Chalmers Johnson - MITI and the Japanese miracle

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reaucratic competition and coordination common to all state systems occur prominently in Japan, including leaks to and bureaucratic manipulation of the press, selective briefing of favored politicians, the maintenance of secrecy concerning the actual norms of bureaucratic life, and so forth.

The other kind of conflictthat between the bureaucracy and political authoritiesis equally common. The effective functioning of the developmental system requires a separation between reigning and ruling, but the separation itself is never formally acknowledged (it is ura, not omote; implicit, not explicit). As a result, boundary problems are inevitable, and serious conflict occurs when the political leaders believe the bureaucracy is exceeding its powers (as during the 1930's) or when the bureaucracy believes the politicians are exceeding theirs (as during the "Fukuda typhoon" or under the regime of Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei). MITI's history reveals numerous examples of this type of conflict: the fight between MCI Minister Ogawa and Yoshino and Kishi; the fight between zaibatsu-connected ministers and the reform bureaucrats; the fight between MCI Minister Kobayashi and Kishi and the "reds" of the Cabinet Planning Board; the fight between Tojo * and Kishi during 1944 (although perhaps this is a better example of intrabureaucratic conflict); the fight between Yoshida and Shirasu on the one hand and the leaders of MCI on the other at the time of the creation of MITI; and the involvement of politicians in the Imai-Sahashi dispute.

Most of the practices used to mitigate struggles among bureaucrats are also suitable for mitigating struggles between bureaucrats and politicians. The norm is the attempt to avoid or to privatize conflict. This is often achieved by combining the perspectives of each side in one leader. Japan's most important postwar politiciansYoshida, Kishi, Ikeda, Sato*, Fukuda Takeo, and Ohira*were all former senior bureaucrats. Although it is natural that political leaders would be found among such an intrinsic elite as the Japanese higher bureaucracy, their utilization in postwar Japan has certainly contributed to the effective operation and coordination of the Japanese developmental state.

This exercise in model building is not intended either to detract from Japanese achievements or to recommend the Japanese model to others. The history of MITI actually reveals a harder lesson than either of these; for all of Japan's alleged borrowing from abroad, the Japanese political genius rests in the identification and use of their own political assets. The development of MITI was a harrowing pro-

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cess, but its special characteristics and the environment in which it works arise from the special interaction of the Japanese state and society. The Japanese built on known strengths: their bureaucracy, their zaibatsu, their banking system, their homogeneous society, and the markets available to them. Such postwar reforms as the elimination of the military from political life, the rationalization of the zaibatsu, the strengthening of the Diet, and the equalization of social classes were all important, but the institutions of the Japanese developmental state are products of Japanese innovation and experience.

This suggests that other nations seeking to emulate Japan's achievements might be better advised to fabricate the institutions of their own developmental states from local materials. It might suggest, for example, that what a country like the United States needs is not what Japan has but, rather, less regulation and more incentives by the government for people to save, invest, work, and compete internationally. The Japanese learned to cooperate effectively with each other as a matter of national survival; the wars and economic miseries of the 1940's compelled them to maintain what were essentially wartime degrees of social and economic mobilization well into the 1960's. Lacking a comparable consensus on goals, the United States might be better advised to build on its own strengths and to unleash the private, competitive impulses of its citizens rather than add still another layer to its already burdensome regulatory bureaucracy.

Such an American policy may, however, be unrealistic for the longer term. Given the need for the United States to maintain the military balance among the nuclear powers; to reinvigorate its economy; to achieve coordination among its environmental, energy, welfare, educational, and productive policies; and to stop living off its capital; Americans should perhaps also be thinking seriously about their own "pilot agency." Above all the United States must learn to forecast and to coordinate the effects of its governmental policies. Agricultural policy has for too long been left outside any integrated economic strategy; commercial and economic representatives have for too long endured second-class status in the State Department's hierarchy; domestic regulatory actions have for too long been taken without a prior cost-benefit analysis of their economic impact; and a growing legal thicket has for too long replaced goal-oriented, strategic thought in economic affairs. These are some of the things that an economic pilot agency might tackle in the United States. It is not clear that the United States could ever free such an apparatus from the constraints imposed by congress, the courts, and special interest groups; but if economic

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mobilization becomes a national priority, then MITI will be an important institution to study and think about. As Peter Drucker has put it, "The exception, the comparatively rare service institution that achieves effectiveness, is more instructive than the great majority that achieves only 'programs.'"

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Appendix A

The Political and Administrative Leadership of the Trade and Industry Bureaucracy, 19251975

Ministers

Vice-ministers

I. MINISTRY OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY (Shoko-sho *), 19251943

First

Kato

*

Takaaki Cabinet, June 11, 1924August 2, 1925 (Coalition)

1. Takahashi Korekiyo, 4/1/254/17/25

(Seiyukai*)

1. Shijo* Takafusa, 4/1/254/10/29

2. Noda Utaro*, 4/18/258/2/25 (Seiyukai)

Second Kato Takaaki Cabinet, August 2, 1925January 30, 1926 (Kenseikai)

3. Kataoka Naoharu, 8/2/251/30/26

(Minseito*)

First Wakatsuki Cabinet, January 30, 1926April 20, 1927

(Minseito

*

)

Kataoka Naoharu, 1/30/269/14/26

4. Fujisawa Ikunosuke, 9/14/264/20/27

(Minseito)

Tanaka Giichi Cabinet, April 20, 1927July 2, 1929

(Seiyukai

*

)

5. Nakahashi Tokugoro*, 4/20/277/2/29

(Seiyukai)

2. Mitsui Yonematsu, 4/10/297/2/30

Hamaguchi Cabinet, July 2, 1929April 14, 1931 (Minseito)

6. Tawara Magoichi, 7/2/294/14/31

(Minseito)