The Japanese Model

...Not surprisingly, a third of fourth-graders and more than 70 per cent of ninth-graders complained of constant fatigue in their daily lives...

...In the postwar era, labor has been sharply divided among a number of competing federations...

...A survey of Tokyo residents showed a remarkable 20 per cent of total family income spent on education and supplementary tutoring for children...

...That effort produced the first industrial miracle and then dragged Japan into the tragedy of imperialist expansion...

...From the outside, Japan appears to be the world's prodigy, a healthy peacock in a flock of dying turkeys...

...That Japanese society exhibits remarkable cohesiveness and unity is beyond doubt...

...The primary target of cutbacks is social welfare spending, which has been slashed for three years in a row...

...Throughout the city, billboards instruct citizens what to do when the walls start tumbling down...

...We can't let the people become complacent...

...JohnJunkerman is a Boston-based free-lance writer who specializes in Asian affairs...

...At the Toyota auto company, workers tell of an employee who committed suicide when he could not come up with an efficiency suggestion to present to his group...

...To top things off— perhaps it is a reflection of the generalized crisis mentality—a devastating earthquake has been predicted for Tokyo in the near future...

...Japan cannot relax," Doko declares...

...Competition for admission to quality kindergartens is intense, and the pressure builds from that point on...

...In extreme cases, half of the family's budget is devoted to schooling...

...the people should live off of their own strength," he insists...

...The corporations mounted intense efficiency drives, and enterprise-based unions were enlisted in joint efforts to maintain Japan's competitive edge...

...The Japan Socialist Party (JSP), the largest in the opposition, now holds only 20 per cent of the Diet seats...

...Doko thus brought the spirit of productivity drives and quality control circles to the attempt to rationalize the government...

...He won the nickname "Mr...

...Private enterprise cutits fat after the oil shocks of the last decade...

...By the late 1970s, the Liberal Democrats had begun to reverse the opposition's inroads into local governments by forming new coalitions with centrist parties, and opinion polls showed a rapid decline in public respect for the badly divided opposition...

...In the past, economic plans have been marketed with upbeat slogans intended to muster public backing...

...This spirit is reflected in the analogy Toshio Doko draws to illustrate the future of the economy: " I often say," he told us that evening in his study, "that Japan should be like a star marathon runner and always stay ahead of the pack...

...it is considered contentious, not constructive...

...The pressures to perform do not leave children's lives untouched...

...In one Tokyo ward, a survey showed that half of all fourth-grade pupils attend special schools until 7 P.M...

...Now it's time for government to do the same...

...The reality beneath the harmonious surface is that business exerts overwhelming control and has managed to divert opposition or squelch it altogether...

...The unification effort is explicitly intended to increase labor's ability to help defend the national interest...

...Consensus is harder to achieve when there is less wealth to distribute...

...Excluded during the merger were those unions unwilling to accept the new ground rules—principally, the militant public-sector unions that provide Sohyo's socialist core (the teachers, national railway workers, and municipal employees...

...He is the first prime minister without roots in prewar Japan, and is therefore free of the stigma (and the accompanying political constraints) of having been involved with fascism...

...This alliance would amount to the institutionalization of one-party rule, which, the journal suggested, is better suited to the Japanese political style—with its preference for consensus and compromise—than the two- or three-party systems prevalent in the West...

...Far from providing a model for a new form of capitalism, the Japanese system is riddled with internal tensions and contradictions...

...In a book published recently to marshal public support for the reform, entitled Let's Go, Dokosan!, a prominent historian declared, "The administrative reform is the second Meiji Restoration...

...Kids are beating up on teachers and parents...

...It would be a permanent majority coalition— "a grand alliance"—led by the LDP and encompassing citizens' organizations, the labor movement, farmers' cooperatives, and business...

...Donnei, a right-wing splinter faction, is allied with the conservative Democratic Socialists, and a third federation has no party affiliation...

...The nation's prosperity is threatened...

...The conservatives considered their 1980 election victory to be a mandate...

...This agenda may be little more than wishful thinking, but it is consistent with a theory widely held on the Japanese Right— that the American occupation reforms interrupted the natural development of Japanese society by supporting the development of Western-style trade unions, breaking up the zaibatsu, and democratizing the educational system...

...The factors usually cited as significant to Japan's success—the national consensus behind economic growth, labor-management harmony, and the virtually uninterrupted sway of the pro-business Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)—cannot be fully understood without examining the underlying nationalistic fervor...

