Correspondents' Correspondence Labor's Miracle

...As a rule, the men in power, whether Are chiefs or executives, have one thing in common??age The president of practically every major Japanese institution is in his 60s or 70s, including those at the fringe of the Establishment The chairman of Japan's Communist party, for instance, is 71 "We live in a gerontocracy," says Masao Kunihiro, an assistant professor at Tokyo's Ochanomizu University "Some of the old men who rule Japan are quite capable, but many younger men and women actually have a better education, wider experience, and a broader outlook Yet they must wait their turn within the organization, be it business, government or the academic world ". Nonetheless, there are indications that a new kind of faceless but potentially powerful Japanese is emerging younger breed specializing in a technology the older generation understands dimly if at all the computer "Many of my friends are in this field," a young graduate student told me, and they think that the growing emphasis on computer study and planning will make them the men who really run Japan They already have a distinctly elitist feeling ". Whether or not they eventually take over, these computer experts may soon be joining the ranks of those driven to work each morning in black cars??Michael Berger Pocketbook Politics...

...Correspondents' Correspondence BRIGHT TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS Labor's Miracle London recent months, many observers of British politics saw Labor moving to the Left m reaction against the most militant Right-wing government here since World War II Others predicted it would return to the internecine Right-Left struggle of the '50she Tones with glee, the Left more m sorrow than anger But the Labor party is a strange political animal It does not always go in the direction commentators map out for it This year, of course, has been atypical because the Common Market issue has altered old alignments In the summer the Labor party conference voted against joining the European Economic Community (EEC) by a large majority, and its representatives in Parliament were anti-Market by about two to one Nonetheless, in the Great Debate on October 28, Deputy Leader Roy Jenkins and over 80 of his supporters notoriously broke ranks and went into the pro-European lobby with the government The party was expected to exact its revenge November 27 when Jenkins stood for reelection as deputy leader Running against Jenkins were Michael Foot, a likable, inveterate member of the Left, and Anthony Wedgwood Benn, a semi-Left-winger and an ambivalent anti-Marketeer Wedgwood Benn was knocked out on the first ballot, Foot registered 96 votes, a much higher total than the Left-wing group could have achieved on its own Jenkins, however, captured 140 votes (seven more than last year) in both the first and second rounds, winning a majority the second time because of a larger number of abstentions Whether Jenkins received the same 140 votes will never be known, but many of the anti-Europeans lined up behind Foot, who increased his total to 126...

...After conducting a comparative study of American and Japanese small-town organizations two years ago, the late F Kenneth Berrien, a social psychologist at Rutgers University, concluded that centralization of authority remained a strong Japanese characteristic He noted that Japanese PTAs are customarily controlled by two people??the school principal and the association's president??and that general membership meetings are usually held only once a year Similarly, local fire departments were found to be totally subservient to the command of the chief often selected because of popularity instead of ability??backed by national regulations so detailed that they even stipulate the number of men each community must have directing traffic at a fire...

...Ironically, Harris' cause and his dilemma??a lack of financial resources??is what moved voters throughout the nation to express their bread-and-butter worries at the polls last month...

...Placing economics ahead of esthetics and ecology, San Franciscans rejected a controversial sky-scraper ban, opting instead for the larger property tax revenue such buildings will provide...

...The result was heartening for Labor's middle-of-the-road supporters The party chose its best men on their individual performances And if its present condition proves anything, it is that the old "Bevanite" Left is very much weaker than 20 years ago, while the old "Gaitskellite" Right is no less strong But perhaps it is no longer accurate to speak m such terms It was the mood of the center that decided the matter at the end??John Mander...

...The Left-wing anti-Europeans met with disaster Foot??whose Front Bench philippics against the government have been superb??was the only one to secure a seat, moving up from sixth to second place m the balloting Three EEC advocates who had been expected to go down actually improved their positions (Shirley Williams from seventh to third place, Harold Lever from eighth to seventh, and George Thomson from eleventh to ninth) Those who suffered were the waverers, whose attitudes on the Market were considered suspiciously opportunistic (Deins Healey fell from second place to twelfth, Anthony Crosland from third to eighth, Wedgwood Benn from fifth to tenth, Jim Callaghan from first to fourth...

...Florida's corporate income tax plan, designed to put more of the burden on those best able to support the state government, was approved overwhelmingly?A Kentucky Democrat, running agamst a regressive sales tax and Richard Nixon's economic policies, beat the Republican gubernatorial candidate...

...Washington??the 1971 elections, like those of 1970, demonstarted that the economic issue continues to be the dominant concern of the voters This, however, was of small comfort to Senator Fred Hams (D-Okla ), whose populist call for a more equitable distribution of wealth won few friends with big bank accounts, forcing him to pull out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination...

...With a single-issue campaign against the entrenched big business-political powers in Virginia, an independent won the lieutenant governorship over the organization Democrat and the Republican contender...

...When a man begins commuting in a chauffeured black oar, he has become part of the elite group that rules Japan Within this elaborate circle, however, there are many levels, usually determined by age and seniority...

...Who Rules Japan...

...It remains to be seen what lessons, if any, the Democratic candidates for President will draw from these results At the moment, Henry Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, Edmund Muskie, and George McGovern ate too busy on the fund-raising circuit to give much thought to other aspects of the nation's economy??Jonathan Cottin...

...With Labor thus split m half, it did indeed seem that a revival of the sectionalism of the '50s would dominate the shadow cabinet elections set for December 2 Instead, something of a democratic miracle??or maybe just a fit of common sense??appears to have struck the party at that point The pro- and anti-Market factions put out separate lists of "favored candidates," but to the surprise of both groups the voting produced only one change in the previous year's cabinet the substitution of Peter Shore for Barbara Castle Obviously, the anti-trade union legislation enacted when she was in office still enrages many Left-wingers...

...In New York, a tax-weary majority defeated a transportation bond issue, a hard-line pocketbook decision that the combined efforts of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Mayor John Lindsay and Madison Avenue could not change...

...Tokyo Every morning, as millions of Japanese jam into trams and buses to go to work, others are traveling in the opposite direction, toward the residential areas of the cities A century ago they carried a type of sedan chair and were called kago men Today they drive black cars, often American but mostly Japanese models, and about the same time most workers are reaching the office or factory, these drivers are pulling up in front of the secluded homes of corporate executives They park in the street, notify the family of their arrival, and start cleaning the polished surface of the car with a fancy featherduster After a few minutes the executive emerges from his house, is bowed into his car, and whisked off to work...

...Chiaki Nishiyama of Rikkyo University contends that today most "Japanese organizations are 'teams without heroes ' The word 'tycoon' belongs to American society, not Japanese Western observers often draw the hasty conclusion that the heads of Japanese organizations must be the ablest as well as the most powerful men in the country, but the real picture is that the ablest are located two or three steps down ". Because it seems to suit the Japanese character so well, the group dynamics method of decision-making has frequently been credited with contributing to the country's economic success, yet some analysts disagree In a recent book on Japanese society, Chie Nakane of Tokyo University shows that though power appears to be wielded by groups rather than individuals, the group may still be dominated by a small clique The minority prevails, she explains, because the majority is quite willing to follow??not necessarily as a matter of policy agreement, but of personality, the "me too" tendency that rules most Japanese...