June 23, 2006; Volume 02, Number 23
of the
Japan Considered Podcast
[Listen to the audio file by clicking here]
Clink Links Below for Today's Topics
Good Morning from the beautiful campus of the University of South Carolina. Today is Friday, June 23rd, 2006. And you are listening to Volume 02, Number 23, of the Japan Considered Podcast.
Thanks for dropping by again today to all of you regular listeners. And thanks for checking in to those of you who have just come across the Japan Considered Podcast. I hope you find it worth your time. Heavens knows! The price is right! Let’s hope the content measures up to your expectations.
I’m Robert Angel, creator and maintainer of the Japan Considered Project, and creator and host for this Podcast. You can find more information about me -- and more important, more sources of useful information about Japan -- on the Japan Considered Project website. Point your browser at www.JapanConsidered.org, and have a look around. For some reason, the Interviews section of the site has become especially popular during the past month or so. Lots of interesting information there, and in other sections of the site as well.
Each week at this time we spend twenty minutes or so considering the longer-term implications of recent events related to Japan’s domestic politics and international relations. This isn’t the place to find a comprehensive summary of news related to Japan. Rather, for each program I select a few issues that seem most promising and focus upon them. Thanks to those of you who have e-mailed suggestions for additional topics, and comments on my interpretations of the topics we’ve covered in earlier weeks. All very helpful. Please continue to send your ideas to me at RobertCAngel@gmail.com. I read them all. One of the bright spots of each day.
This week we’ll begin with comments from a very well informed regular listener on the LDP presidential race. Two important points that definitely require further consideration. Then we have recently recorded comments from Dr. Edward J. Lincoln on the issue of growing economic inequality in Japan, and its relationship to the economic reform policies pursued by Prime Minister Koizumi’s during the past five years. I’d hope to include comment on two international issues that have been receiving front-page, above-the-fold attention in Japan’s national media all week: North Korea’s threat to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, and the impending resumption of exports of American beef to Japan. But they’ll have to wait until next week.
E-mail response to last week’s podcast was unusually heavy. That’s good. Lots of ideas and suggestions on how to improve the program. Both topics and content, and production. Thanks for all of them. Though I should have been clearer about the financial constraints under which the program operates. This is an out-of-pocket operation. So I won’t be able to replace my inexpensive headset with a proper studio microphone and proper cabling. But I will look into some of the less expensive alternatives suggested to improve the quality of the sound.
Speaking of funding, one listener asked if I receive free copies of the software mentioned on the program. Well, no, I don’t. With only one exception. And that certainly was unsolicited and unexpected. Software houses normally provide students and faculty with sharply discounted copies of their products. And I’ve taken advantage of those discounts. It would be prohibitive to pay list price for Adobe’s Audition, Photoshop, DreamWeaver, Flash, and the other programs required to put the Podcast together. So those discounts help. But no free copies. Same for the shareware programs that have become essential elements in the production process.
Differences Between Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda
Last week’s assessment of the LDP presidential race inspired one long-time listener who must remain anonymous to send in some very useful comments. He has been intimately involved in U.S. relations with Japan for many years, holding senior positions in both Washington and in Tokyo. He also has known both Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda for some time. He takes issue with my characterization of them as more similar than different. He wrote that Abe and Fukuda have quite different views of Japan’s role in the world, different views of the appropriate role of the government in the economy, and different views of how Japan’s political parties should operate. He also noted that Japan is a parliamentary rather than a presidential system. And therefore the role of the prime ministerial executive will be quite different from that of a president.
These are excellent points. And we should keep them in mind. I’m actually inclined to agree with both of them. Certainly Abe and Fukuda are different sorts of politicians – different sorts of people – with quite different experiences before entering politics. Were they to assume office, hypothetically speaking, at different times under exactly the same conditions, I’m certain they would behave differently as prime minister in many ways.
And, if they continue during the next three months to compete to succeed Koizumi as LDP president, and as prime minister, their differences will be accentuated by the pressures of the competition. That’s electoral politics. In any system. Successful candidates have to differentiate themselves from their competitors in order to gather support for their candidacy.
But I still think this is a question of degree. We’re still considering two quite typical senior LDP politicians here. Neither of them is a clandestine socialist, or a closet wild-eyed nationalist, determined to make fundamental changes in Japan’s system of government or conduct of foreign relations. Both can be expected to work pretty much within the “rules of the game” as we have seen them applied in Japan for the past couple of decades. Or so I expect, anyway.
