Japan is sick, but once again people are becoming hopeful that it may at long last recover, mostly because a committed reformer named Heizo Takenaka now seems to be running the economic policy. But what policymakers and pundits fail to recognise - or refuse to recognise - is that economic policies per se will not reinvigorate Japan.
Japan's crisis is systemic, not cyclical. Debt, deflation and other maladies are purely symptoms of Japan's disease. The causes are a combination of institutional sclerosis, social anomie and gerontocratic governance.
For several decades after WWII the Japanese system worked remarkably well, not only in generating growth, but in providing high levels of education, long life expectancy, security, and other welfare benefits to its citizens. This system rested on three pillars: a cohesive political-industrial establishment, the mobilisation of resources to achieve national economic ends and America's defensive shield.
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Rather than reducing concentrated market power through “disruption” or “creative destruction,” technological innovation historically has only added to the problem, by awarding monopolies to just one or a few dominant firms. And market forces offer no remedy to the problem; only public policy can provide that.
shows that technological change leads not to disruption, but to deeper, more enduring forms of market power.
The passing of America’s preeminent foreign-policy thinker and practitioner marks the end of an era. Throughout his long and extraordinarily influential career, Henry Kissinger built a legacy that Americans would be wise to heed in this new era of great-power politics and global disarray.
reviews the life and career of America’s preeminent foreign-policy scholar-practitioner.
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Japan is sick, but once again people are becoming hopeful that it may at long last recover, mostly because a committed reformer named Heizo Takenaka now seems to be running the economic policy. But what policymakers and pundits fail to recognise - or refuse to recognise - is that economic policies per se will not reinvigorate Japan.
Japan's crisis is systemic, not cyclical. Debt, deflation and other maladies are purely symptoms of Japan's disease. The causes are a combination of institutional sclerosis, social anomie and gerontocratic governance.
For several decades after WWII the Japanese system worked remarkably well, not only in generating growth, but in providing high levels of education, long life expectancy, security, and other welfare benefits to its citizens. This system rested on three pillars: a cohesive political-industrial establishment, the mobilisation of resources to achieve national economic ends and America's defensive shield.
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