...The "Western disease"—economic decline attributed to the high spending for social welfare—is projected as Japan's fate unless the government's course is changed dramatically...

...For the foreseeable future, we will have to ask the people for 'personal frugality.' Only then can we assure 'social abundance.' " Given Doko's position at the pinnacle of Japanese power, it is not surprising that government agencies echo his call for relentless effort and discipline...

...Together, they often garner a majority of the popular vote and have as many as 45 per cent of the seats in the House of Representatives, but the parties have been unable to forge a majority coalition...

...The conservatives' control over the central function of the government—maintaining economic growth—has gone unchallenged...

...This is presented as proof that despite all evidence to the contrary, Japan's is an egalitarian capitalism...

...The economy's managers have impressed the world with their ability to mobilize the energies of the people, especially in the last decade of economic crisis...

...The trend toward rearmament is now out in the open: Prime Minister Nakasone's declaration in January that Japan stands as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" for American forces would not have been uttered even six months earlier...

...the ceaseless clamor in the United States over the "Japanese threat" to American business is similarly shrill...

...The business elite emerged from World War II somewhat humbled and sanitized by reform, but it soon reclaimed the virtuous role of nation builder...

...Both assume that the power of the leadership will be exercised with benevolence, and that dissent is counterproductive...

...This may make sense as a corporate strategy, but in the body politic such constant appeals to diligence would be ineffective without one further ingredient: A widely held conviction that effort will be equitably rewarded...

...A crisis mentality took hold in the years of postwar destitution, and it created a sense of unity in the face of adversity that has been preserved by perpetual challenges to meet new emergencies...

...First, the opposition vote is split among four major parties and a number of smaller ones, ranging from the Communists on the Left to the Social Democrats (virtually indistinguishable from the LDP) on the Right...

...To Japanese voters, the opposition carries an indelible image of infighting and unreliability, and there is little public confidence that it would be able to govern if it were given the chance...

...Failure to eliminate the deficit caused the downfall of Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki last fall...

...The arrangement amounts to supply-side economics built on a foundation of involuntary "personal frugality," and has been tagged "Japanesestyle welfare...

...The membership of the advisory panel was, of course, dominated by executives from electronics and computer companies, and their report favored heavy subsidies for research into new technologies, but it was framed throughout by the imperatives of national interest...

...He brokered Nakasone's election to prime minister last fall and managed to have the new cabinet stacked with his lieutenants to such an extent that the new premier has earned the nickname "Tanakasone...

...Appeals to national unity are made in the name of defending the economy, and military metaphors are commonly used to describe business competition...

...Trade tensions endanger Japanese markets...

...How do you know that...

...Informationization will create a new Japan—without it there will be no tomorrow...

...His father, Takeshi, is startled by the boy's concern, and somewhat taken aback by his precocity...

...But the nation's elders profess a deathly fear that stagnation and social decay loom ahead...

...But growth had been achieved at tremendous cost, and a new challenge to authority developed among those who recognized the destruction of the environment, pollution diseases, crowded cities, and the psychic costs of industrial expansion...

...The boy's dream is to be a soccer player...

...The psychic costs continue into people's working lives: The quality-control fever that has infected most Japanese enterprises has given birth to a new psychological disorder, " Q C neurosis...

...It remains to be seen whether such a broad coalition is indeed in its embryonic stages...

...He recites the standard litany of Japan's disadvantages—a large population crowded on a narrow archipelago with no natural resources—and asserts that the nation "has no choice but to become the model of efficiency for the rest of the world...

...Both are premised on the belief that everyone's interests are served by cooperation and the acceptance of established authority...

...By chance, we encounter Doko himself, clad in an informal silk kimono and wooden sandals, standing at the rear gate of his surprisingly modest home...

...This recession just keeps getting worse...

...The harsh, heavy-handed politics of the 1950s gave way to a new spirit of optimism and growth...

...An ambitious program of nuclear power plant construction will be pursued (despite the fact that three-quarters of the population express deep fears about nuclear safety), because it will contribute to energy independence...

...On college campuses, where students had shunned any identification with the conservative government, polls showed an unprecedented 53.5 per cent of students backing the LDP, compared to a paltry 25.5 per cent supporting the socialist and communist parties...

