|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Land of the Setting Sun
| Article
# : |
20649 |
|
|
Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
|
| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1992 |
6,332 Words |
| Author
: |
Arthur B. Laffer
Arthur B. Laffer, an economic adviser to President Reagan and
the inventor of the "Laffer curve," is chairman of A.B.
Laffer, V.A. Canto and Associates, a financial consulting firm
in La Jolla, California. |
If one casually peruses the politics of planet earth, a good case can be made that during the past decade, radical change has occurred to a degree and with a frequency unparalleled during the past fifty years. Supply-side economics has transformed redistributionist societies in ways few of us could have envisioned during the 1970s. Democratic capitalism has toppled totalitarian regimes far and wide. Few countries have been immune.
One nation in particular stands out as the glaring exception to the rule: Japan. Even with the financial and sexual scandals that have rocked it, the ruling Liberal Party still wins. Indeed, it has won every single election since World War II. Japanese economic progress is the one constant of the postwar era. The revolutions of the 1980s seem to have bypassed Japan. Perhaps it would be more accurate to write that Japan has bypassed the world.
In my view, placing reliance on the stability of Japan would be a great mistake during the remainder of the 1990s. Japan, too, is going through a radical change. The difference between Japan and other countries, however, is that Japan's radical transition is coming from within Japan, not from outside the country. The effects will be enormous.
It is all the more important to focus on Japan because of its seeming immunity to radical change. Everyone knows what is happening in Europe, and everyone knows it is radical. One more voice hardly could be noticed. But when it comes to Japan, there is an eerie silence. And why shouldn't there be? Everything is right on track, or so it seems. All those alarmists of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s have been wrong so many times.
Alarmists throughout the ages have warned of the limits to growth and have been, for the most part, dead wrong. The regenerative forces of the universe are ubiquitous and powerful. But sometimes, just sometimes, the shrill admonitions of alarmists are worth hearing. Such is the case today regarding the economic health of Japan.
The Story of Japan
To paint the full picture of where Japan is going, it helps to describe just how Japan began the postwar era. Japan ended World War II with an ignominious surrender to the Allied forces, which were led by U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Immediately prior to Japan's surrender, the only two nuclear bombs ever used against humans had annihilated Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Japanese losses during
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
