MITI and the Japanese miracle

Page 164

Several months passed before the corporation could begin operations; bonds had to be sold, a staff gathered, and clear policies formulated by MCI for its operations. Meanwhile, the war outlook worsened. The battle for Midway was fought in June 1942, and in August American forces began landing on Guadalcanal. One official MITI history notes laconically, "Japan's true wartime economy began only after Guadalcanal."

¹⁰

In order to prepare for what he feared was coming and in order to get around the stumbling block of the control associations in a future emergency, Kishi arranged for two Imperial ordinances to be issued, neither of which he could fully implement for more than a year. They did not make a great contribution to the war effort, but their influence can still be felt in Japan in terms of the postwar industrial structure. The first was the Enterprise Licensing Ordinance (Kigyo* Kyoka Rei, number 1084 of December 11, 1941), which made it illegal to open a new business without a government license; the second and more important was the Enterprise Readjustment Ordinance (Kigyo Seibi Rei, number 503 of May 13, 1942), which gave the government legal authority to order any enterprise whatever to convert to munitions production.

Kishi and Shiina next concluded that they needed a new control apparatus within MCI to administer the Enterprise Readjustment Ordinance and to supervise the work of the Industrial Facilities Corporation. On June 17, 1942, they created the new Enterprises Bureau, placed it immediately after the General Affairs Bureau in the ministry's internal chain of command, and designated it as the policy center for all industrial reorganization and production-increase activities. The Enterprises Bureau absorbed the existing Promotion Department and the Financial Section of the General Affairs Bureau. It was made responsible for the supply of capital, the internal organization, the management practices, and the efficiency of all Japanese enterprises. Its duties included supervising the Industrial Facilities Corporation, dealing with all questions concerning medium and smaller enterprises, and inspecting and controlling company financial and accounting affairs. The bureau was divided into four sectionsFacilities (Setsubi-ka), Commercial Policy (Shosei-ka*), Industrial Policy (Kosei-ka*), and Finance (Shikin-ka)and it was given authority over all other bureaus in the ministry in order to insure that its programs were executed. The first director was Toyoda Masataka, Shiina's successor as vice-minister after the war and a member of the Diet from 1953 to 1968.

During the second half of 1942 and into 1943 the Enterprises Bureau used its various policy instrumentsthe two ordinances, the