We are almost halfway through the year 2018. As of today, the news of the year in Japan seems most likely to be the country's ongoing preparations for the calm dawn of the era of the new emperor in May 2019, when the crown prince's accession to the throne will take place, while the top news in the world will probably be the just-ended much-ado-about-nothing U.S.-North Korea summit meeting.
The two events are obviously quite irrelevant to each other, but as I was following news reports about each of them, a common theme -- a pair of questions -- emerged in my mind. The questions were somewhat odd: What should a modern nation look like, and what kind of country is considered a good one?
What made me curious to know the answers to these questions was my impression that U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, playing the leading parts in the runup to and during the June 12 summit meeting, look amusingly alike. They look like two peas in a pod as they espouse power, have strong exhibitionistic tendencies and loudly repeat their trademarked phrases of making their respective countries "great." Although North Korea ruled by Kim is incomparably weaker than the United States headed by Trump, one could even say the two countries are similar to each other, as both tend to take self-righteous attitudes toward foreign countries -- their populations, too, may be similar to each other as they follow their respective leaders to a considerable degree.
In the rest of the world, the number of national leaders with such characteristics has considerably decreased. Nonetheless, our neighborhood has superpower leaders -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. With countries that are immense in geographical size and have powerful armed forces, they are pursuing an expansionist policy, looking beyond their borders. Russia, albeit having suffered from economic difficulties in recent years, has robust growth potential in such areas as natural resources. China appears to have been looking around to lord it over others for some time now as the world's second-biggest economy.
No pride in greatness
When we then turn our eyes to North Korea, it becomes evident that almost the whole of Northeast Asia is dominated by the region's club of "great nations," including China and Russia. As such, Japan, located on the edge of this club, inevitably feels "small." In fact, postwar Japan is small in territorial size and has kept a low profile in the defense and diplomatic fields over the postwar period of more than half a century. Particularly in terms of national consciousness, Japan is unique in the world, as it neither takes pride in nor pursues being a "great" nation.
In this connection, I would like to refer to the forthcoming end of the current Imperial era of Heisei, which will occur concurrently with the Emperor's abdication on April 30, 2019. We know the Emperor will be stepping down very calmly, while tacitly recognizing his advanced age and a decline in his fitness level. The fact that the Emperor -- the highest authority of the country -- has not acted out of vanity at all symbolizes Japanese society.
Even if Japanese people neither consider Japan to be a great nation nor aim to make it great, that does not mean that our country is unattractive. Since the end of World War II, Japan has maintained peace with elected governments steadily in place and it is now the world's third-biggest economy with the lowest unemployment rate among major countries and has one of the highest wage levels in Asia.
Japanese people seem to be conscious of these advantageous features of the Japanese economy. In recent years, public surveys have shown that more than half of the respondents have felt "very satisfied" or "fairly satisfied" with their current lives.
I remember that for many past decades Japan was not what it is now. In the years prior to World War II, the Japanese population staged nationwide campaigns to make the country great, while hiding their true feelings of discontent with their everyday lives. In the postwar years, too, there were people who, despite suffering from long working hours, boasted the "greatness" of the country as they got very so excited over U.S. social sciences professor Ezra Vogel's flattering description of "Japan as Number One" -- the title of his 1979 book.
Society's biggest challenge
But it seems now that our society is entirely free from such illusions and that wise Japanese people are thinking of rebuilding Japan as a decent, ordinary country, and, for that matter, as a "great nation in which modesty prevails." In recent years, numerous books have been published focusing on the alarming state of Japanese society, which is faced with demographic contraction coupled with the fast aging of the population, depleting resources and environmental deterioration. They have advocated the transformation of the country into a "steady-state society." In 2017, Japanese economist and thinker Keishi Saeki published a book titled "Keizai Seicho eno Ketsubetsu" (Farewell to Economic Growth). According to the author, the Japanese economy has another bottleneck to cope with -- a situation in which Japan will be deprived of manufacturing operations, as they will choose to be relocated to countries with lower wages.
The viewpoints expressed in those books are all convincing. But given that Japanese society has so far been confident of its problem-solving ability to eliminate economic difficulties with the application of growth strategies, it is quite difficult to break with such a longstanding approach. Indeed, it is a daunting task for Japan to avert the deepening of economic inequality -- the biggest challenge for today's society -- without being hindered by illusions of the past.
Economic inequality is not only an economic issue, but also an ethical issue that will undermine human dignity if such inequality continues escalating. Differences in the level of effort that individuals expend, and in their innate abilities, are not the only reasons for the gap. Social customs and systems are more accountable. What is particularly important to remember is that there can be no alternative to the state and the compelling power it has in reducing economic inequality in the age of globalization.
As for the actual state of inequality, things are not quite as bad in Japan as in the United States and China, both of which have reportedly seen such gaps widening in a way to be expressed in astronomical numbers. Nevertheless, it is said to be relatively easier for the two "great nations" to keep the issue of inequality from troubling their economies for a while or to make the troublesome situation less visible.
The United States, now under the leadership of President Trump, may be able to expand its economic pie by setting terms of trade favorable to itself through bilateral negotiations with trading partners to reduce imports and increase exports, and by forcing foreign companies to set up manufacturing facilities on its soil. As far as the United States is concerned, it's in a position to let its people believe that when the economic pie grows, the so-called trickle-down effect occurs, alleviating economic inequality as a natural consequence, even though this theory is in reality a fable.
China has been very active in expanding its economic pie by taking advantage of globalization by investing in and extending what it calls economic assistance to neighboring and distant countries, only to let Chinese companies exploit host countries' markets and export Chinese labor abroad. If developing countries fail to repay Chinese assistance -- most of which has been extended as "tied" aid -- they are subject to harsh debt collection. Certain recipient countries have already offered parts of their territories or sovereign rights to China as de facto collateral for Chinese borrowings. What's more, some of them have been compelled to establish alliances with China and allow Chinese military installations to be constructed in their territories.
From the perspective of the Chinese leadership, the abovementioned expansionist strategy is effective in letting the Chinese people cherish the illusion that they can continue benefiting from the continuous enlargement of China's economic pie. The Chinese leadership has another tool to more directly stifle the Chinese population's discontent over economic inequality: the suppression of freedom of speech, of course.
So how about North Korea? As it has been the worst case of a "great nation" in terms of oppression of its own people for many decades, sarcastically speaking, the North has no issue of economic inequality in the first place.
Long-range tax reform
In contrast, Japan does not opt to pressure other countries to expand its own economic pie, let alone suppress freedom of speech to gag voices of discontent among its people. Therefore, it has no choice but to endeavor to reduce economic inequality in an honest, painstaking manner to the extent that such efforts will help promote and facilitate economic equality and avert social divide. To that end, as no unconventional and clever means can be possible, the only best possible solution for our society is to apply the traditional method of redistributing income among the people.
However, what is now in place is the opposite. Japan no longer applies the "highly progressive taxation" system, which was the postwar norm for the country. Moreover, as the country has introduced the consumption tax, it is pointed out that this tax even causes people to feel the impact of reverse progressive taxation.
As such, it is about time for the government to draw up a long-range roadmap for tax reform, including the reinstatement of the highly progressive taxation system.
-- Yamazaki is a playwright and critic. Previously he was a professor at Osaka University and chaired the Central Council on Education. The government has named him a Person of Cultural Merit.
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