So, that’s why I still believe it’s more important how the next LDP president wins election than the individual who ultimately wins the race. This will be an even more important determinant of the new prime minister’s behavior. Will the successful candidate win with what I’ve called a Factionist campaign? Or will he win with a Populist campaign? These terms, especially “populist,” are far from ideal. But I think you get the idea. Most observers would agree that the Koizumi premiership has operated quite differently from those of most of his predecessors. With the exception, perhaps, of the later years of the Nakasone premiership.
Whether or not one approves of the specific policies Koizumi has pursued during his tenure in office is another matter. But the way he has pursued those objectives – the thing that makes the five years of his premiership quite distinctive -- has been determined by the “Populist” campaign through which he won and has maintained office. Much like the latter-day Nakasone, Koizumi’s political strength has come from the perception that he has broad public support, and broad support among the LDP Diet membership. He has been able to exercise the constitutional powers of the premiership with only polite reference to the LDP’s faction leaders. That has given Japan quite a different chief political executive.
This in contrast to a “Factionist” campaign that relies on the approval and support of the leaders of the LDP’s major personalistic factions. Faction leaders who must be consulted and whose approval must be won on virtually every important decision. Beginning with selection of the members of the incoming cabinet and the policies they will pursue. This naturally leads to quite a different governing style, one typified by most of Koizumi’s post-World War Two prime ministerial predecessors. Again, with the exception of Yasuhiro Nakasone during the later years of his premiership
The LDP’s personalistic factions for decades have been major targets for the criticism of Japan’s political reformers. It is ironic to see some of the most ardent of those reformers now encouraging a Factionist outcome in the race to succeed Koizumi. I guess the ownership of the ox remains a more important consideration than the means by which said ox is gored.
The Difference Between a Parliamentary and a Presidential System
Our anonymous e-mail commentator raised a second important point. Japan is not a presidential system! Japan’s chief political executive is selected by majority vote of the popularly elected members of parliament, not by a separate national plebiscite. This is a fundamental and critical distinction. Constitutionally, Japan’s chief political executive is responsible to the Diet, not to “the people,” as the argument is made in presidential systems.
But while Japan’s parliamentary prime ministers are not elected, president-style, by popular election every few years, their popularity with the attentive public has become an increasingly important factor in the support they receive from the parliamentary delegations of their own parties. No member of parliament, lower or upper house, wishes to stand for election as the candidate of a Party with an unpopular leader. I believe this has become increasingly significant over the past few decades.
Prime ministers whose public popularity has dropped significantly are encouraged to resign, lest their unpopularity rub off on other candidates fielded by the same party in the next election. Yoshiro Mori, if consulted, should be able to confirm that point. On the other hand, popular party leaders are considered important electoral assets by other candidates in the Party. Note the fuss made over Ichiro Ozawa’s support for Miwa Ota in the Chiba # 7 by-election this April.
So, as I see it, for Japan’s prime ministers, this increasing significance of attentive public approval has made it possible for an individual like Koizumi to win the LDP presidency, and subsequently the premiership, without the support of the LDP’s faction leaders. This does not make him a president, or require president-like behavior. Rather, it brings Japan’s premiership more into line with Western ideas of normal parliamentary practice. We should recognize this, I think, without allowing our approval or disapproval of the specific policies Koizumi has pursued to distract us from this more fundamental point. Future Populist-style LDP presidents may well pursue quite different policies, for the same reasons.
Thanks again to our anonymous listener for the insightful comments on these two points.
Dr. Edward J. Lincoln on Japan’s Growing Economic Inequality
Critics of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi have charged during the past six months or so that his economic reforms have created, or at least intensified, economic inequality in Japan. Both overall income inequality, and inequality among geographic regions. This as the LDP prepares for the election that will determine Koizumi’s successor as LDP president, and Japan’s prime minister. We focus on politics in this program, and deal with economic matters only to the extent that they have been politicized. With economic inequality developing into a significant issue in the LDP presidential race we must consider how it is being politicized here.
With that in mind, I thought it might be useful to hear the views of someone actually qualified to discuss the economics of this topic, and turned to Dr. Edward J. Lincoln. He is the incoming director of the Center for Japan-US Business and Economic Studies at the Stern School of Business at New York University. Ed certainly is the best-known American economist specializing in Japan today. He’s a long-time friend, and a supporter of the Japan Considered Project from the very beginning. He’s been in the Japan field for quite a long time, serving in a variety of senior government and private-sector posts related to Japan since the 1970s. You can learn more about Ed in an interview with him on the Japan Considered website. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes and in the program transcript. Ed joined us on Thursday via recorded Skype hook-up from his home in Washington, D.C.