...Economic chauvinism is by no means unique to Japan...

...There are always new sources of competition emerging, and the only way to avoid defeat is to stay well ahead of everyone...

...A Westerner is tempted to remark, "What we wouldn't give for a 2 per cent unemployment rate...

...Merit, in turn, is determined by the education system, with its rigorous examinations that channel students into a wide range of institutions, from the elite (such as the University of Tokyo) down to technical schools and junior colleges...

...A new conservative mood swept the country, and political opposition withered in the face of the vigorous campaign to defend Japan's prosperity...

...The house is appointed in the spare, unadorned style of the traditional Japanese aesthetic, and Doko seems similarly unpretentious: his woolen longjohns show under his kimono sleeves as he clears stacks of documents from the coffee table in his study...

...Private-sector unions, strongly influenced by the ideology of corporate harmony, have left the militant public sector isolated and defensive...

...For several reasons, the opposition was unable to capitalize on the LDP's vulnerability...

...I believe in selfreliance...

...It was the fortuitous intervention of an external event—the Arab oil crisis of 1973—that provided the elite with a rallying point and rationale for renewed pleas for unity in the face of adversity...

...Nationalism imperils access to raw materials...

...She said we should all study hard, so we will be sure to find jobs when we grow up," he adds, his nose once again stuck in the splashy teen mag...

...Recent pronouncements have dropped the glitter and concentrate on a foreboding new theme: economic security...

...Even if this new federation does not join in the LDP's conservative dream alliance, the merger has already split Sohyo and the Socialists down the middle...

...at last report, he was sending meaningless suggestions to his boss from his bed in a psychiatric ward...

...The balanced budget seems to be as elusive in Tokyo as it is in Washington, and the government admits it can't meet its initial target date of fiscal 1984...

...the social system, too, is sending up distress signals...

...I recall," he says reverently, "the motto my mother chose for the girls' school she founded forty years ago: 'Personal Frugality, Social Abundance.' I think that is what the government reform is aiming at...

...You'd think we live in a state of perpetual crisis...

...One of the last surviving business leaders born in the Meiji period, Doko carries the aura of an entrepreneurial nationalist...

...Rationalization," first by forging Ishikawajima Harima Heavy Industries into the largest shipbuilding firm in the world, then by rescuing the Toshiba electronics company from nearbankruptcy...

...But that generation is dying out, giving way to a new breed of technocrats :^ who lack charisma and authority...

...One quickly realizes that Japan's crisis mentality has more to do with politics than with actual fears for the vulnerability of the economy...

...Big business cloaks its quest for profit in patriotism so that it seems proper, for example, for corporate leaders to play a dominant role in shaping government economic policy...

...The L D P , encouraged by its new strength, has a vision to match Nakasone's...

...Doko is a stern taskmaster...

...We exchange greetings and he invites us in for tea...

...Personal savings have been a prime source of funds to fuel business investment and economic growth...

...Another Toyota worker compiled an award-winning record of sixty suggestions per month until he ran out of ideas and suffered a nervous breakdown...

...Still, despite the tremendous stress of rising energy costs and worldwide economic slump, Japanese business performance in the early 1980s has far exceeded the West's...

...Within industry and on the political front, opposition was intense throughout the 1950s, as the foundations were laid for Japan's present configuration of power...

...The influential Industrial Structure Council, a government advisory board headed by Doko, proposed last summer that the paramount aim of economic planning be security from the dangers of protectionism and resource nationalism...

...Later, on the way to the train station, Takeshi and I stop to look at the estate of Toshio Doko, an octogenarian business magnate and arguably the most influential personage in Japan's wealthy private sector...

...It may make Japan, Inc., a permanent fixture in the world economy...

...This performance is attributed to a deep-seated work ethic and a Japanese devotion to the preservation of harmony...

...Ostensibly charged with cutting waste and inefficiency from the government bureaucracy, the reform commission has taken on the much broader task of "changing the course of Japanese society...

...The effort is couched in terms of "maintaining the vitality of the national economy," on the conservative assumption that social welfare undermines the will to work...

...Because of the importance of the education system in determining future status, parents have taken to enrolling their children in special classes starting at age three or four...

...Not only the economy stands vulnerable...

...This siege mentality has taken hold at the core of the Japanese economy...

...The Socialists have been unable to articulate an alternative economic plan, aside from consistently defending social spending...

