Eastern and Western Ideas for African Growth by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2022-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

3 Japanese development experience matters

Growth only happens when it is politically possible. One crucial dimension to Japan’s economic recovery was the era of Prime Minister Ikeda for whom delivering economic growth meant political survival. In 1960 the renewal of the Japan–US Security Treaty provoked violent nationwide protests. A sense of national crisis shook the confidence of the Japanese political, business and bureaucratic elite, and the previous government resigned in an atmosphere of political chaos. The new Ikeda government, from 1960 to 1964, deliberately sought a new national vision to avoid confrontation over political ideology. Ikeda, a former MITI minister, successfully refocused national attention on his plan to double Japanese GDP within a decade—this had succeeded by 1967. Ikeda was described as ‘the single most important figure in Japan’s rapid growth. He should long be remembered as the man who pulled together a national consensus for economic growth’ (Nakamura 1987).7 Japanese politics now turned on the seichoritsu (growth rate). Charles De Gaulle offered another epitaph, allegedly asking after meeting Ikeda: ‘Who is that transistor salesman?’

Europeans who managed to visit Japan before the end of the Tokugawa regime’s policy of isolation in the middle of the nineteenth century were always surprised to discover how effectively the country was run. The Swedish surgeon and naturalist Peter Thunberg, for example, travelling from Nagasaki to Edo (Tokyo) in 1776, was impressed how

both the supreme government and the civil magistrates make the welfare of the state, the preservation of order, and the protection of the persons and property of the subject, an object of greater moment and attention in this country than in most others.

(Voyage de C.P., 1796, IV, p.11)

This political strength combined with a strong work ethic developed a political system of reinforcing the state’s legitimacy through building its administrative capabilities and political responsiveness to the needs of the population, with long-term consequences for commitment to the success of the private sector (Morishima, 1982). Japan successfully evolved from feudal to global power within two generations, but Japanese industrialisation was by no means self-evident. A German economist visiting Japanese factories in the late 1880s reported that ‘Japanese workers work relatively little and that all work progresses only slowly’ (Rathgen, 1891, p.422). The political elites of the Meiji Restoration that overthrew the feudal Tokugawa regime in 1868 were determined to preserve Japan’s political independence through economic wealth and military power. Aware of the dangers of dependency, their unifying vision was to overcome this external threat: subservience to foreign powers ‘is a deep-seated disease afflicting vital areas of the nation’s life’ (Fukuzawa, 1875 [1931], p.189). An effective state was essential and, mirroring continuing argument about modernisation theory about autocratic rule ‘to get things done’, even ardent democrats throughout the Meiji period were much concerned that the constitutional government could lead to violent rifts in the national political consensus that would set back progress in both political and economic development (Przeworski et al., 2000).8

British observers of Meiji Japan’s early development prospects were however scathing:

In this part of the world,

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