Angel: Good Morning, Ed, and welcome to the Japan Considered Podcast. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us today. Since late last year, some of the Koizumi’s critics have argued that his small government policies have developed a trend, or intensified the trend, of growing income inequality in Japan. Is this true?
Lincoln: Probably. The first thing, though, to keep in mind is that data on income and wealth probably isn’t all that accurate. In any country. It’s very difficult to measure income. What income are we measuring? What do we include? What do we exclude? Can we get a handle on all that.
Nevertheless, it would not surprise me at all if income inequality were increasing in Japan. But whether it’s got much to do with Koizumi’s policies, is up for grabs.
Angel: How long has that been true?
Lincoln: That I don’t know. In the United States it’s been true since, probably, the 1970s. In Japan I would guess that it’s been true since the mid- to late 1980s. starting with the bubble.
What one would expect of other reforms of the 1990s and this decade, including those of Koizumi, would be rising pay differentials, wherein say, some people have lost because they have become unemployed, or they have been forced into early retirement. Other people, perhaps, with skills that are in high demand, say, in the financial sector. People with MBAs, going to foreign financial firms, have done very well. But that’s a trend that I think is characteristic of many countries.
Angel: Are concepts of economic equality, or inequality, different in Japan than they are in the United States?
Lincoln: In political terms, of course, one of the enduring mythologies of the United States is that we are the land of opportunity. And therefore you don’t want to restrict inequality very much because that’s part of the American dream. That anybody can luck in. If they’re a good athlete, or good at math, or good at something. Or just a good risk-taker. That they should be able to foresee the possibility of fabulous wealth for themselves. That helps to drive our self-image.
In Japan, of course, they’ve had a very different self-image. An image of Japan, basically, as one huge tribe. We all belong to the same group of Japanese. And we shouldn’t permit really wide variations in income and wealth. Those views appear to be taking hold rather strongly in the 1930s and 1940s, during the period of militarism in Japan. But continued very strongly after the Second World War.
Angel: What about these arguments made by some of our mutual friends about a Japanese unique system of capitalism?
Lincoln: Well, this was related to that. There was this view that, again, that it’s not necessary to have very wide differences in income and wealth in order to get work out of everybody – the people at the bottom and the people at the top. And there was also with that a belief that this created a better society in some psychological sense.
Which system actually is better, of course, people can argue about endlessly. And certainly in Japan it was not an equal society. There is inequality. There always has been inequality in Japan. Just not as wide as in the United States.
Angel: How does the expanding Japanese economy affect the significance of this issue of growing economic inequality?
Lincoln: In Japan, interesting enough, the rise in inequality has come, say, over the past decade, in a relatively stagnant economy. So, indeed, some people are actually worse off. Some of them may be much worse off. Say, upper-middle managers who lost their jobs and because of the rigidities in the labor market haven’t been able to find anything else, except maybe driving a taxi. Those people have suffered a real loss in income. Meanwhile, we seem to have this small group of people who are eager and adept at moving in a more fluid economic environment as deregulation takes place, and they live in places like Roppongi Hills. And indeed, there is an outcry about the behavior of some of these people that’s been emerging in the press.
Angel: Finally, Ed, how about the notion of growing regional inequality in Japan? Any thoughts on that?
Lincoln: Well, I really don’t know much about it. Except that it too probably has been growing, especially in the last seven or eight years. The reason for that, not to make the story too long, was that there was a political deal in Japan that probably began in the early 1960s, in which politicians like Kakuei Tanaka, representing very rural districts said, “Wait a minute. We’re not getting our share of the stunning growth in the economy. And they worked very hard to get those benefits redistributed.
The preferred method to do that was public works spending, bringing in roads and railroads. To the extent that in Niigata they had roads with hot water pipes under them to spray hot water to melt the snow off in the winter. So the rural areas got their share of the expanding pie that way.
But, once all of the useful public works stuff was built, the machine just kept going on, through the 1990s. Spending far too much money on stupid, worthless projects. And that eventually became a political embarrassment. Since 1997, public works spending has been going down. And that disproportionately hurt the rural areas. So I’m sure we’ve seen an increasing income gap between rural and urban areas.
Angel: Thanks again for your time, and for these helpful comments. Best wishes to you in your new position at NYU’s Stern School.
Well, that’s all we have time for again this week. Thanks again for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed the show. And hope you are back again next as we consider domestic political and international Japan. In the meantime, please continue to send your comments and suggestions to me at RobertCAngel@gmail.com. I read them all, and take them into consideration when preparing new shows. No time for bluegrass again this week! Sorry about that. So,
Goodbye all. Until next week.