...Despite corporate reluctance, strict environmental protection policies were put into effect...

...The myth of egalitarianism has been sustained by another—that authority and wealth are distributed according to merit...

...Unemployment has passed 2 per cent...

...It represents a further advance in the corporatization of the society and will bolster the authority of the elite...

...Japan is not yet number one, they seem to say, so it must try harder...

...Thus, fiber optics technology and bioengineering should be promoted because they will increase Japan's international bargaining power...

...Isamu Miyazaki, then a top bureaucrat in the Economic Planning Agency, remembers the period well...

...it has never come close to taking power on its own...

...The Olympics came to Tokyo in 1964 and the miracle took hold...

...The taming of the labor movement will significantly weaken the leftist opposition in Japan...

...Annual double-digit expansion of the gross national product is a thing of the past, and the advent of slow growth has brought "zero-sum" calculations into social and political equations...

...The new federation will avoid political struggle and exercise restraint in its wage demands to help maintain Japan's international competitive edge...

...The current unification drive in the Japanese labor movement indicates that collaborationist ideology is, indeed, being transferred from the shop floor to the national arena...

...The government justified both moves in terms of overriding national interest: The transition from coal to oil energy—and closing the coal mines—was necessary for the modernization of industry, while the renewed security treaty would protect Japan from military threats...

...The Japanese corporate elite entrenches its sweeping authority by constantly raising the specter of economic crisis...

...Organized labor is now in the process of merging into a single united front, under the leadership of conservative unions from the steel, electronics, and automobile industries—all of which depend heavily on foreign markets and are leading the drive toward cooperative unionism...

...Not coincident ally, these unions have been primary targets of Doko's administrative reform campaign...

...Young office workers are complacent and unproductive...

...That's how they keep things going," Takeshi observes, shaking his head...

...The government argues that the "mature" economies of the West show a tendency toward stagnation and experience a declining work ethic because they extend liberal social benefits...

...Fostering that faith may be the greatest success of the Japanese system...

...The largest, Sohyo, is closely tied to the Japan Socialist Party...

...However, if it were to arise, it would need the kind of unifying force that could be provided by the spirit of economic nationalism...

...This spirit of do-or-die urgency is a strong current through much of Japan's economy policy...

...Toshio Doko's administrative reform campaign—the "second Meiji Restoration"— is a visible manifestation of the party's new boldness, signaling that social programs no longer need to be offered as a sop to the opposition...

...Doko's philosophy is closely akin to Ronald Reagan's, and like Reagan he traces his principles back to his childhood...

...He is a strapping youth, already a head taller than his father...

...The challenge of 1960 was forcibly put down by the national police and paramilitary thugs, but Kishi was compelled to resign and a new political tone was struck...

...An analogy can be drawn between labor-management "harmony" at the enterprise level and national consensus to defend the corporate economy...

...Calls for a renewed dedication to the national cause of economic performance are sure to grow more strident...

...At the same time, a growing student movement began protesting Japan's support role for the U . S . war in Vietnam and questioning the elitism of the education system...

...alienation from the political process is fed by the blatant corruption of the Liberal Democratic Party...

...Given the LDP's close association with postwar affluence and the opposition's unproven administrative abilities, it was not surprising that the electorate perceived the ruling party as the safer alternative...

...Contrary to the popular Western image of Japan as a nation of "group-think" and unquestioning allegiance to the managers of the national economy, the years since World War II have been punctuated by periodic challenges to the authority of the business elite...

...The Third World is learning how to make steel and stereos...

...Throughout the postwar years of rapid growth, the bulk of national resources was funneled toward economic expansion, while social needs had low priority...

...While the \ x conservatives dream of sustaining their hold on power into the Twenty-first Century, it is by no means clear that Japanese of Tsuyoshi's generation will subscribe to a single-minded pursuit of efficiency...

...The election of Nakasone itself represents a significant development...

...One peak of postwar resistance occurred in 1959-1960, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators battled police during protests against large-scale layoffs in the coal industry and against the extension of Japan's security treaty with the United States...

...The party's expedient maneuvering extricated it from a tight political squeeze, but it had suffered a serious loss of esteem and popular support...

...Coalitions of opposition parties began to win local election victories, and when Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was indicted for accepting bribes in the Lockheed scandal, it appeared the conservatives were finally losing their tight grip...

