MITI and the Japanese miracle

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agreements among themselves to raise prices and withhold products from the market. MITI was not charged, nor was administrative guidance mentioned in the indictment, but the defendants made it clear that both would form the heart of their defense. The executives each faced a maximum penalty of three years in jail or a ¥500,000 fine.

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So began the famous "black cartel" (

yami karuteru

) case. According to the press the women of the Housewives' Federation repeatedly shouted "banzai" on hearing the news of the indictments, but Keidanren was definitely displeased. FTC Chairman Takahashi said that the indictments should serve as a warning to others. MITI indicated that its administrative guidance had been ''betrayed" by the oil companies, and that it planned to review the entire matter for future policy action. In a press conference Vice-Minister Yamashita also said that he hoped Japanese industrialists would not "lose their motivation" and become "desperate" as a result of the indictments.

The case was the first criminal prosecution for a violation of the Antimonopoly Law since its enactment, and the first instance of a government official criticizing administrative guidance in the line of duty since the practice had begun. However, more important than the case itselfwhich dragged on in the courts until 1980, when the Tokyo High Court finally ruled that MITI was not authorized to cause companies to restrict production through administrative guidancewas FTC Chairman Takahashi's attempt to strengthen the Antimonopoly Law. On September 18, 1974, the FTC published its proposed revisions, including one giving the FTC power to order companies to desist from cartels and to lower prices (under the AML as it then stood, the commission could only issue warnings). It also proposed strengthening the rules on splitting companies that had achieved near monopoly control over their industries, authorization of prosecutions for price fixing on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone, and several other changes.

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Even though Keidanren and MITI bitterly opposed the AML revision, the FTC case was given a boost when in November a scandal broke over Prime Minister Tanaka's expenditures of huge sums of money in the July election for the upper house and over charges that he had profited personally from his tenure in officeand, worse, that he had not reported the details to the tax authorities. No legal action was taken against him, but on November 26 he resigned as prime minister. Because the LDP had fallen to a new low in public esteem, Vice-President Shiina Etsusaburo* of the LDP turned to Miki Takeo (MITI minister when Sahashi was vice-minister); among politicians Miki was known to the public as "Mr. Clean." Among his several