IS GLOBALIZATION CHANGING JAPAN (PART 2)
The book everyone was talking about last month at the first World Economic Forum (WEF) ever held in Tokyo was not Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, or some other volume on globalization. It was a slim Japanese volume called The Dignity of a State. Written by mathematician Masahiko Fujiwara, the book is seemingly a longing call to return to ancient Japanese virtues. But it's also a sharp, angry outburst that blames free markets for a wide assortment of Japan's and the world's woes. "Globalism," Fujiwara writes, "is merely a strategy of the U.S. that seeks world domination after the Cold War." The author also calls the market economy "a system that clearly divides the society into a minority of winners and a majority of losers." WEF members, most of them advocates of free markets and open economies, might want to reject Fujiwara as part of the radical fringe of vocal anti-globalization protesters. But the book has touched a nerve in Japan, where many feel economic reforms are destroying the country's egalitarianism, creating a nation of haves and have-nots.
The book everyone was talking about last month at the first World Economic Forum (WEF) ever held in Tokyo was not Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, or some other volume on globalization. It was a slim Japanese volume called The Dignity of a State. Written by mathematician Masahiko Fujiwara, the book is seemingly a longing call to return to ancient Japanese virtues. But it's also a sharp, angry outburst that blames free markets for a wide assortment of Japan's and the world's woes. "Globalism," Fujiwara writes, "is merely a strategy of the U.S. that seeks world domination after the Cold War." The author also calls the market economy "a system that clearly divides the society into a minority of winners and a majority of losers." WEF members, most of them advocates of free markets and open economies, might want to reject Fujiwara as part of the radical fringe of vocal anti-globalization protesters. But the book has touched a nerve in Japan, where many feel economic reforms are destroying the country's egalitarianism, creating a nation of haves and have-nots.
The Dignity of a State has sold 2 million copies since last November, making it Japan's second best-selling title of 2006. (It trails only the latest Harry Potter installment). A grassroots backlash against reform in the world's second largest economy is worrying to some WEF delegates. "This book's popularity is not a positive development," says Charles D. Lake II, vice chairman of AFLAC Insurance in Japan. But it is an important one. Despite Japan's much-heralded success in modernizing its economy, the fact remains that a large segment of Japanese society loathes the way things are heading.
In summary:
In summary:
“Globalism,” Fujiwara writes, “Is merely a strategy of the U.S. that seeks world domination after the Cold War.” The author also calls the market economy “a system that clearly divides the society into a minority of winners and a majority of losers.” According to Time Magazine, the book’s popularity is fed by a popular response in Japan that sympathizes with the notion that “economic reforms are destroying the country’s social equality, creating a nation of “haves” and “have- nots".
Another review of the book says that according to the author, Japan’s distinguishing “national character” is a set of behavior standards based on the spirit of Bushido, the samurai code of honor. That spirit, he writes, was shattered by Japan’s defeat in World War II and completely abandoned after the collapse of the assist-inflated “bubble economy of the 1990s. Japanese society is now set to fall into ruin, the author continues. Ideas that Japan eagerly accepted along with “Americanization,” such things as the market –oriented principle of economics, do not offer a solution to the problems facing the nation. Rather, emotion and empathy form the basis of Japanese civilization and Bushido is the core of ethics. Japan should not aim to be a universal country, but a unique and dignified one.
According to what I have been able to read about Fujiwara-san and his book, he believes that Japan should return to Bushido because capitalism has destroyed Japan. As usual (I guess he is referring to Tokugawa and Meiji eras), “evil foreign devils” and their ideas have damaged the purity of Japan and the Japanese people.
I would be very interested to get anyone’s opinion on this topic, especially if you are familiar with this book and have similar or differing viewpoints.
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