...But as our unscheduled audience with the high priest of the Japanese establishment commences, it becomes apparent that something else lies behind his unassuming mien: absolute self-discipline...

...There is no other way...

...It has not always operated flawlessly, and it continues to be plagued with internal tensions...

...But analysis of the nationalistic aspect has been notably lacking in Western treatments of the Japanese economic miracle...

...The document Miyazaki was preparing would be called the "Income Doubling Plan...

...Japan had long maintained only a skeletal social welfare structure, but the situation became politically untenable by around 1970 after more than a decade of rapid growth...

...At press conferences and staged rallies, the reform has been cast as a precondition to economic recovery...

...It now appears one needs sufficient means to get onto the fast track...

...Tiie dynamic resembles the manipulative invocation of the "Soviet threat" in the United States...

...During the turbulent 1970s, he chaired the Federation of Business Organizations, the policy headquarters of Japanese big business...

...Kaku?i Tanaka, who is on trial for bribe-taking, remains the most powerful politician within the LDP...

...Since Japan remains a largely demilitarized state, at least for the moment, discussions of national interest and security tend to focus on economic aspects...

...Politicians and commentators point with pride to government polls in which 90 per cent of the population consistently defines itself as "middle class...

...To be sure, the Japanese do enjoy preening the lustrous feathers of their admired economy...

...Funds for social services and insurance were increased, and economic plans committed the government to regional development and improvement of the infrastructure...

...If these cultural traits were the only factors at work, however, one would be hard-pressed to explain the conflict and dissent that have, at times, approached the intensity of popular uprisings...

...It is his personal ethic and his prescription for the future of Japan...

...By 1950, with the help of the U . S . occupation forces, the old ruling bloc had reestablished itself—but the dissent was by no means extinguished...

...A recent advisory report on the future of electronic automation and computerization asserted, for example, "The Japan of tomorrow will not come into being through the simple extension of the present...

...The burden, and it is a heavy one, is on the individual to prove himself or herself worthy...

...There is undoubtedly some cause for real concern...

...The principal thrust is to cut government spending and achieve a balanced budget—the Japanese version of Reaganomics...

...Furthermore, the government fears that social spending will cause a drop in the savings ratio, which stood at 20.8 per cent of disposable income in 1981—four times the rate in the United States...

...In the 1980 general election, the L D P scored a convincing victory...

...In a newspaper poll conducted last April, for example, two-thirds of the respondents characterized Japanese society as lacking in equality—an increase of 20 per cent in two years...

...It promised green zones of pollution-free industry, regional development, and "technopolises"— modeled on California's Silicon Valley— throughout the country...

...The widely reported fact that the parents of University of Tokyo students have twice the average national income has eroded belief in the meritocracy...

...Inside, the sweet smell of incense from the family altar perfumes the air...

...he asks...

...Two ideological weapons were deployed against this undercurrent of resistance: appeals for national unity in the face of economic adversity, and promises of future prosperity in return for diligence and restraint...

...He wrote "Reluctant Warriors: Will Japan Be Yanked Back into Uniform...

...Nobusuke Kishi, who was then prime minister, symbolized the political character of the initiatives: A n extreme rightist, he had been in charge of the Manchurian economy after the Japanese occupied that territory in the 1930s, was responsible for directing the arms industry during World War I I , and served three years in prison as a war criminal after the surrender...

...In 1982, for the first time in more than two decades, the railway workers did not strike in support of their own wage demands...

...Cultural predisposition has, in fact, been skillfully manipulated to produce a particular public concept of the national interest...

...In the thirty-five years since these reforms, the Japanese have been regrouping, searching for alignments of power that are better suited to the national character, the reasoning goes...

...By the end of the decade, Japan had the world's third-largest economy, and affluence spread through the population...

...My teacher was talking about it in class the other day," Tsuyoshi replies...

...The Japanese Model Twelve-year-old Tsuyoshi looks up from his fan magazine—he's been reading about Journey, his favorite rock-'n'-roll band—and interjects into our after-dinner cofiversation, "Yeah, things are pretty serious...

...Those who oppose it are enemies of the people...

...Japan has reached the limits of spectacular growth...

...Doko's administrative reform campaign conforms to the politics behind Japan's economy...

...By 1975, the budget for social insurance had more than doubled, and it doubled again by 1980...

...Teachers drill it into kids in elementary school...

