Trading Places/The Cuomo Commission Report:

...The contrast with our own society is clear...

...this is the challenge of political leadership today...

...Or in the case of dealings with the Japanese, a bevy of advisors and lobbyists earn a good living by supporting Japanese positions...

...The Report has been well received in the Dukakis camp and represents a thought-provoking response to the legacy of the Reagan administration...

...Prestowitz deals little with Japan's stance on international agreements, implying that they will be used for Japan' s own purposes...

...And as Japanese firms begin producing in the U. S., they bring their own parts suppliers, financial sources, and even construction firms, which ensures that there are few linkages with the U.S...

...In addition to its nationalistic policy, Japanese success is based upon a very cohesive society which is clear about its own traditions and its future direction, and which places a high value on institutional harmony...

...Individuals strongly identify with their institutions, be they government ministries or business groups, and give them their best...

...Yet its failure to move beyond the economic, where growth is the highest value, leaves this reader less than fully satisfied...

...nor do the many Reagan officials who have benefited personally...

...So the fundamental issue is not just competition with the Japanese or with other countries, but it is the kind of society we will become, and it has fundamentally to do with the absence of harmony as a goal, the individualism which finds few limits.ism which finds few limits...

...The experience at the state level in improving government rather than destroying it or abusing it has provided some credibility to this stance...

...In contrast, the U.S...

...Most of the report attempts to explain the genesis of the situation and then suggests a set of steps which should be taken to confront the problems...

...Any successful program will require a challenge to American values...

...This is one central element of the Cuomo Commission stance, and perhaps it indicates that the Japanese realize that new departures which stimulate the world economy, particularly the very depressed developing countries, should be an important element of policy concern...

...The Cuomo Commission treats the international economic order at some length...

...We negotiate on specific products, soda, ash or metal baseball bats, and then subtle Ministry resistance or internal decisions of major Japanese economic groups (keiretsu) limit sales increases, despite market prices quite favorable to the U.S...

...our corporations are ever more threatened if they look for anything but short-term profit, for they are simply "money machines rather than organisms (like Japanese firms...

...and the military procurement scandal, along with the many other ethical problems of the Reagan administration, indicates that in the U.S...

...industries have been "hol-lowed-out," their domestic operations reduced to distribution of items produced mainly by Japanese firms...

...economy...

...The members, including Prestowitz, see the loss in U. S. competitiveness as the dominant reality of today's economy...

...Since Japan is currently the best player in the economic game, Prestowitz's knowledge of the inner workings of Japanese economic policymaking and his detailed treatment of the negotiations for greater American access to the Japanese market are important...

...products...

...While this appears to us as unfair play, it occurs because Japan defines its security in economic terms, and thus single-mindedly pursues economic independence and technological dominance...

...This is where I find the Report weakest, for two reasons...

...And they call on such values as the democratic process, diversity and participation, compassion, the middle class, and foremost, growth...

...The Cuomo Commission Report, a Kenneth P. Jameson blue-ribbon committee (chaired by Lewis B. Kaden) of top CEOs, labor leaders, and academics assembled by New York's Governor Cuomo to make policy recommendations regarding the nation's trade problems, is an interesting complement to Trading Places...

...real estate brokers are selling their most expensive properties in Japan...

...they may be right...

...This allows the Japanese government and their private sector to collaborate, each sharing responsibility for the good of the society, an effort which foreigners can only threaten...

...As a result many U.S...

...In one area the books have little apparent overlap...

...Wall Street certainly perceives no problems, based on the fortunes that have been amassed in this period of unregulated free market disequilibrium...

...economy is transparent, open to any economic actor, and we have a Manichaean view of government and private spheres...

...Lee Iacocca's multimillion dollar income and Donald Trump's yacht are objects of admiration, not of embarrassment...

...Harmony puts limits on ostentatious consumption and places a higher value on saving...

...one departing Reagan appointee who had negotiated, softly, for access to the Japanese auto parts market resigned under a cloud after soliciting business from Japanese firms...

...And throughout the book there is an effort to find areas in which government can take a positive role...

...Their five industry studies (apparel, steel, food manufacturing, telecommunications, and financial services) provide some specificity on means of improving our performance...

...was continually out-negotiated and out-competed by the nationalistic combination of Japanese business and government...

...It deals seriously with problems of the federal deficit, the balance of payments deficit, and developing country debt, a welcome change from our current politics of evasion...

...Squaring off across the Pacific Trading Places may well be the most damning of the kiss-and-tell books about the Reagan administration...

...First, values should not be an addendum, but should be central...

...This points to another complementarity between the books, their treatment of the nature of the societies they deal with...

...We are individualistic, using institutions for our own purposes...

...However, the dissent of two commission members on the increased role of government shows that the Manichaeans are still important...

...They give it context in a chapter on "America Rebuilds the Postwar World," and then have specific proposals in "Toward a New International Order...

...Making a mixed economy work appears to be the crucial economic problem of the day, and Japan has certainly solved it better than the United States...

...His anecdotes about particular decision-makers and understanding of the government bureaucracy, including its internal conflicts, help explain how the long and tortuous negotiations which formally open the Japanese market to the U.S...

...The Cuomo Commission suggests worker management and better labor-management relations, better education, more participation and cooperation, and a state-federal partnership...

...Government and business strive to ensure institutional stability and to lower risk through long-run perspectives, "visions," and planning...

...Commerce Department's efforts to negotiate better access to the Japanese economy...

...As an eighteenth-century Tokugawa philosopher wrote: "Foreign trade is a war in that each party seeks to extract wealth from the other...

...and production, an indicator of economic strength, takes precedence over consumption...

...He documents how the free-trade and free-market ideology of the U.S...

...Secondly, we must realize that dealing with the economic problems will require political conflict, for there are those who have gained greatly from the very problems cited in the Report...

...The author has lived and worked in Japan and was intimately involved in the U.S...

...Yet in the recent economic summit, the Japanese disturbed the managed tranquillity by proposing a new approach to the Latin American debt problem...

...They specifically support the stance of the 1988 trade bill of ensuring fair international trade, and they would also provide support to domestic industries to improve their competitiveness...

...And the economy must provide ever more consumption, even if it requires fiscal and balance of trade deficits of over $150 billion per year...

...The Cuomo Commission attempts to deal with these issues...

...THE CUOMO COMMISSION REPORT A New American Formula for a Strong Economy The Cuomo Commission on Trade and Competitiveness Simon and Schuster, $19.95, $9.95 paper, 259 pp...

...products do not notably increase their market penetration...