MITI and the Japanese miracle

Page 71

juniors as "digging around the roots" (

nemawashi

), that is, preparing the groundwork for a government-business decision. To outsiders it often looks like "consensus."

The most senior amakudari positionsfor example, the postretirement landing spots of MITI's vice-ministers (see Table 6)are bases from which to coordinate the strategic sectors. At this level the Western distinction between public and private loses its meaning. As Eleanor Hadley remarks about the prewar zaibatsu, "The combines' strength was regarded as national strength but their profits were seen as private property."

⁸⁸

In the postwar world this relationship persists, except that the weight of the government is much stronger. Sato* Kiichiro*, former president of the Mitsui Bank, observes that "during and after the war, . . . Japan's economy was controlled until it has become second nature with us to uphold a planned, controlled economy."

⁸⁹

At the level of the supreme leadership of the business community, the primary concern is that the relationship between government and business be managed effectively for the good of all. Amakudari is significant here only in that it contributes to a common orientationas does education at Todai*, golf club memberships (MITI's Amaya acknowledges that "they do other things than play golf at golf courses"), and the common experience of the war and its aftermath.

⁹⁰

Of the five postwar presidents of Keidanren (the Federation of Economic Organizations)Ishikawa Ichiro* (18851970), Ishizaka Taizo* (18861975), Uemura Kogoro* (18941978), Doko* Toshio (b. 1896), and Inayama Yoshihiro (b. 1904)three are former bureaucrats (one at Communications, two at Commerce and Industry) and four are graduates of Todai (one in engineering, one in economics, and two in law). It would be difficult, however, to correlate their backgrounds with their policies, except to say that all five worked closely with the government. Ishikawa (a nonbureaucrat engineer), Uemura (an exbureaucrat), and Inayama (an ex-bureaucrat) were most cooperative; Doko (a nonTodai engineer) was less so; and Ishizaka (a Todai law exbureaucrat), perhaps surprisingly, was the least cooperative.

Amakudari provides one more channel of communication for the government, the business community, and the political world. Nakamura Takafusa believes it is the main channel of liaison between the business world and the bureaucratic world.

⁹¹

Nonetheless, its influence is tempered by the similar but also cross-cutting influences of school ties, marital alliances, clan networks, deliberation councils, senior-junior relations, and the ministerial clubs of all retired bureaucrats (for example, MITI's Kayo-kai*, or Tuesday Club, had some 588 members in 1963).

⁹²

The human element also enters. Some bureau-