...There is widespread speculation that the justice minister, a loyalist, may throw out Tanaka's expected conviction when it is handed down later this year...

...This cacophony of alarms, amplified daily in the Japanese press, perplexes Western visitors...

...The attempt to tap the sentiments of economic nationalism has shown little restraint...

...Like the chorus of a Greek tragedy, the bureaucracy seems to intone a steady refrain: Take heed...

...And the women's movement, weak in any case, was sent into retreat...

...The "grand alliance" would be the end result of i h k evolution, an indigenous system free of foreign influence—and firmly controlled by the conservative elite...

...This continues to be the case: The Japanese are racing toward development of a supercomputer, for example, but in the industrial city of Kawasaki only 36 per cent of the households have been connected to the municipal sewer system...

...While working on a new economic plan in his office, he could hear the fighting and smell the tear gas from the battle raging outside the Diet...

...The conservatives' consolidation of power was a remarkable turnaround from the early 1970s, and it filled the party with confidence...

...Using its suprapolitical authority, the Doko commission is attempting to roll back these social gains before the mechanisms and expectations of a welfare state become entrenched...

...in the November 1982 issue of The Progressive...

...His statement is featured in newspaper ads for the book...

...The government's response, after hardline resistance failed to disperse the opposition, was to adopt a pattern of accommodation...

...His friends all carry tennis rackets—totems of a new leisure class—on the train to school...

...A position paper in the party's national journal predicted last year that a new political alignment would take shape by 1985...

...He draws his lips tight with determination when he discusses his latest effort to whip Japan into shape—a far-ranging campaign to reform the government bureaucracy and roll back social welfare spending...

...An especially strong attempt to transfer power to a broader cross-section of the society was mounted immediately after the war, when the old power structure was in disarray and out of favor...

...He is deeply nationalistic, promilitary, and determined to erase the shame of Japan's World War II defeat and bring the nation into its own as a world power...

...Introduced by the new prime minister^Hayato Ikeda, it promised living standards on the European level by the end of the decade...

...The rapid growth of the past decades has made this easier to accomplish, and the current crisis has given the conservatives an opportunity to consolidate their hold on power...

...The threats, real though they may be, are overstated to rally support behind those in power...

...Nonetheless, the Doko commission has created a favorable environment for redefining national priorities, and Nakasone's administration is firmly committed to seeing the program through...

...we must be diligent...

...Their teachers urge them on in the diligent pursuit of their studies, but one can't help wondering whether they are really listening...

...Its industry is thrusting doggedly forward into the frontiers of high technology...

...On a national level, the planned conversion to knowledgeintensive, high-technology industry was stepped up...

...And a small women's movement challenged one of the most thoroughly maledominated societies in the world...

...The population is rapidly aging...

...This neatly constructed social mechanism—a consensus-oriented growth economy supported by an ostensibly egalitarian meritocracy—is the heart of the Japwielded by those in control...

...The business community has been mobilized to apply political pressure on behalf of Doko's austerity campaign...

...Tanaka was replaced by Takeo Miki, head of a moderate faction within the LDP, whothad threatened to bolt the party and establish a centrist coalition...

...The 1979 plan, for example, was packaged as "establishing a creative economy" and "building the nation through technology...

...We come, after all, expecting to marvel at the smoothly meshing gears of an industrial machine...

...The JSP typically criticizes government-business collusion and Japan's close adherence to American foreign policy—issues that had popular appeal a decade ago but are now eclipsed by the economic crisis...

...The Japanese people are, in effect, constantly exhorted to wage economic warfare...

...If we relax, the economy will collapse...

...The environmental movement, somewhat defused by the government's antipollution initiatives, was portrayed as unpatriotic and forced into isolation...

...This mingling of business and national interests has its roots in the Nineteenth Century, when the entrepreneurs of the Meiji period set out to modernize Japan under the slogan "Fukoku ky?hei"—"A Prosperous Nation and a Strong Army...

...The patriarchs of Japan's corporate world—men like Toshio Doko—have lent an aura of austere integrity to the exercise of power...

...Doko is the figurehead and spiritual leader—"the ultimate in utility value," according to Yasuhiro Nakasone, the administration official responsible for the reform drive until he was elected prime minister last November...

...It reveals a coercive strain in the management of the miracle, a strain that has always existed though it was hidden, until recently, by the optimistic assumptions of perpetual growth...