MITI and the Japanese miracle

Page 43

in the Ministry of Finance (contrast the U.S. Office of Management and Budget attached to the President's staff).

²⁷

An amendment to the National Public Service Law enacted during 1948 compelled the reexamination of all officials from assistant section chiefs up to and including administrative vice-ministers. Despite protests from older officials, this examination took place on January 15, 1950and instantly became known as the "Paradise Exam," since officials could smoke, drink tea, and take as long as they wished (some stayed all night). As a result, about 30 percent of incumbent officials failed to be reappointed, but the government simultaneously undertook a matching 30 percent reduction in force, so the net result was that no new blood entered the bureaucracy except through regular recruitment channels.

Aside from its enhanced status, however, the rapid rise of the economic bureaucracy during the occupation was primarily due to circumstances. First and foremost was SCAP's decision to conduct an indirect occupation, working through and giving orders to the Japanese government rather than displacing it. In the eyes of many Japanese this was probably a desirable decision, but it opened the way for the bureaucracy to protect itself. Seven years of bureaucratic

menju

*

fukuhai

(following orders to a superior's face, reversing them in the belly) is the way one commentator has put it.

²⁸

Prof. Tsuji Kiyoaki, Japan's most prominent authority on the public service, believes the two key reasons for the perpetuation of what he calls the "Imperial (tenno*) system," meaning not the Imperial institution itself but the structure of a state bureaucracy unconstrained by either the cabinet or the Diet, were indirect rule and the prompt acceptance by the government of the new American-drafted constitution. The latter forestalled MacArthur's threat to take his constitution to the people in a plebiscite if the government continued to balk. Tsuji acknowledges that the Constitution of 1947 provides for a highly responsible, democratic governmentthe constitution was, in fact, the most important act of positive democratization carried out by the occupation. But he believes the important point was seen by the bureaucrats: the need to avoid direct participation in politics by the people if bureaucratic power was to be preserved. The Constitution of 1947, as liberal as it unquestionably is, was bestowed on the society from above just as was the Meiji Constitution of 1889.

²⁹

A comment made by a Ministry of Finance official to John Campbell elucidates Tsuji's point. Japan, he said, "has never undergone a 'people's revolution,' which would have created a feeling among citizens