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The Japanese Political Economy: A Crisis in Theory1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Chalmers Johnson
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Abstract

Late 1980s economic theory failed to account for Japanese-style economies. Leading thinkers ignored the success and achievements of these systems by passing them off as exceptions due to “cultural uniqueness,” or by altering the facts to fit their theories. Chalmers Johnson argues that the success of the Japanese economy is neither random nor a function of culture but due to policy, particularly to Japanese industrial policy.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 2 , March 1988 , pp. 79 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1988

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Footnotes

1

This paper was originally published by the Committee to Survey Japanese Studies of The Japan Foundation, Tokyo.

References

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30 Ford, Bill, op. cit., pp. 274–75Google Scholar. On the educational issues involved, see Rohlen, Thomas P., “Japanese Education: If They Can Do It, Should We?” The American Scholar (Winter 1985/86) pp. 29–43; 1Google Scholar; and Morse, Ronald A. and Samuels, Richard J., eds., Getting America Ready for Japanese Science and Technology (Washington: The Asia Program of the Wilson Center, 1985)Google Scholar.

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36 A useful summary is Cohen, Stephen D., Uneasy Partnership: Competition and Conflict in U.S.—Japanese Trade Relations (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1985)Google Scholar. My candidate for the best single antidote to the propaganda that accompanied the revision of Japan's Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law in 1980 is Henderson, Dan F., “Access to the Japanese Market: Some Aspects of Foreign Exchange Controls and Banking Law,” in Law and Trade Issues of the Japanese Economy, eds. Saxonhouse, Clary R. and Yamamura, Kozo (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986) pp. 131–56Google Scholar. On the need for Japan to expand domestic demand, the best treatment is Yamamura, , “Shedding the Shackles of Success: Saving Less for Japan's Future,” in Pyle, op. cit., pp. 33–60Google Scholar.

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49 Nihon keizai shimbun, November 18–23, 1985Google Scholar; trans, as “Industrial Policy's Generation Gap,” Economic Eye 7:1 (March 1986) p. 22Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., p. 23Google Scholar.

51 Ibid., p. 24Google Scholar.

52 Ibid., p. 23Google Scholar.

53 See Awanohara, Susumu, “‘Look East’: The Japan Model,” Asian-Pacific Economic Literature 1:1 (May 1987) pp. 75–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 See, e.g., Lincoln, Edward J., Japan's Industrial Policies (Washington: Japan Economic Institute of America, 1984)Google Scholar; and Wheeler, Jimmy W. et al. , Japan's Industrial Development Policies in the 1980s (Croton-on-Hudson, NY: Hudson Institute, 1982)Google Scholar.