless, there is movement below the surface. Despite what Marxist theory tells us, the masses rarely start revolutions. The instigators tend to be the educated middle class and disgruntled low-level officials, what one might call «the soft underbelly of the elite» – and the soft underbelly is hurting. Since the publication of Lost Japan in Japanese, I am sometimes asked to speak on panels or write for specialist publications, even to act as a consultant to government agencies. What I have found is that the mid-levels of many organizations – mostly people in their forties – are disillusioned and frustrated by their inability to make changes. Mid-level disillusionment is a highly subjective area. There are no statistics on this subject, and elite-track officials and company employees don't write books and articles, which leaves me with very little in the way of published quotable material. I have only my own experiences to go by.
In 1994, I wrote an article lambasting the dreary displays and shoddy interiors of the Ueno National Museum. Soon afterward, at an opening, I met one of the top officials in the agency that runs the museum. He approached me, and I steeled myself for an angry denunciation of my article-only to hear him say that he personally thinks the mismanagement of Japanese museums is a disgrace. But despite his lofty position in the hierarchy there is little he can do. At the moment, the «soft underbelly» is hurting, but even elite managers are powerless against the inertia of their agencies.