|
The
third pillar of world economy has never recovered from the bursting
of the speculative bubble of the Eighties and has become the “sick man”
of our age.
For
decades now, world economy has been supported by three pillars: the
USA, Europe and Japan. All the rest of the world depends on the health
of these three hefty economic blocs which generally speaking have always
taken it in turns to play locomotive. Now the US motor, which dominated
the Nineties, has broken down and that of Europe is finding it hard
to run at full speed, but the country causing the greatest concern is
Japan, which for the past ten years has been involved in a political-economical-financial
crisis that appears without solution and which, according to latest
available information, now risks taking a very dangerous negative turn.
Some people even fear that Japan’s decline is irreversible, leaving
a vacuum that no other country, or bloc of countries is for the time
being able to fill. There was a time, in the Seventies and Eighties
when Japan looked all set to become the world’s number one economic
power, able to shift the centre of growth from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Its model of consociate capitalism, based on close cooperation between
companies, banks and the state on the one side and on a deep-rooted
bond between companies and workers on the other, continued to work like
clockwork even when Europe was torn by the winds of ’68 and the USA
was struggling in the coils of successive recessions. Branded fifty
years ago as mere imitators, during those years the Japanese became
world leaders, or at least they won themselves a place in the sun in
many industrial sectors, from optics to ship-building, from cars to
motorbikes, from computers to radio and television. The annual growth
rate was for a long time nearly double that of the other major industrial
countries, per capita income sailed past that of Europe, the banks became
the largest in the world, and Japan not only became the largest creditor
country in the world, but also the prime-mover of the enormous growth
of South-East Asia. “Made in Japan” became synonymous with quality.
Sony, Hitachi, Nikon, Toyota, Honda and hundreds of other Japanese industrial
giants invaded world markets with their products. At a certain stage
the flow of yen towards the USA was even essential in sustaining that
country’s economy. The value of land in the large urban centres soared
to incredible heights, to the extent that at a certain point it was
calculated that if the imperial Park around which Tokyo has been built
were put up for sale, it would be worth the whole of California put
together. The Stock Exchange in turn, went up and up and up, without
taking into account the indicators that normally affect stock quotations.
A vicious circle was created. To buy new shares, convinced that the
boom would never stop, people borrowed money from the banks, offering
in exchange real-estate at unrealistic prices. Meanwhile, the economic
financial leadership, virtually outside the control of the shareholders,
made mistake after mistake, something that later proved to be fatal:
bad investments, easy loans for shaky initiatives, employment of excess
personnel. Even today, many banks continue to be burdened down with
debts due, dating back to that period - some speak of two hundred and
forty thousand billion lira -which heavily affect their business and
which cannot be cancelled without the risk of crushing bankruptcies.
Then, one awful day eleven years ago - to be precise, 29 December 1989
- the speculative bubble burst and the Stock Exchange, with selling
fuelled by people who had to pay off debts, started its unstoppable
decline from a Nikkei index peak of 38,000 to the current level of around
13,000. The market literally caved in and everyone ended up so much
poorer. But above all, as the paper capital of entire families went
up in smoke, one of the factors went missing that more than others had
contributed to the extraordinary growth that had continued without interruption
for a generation: the faith Japanese people had in themselves, the sense
of mission that prompted people to work hard for 365 days a year. Of
course, the country is still an industrial superpower, with a persistent
huge balance of payments surplus and products that lead the way in many
fields. But the “QUID” is no longer there that kept it one step ahead
of the others, nor is that team spirit that, in the better years, had
inspired the term “Japan Inc.”. During the nineties in fact, while the
other countries, especially the USA, were quickly making up lost ground,
Japan never recovered from the blow. Starting in 1990, we have witnessed
as series of deep crises interrupted by ephemeral periods of recovery,
which successive governments have in vain tried to fuel with public
spending that increases year after year. By now, the balance of trade
deficit amounts to 8% of the GDP (the Maastricht parameters only allowed
3%), public debt exceeds 150% (Italy, the black-sheep of the EU touches
110%) and Moody’s has been forced to downgrade the country twice in
the course of two years. If all this has not so far led to a crack,
it is only because, with a very low rate of discount, which last month
was even cancelled out altogether, servicing the debt is fairly cheap,
and because half the bonds are in the hands of banks and financial institutes
which, like in the Italy of old, are forced to keep them. The general
public, having burnt its fingers in the Stock Exchange, suspicious of
anything foreign and scared by an uncertain future, has been quite content
to finance the deficit, despite the meagre earnings on their money.
But this ongoing tendency to loan money to the State has been dearly
paid for on other fronts. To the drastic drop in capital earnings, the
Japanese have reacted by curbing consumption and thus preventing any
recovery of the domestic demand without which further growth is out
of the question. It is becoming pretty obvious that the record per capita
income shown by statistics is in actual fact an optic illusion because
in Tokyo a peach costs 10 thousand lire, a meal in a good restaurant
250 thousand lire, a return first-class ticket on a fast train to Osaka
750 thousand lire, and the lifestyle of the average Japanese is, by
and large, lower than that of Europeans. In a western country, the situation
would have been remedied by fostering competition and trying to lower
prices. The Japanese industries on the other hand reacted by forming
cartels, and the government shied off opening the country’s doors to
foreign products. State protectionism (which often, to escape the wrath
of the World Trade Organisation, takes the guise of rules on product
safety and the safeguarding of health) and the tyranny of distribution
systems still continue to ward off Americans and Europeans in many sectors,
or else they are confined to niche markets. This peculiarity is especially
evident for food products because the liberal-democrat party owes its
over fifty years in power to votes from the country and to the farm
lobbies that block all attempt at reform. It has been calculated that
were Japan to open its markets to Mediterranean citrus fruits, to Argentine
beef and to Thai rice, the cost of living index could drop by as much
as 10%. Not even a return to Keynesian policies, abandoned by the rest
of the world, has managed to set the machine back in motion. Thousands
of billions have been invested in public works of doubtful usefulness,
aimed more at keeping an obsolete but still very important manufacturing
industry on its feet (and generating bribes) than modernising infrastructures.
Though money now costs nearly nothing, private enterprise, which is
still afflicted by an excess production capacity that forces it to painfully
reorganise, continues to play the onlooker. Despite Japan remaining
a major industrial power, with a huge balance of payments surplus that
is likely to grow even further following the devaluation of the yen,
the country is urgently in need of a series of deep reforms which a
mediocre political class, without leaders and always involved in anachronistic
internal feuds, is unable to implement. The “Japanese model”, once envied
by everyone, is in fact showing itself to be inadequate for an historical
age that above all requires enterprise, flexibility, technological innovation
and business agility. It is of course true that, compared to ten years
ago, “deregulation” has taken important strides forward in Japan as
well and that the Internet revolution is beginning to produce some results
in that country too, but the reorganisation process, both in the state
and private sectors (especially the mature sectors, dominated by the
large conglomerates) still remains too cumbersome and affected by the
“strong powers”. It is also - and perhaps above all - a question of
culture. Japan was once the home of “lifetime jobs” of the symbiosis
between company and workers. Even though this rule applied in fact to
just one fourth of the workforce employed by the larger companies, it
profoundly affected not only company philosophy but also lifestyles
and the pension system. The crisis has changed this situation somewhat,
but for many people “mobility” is still a dirty word and to take away
an executive from a competitor company by offering him a higher stipend
is still “just not done”. A US-style labour market is not only rejected
- as in Europe - by the unions, it is considered alien to national customs,
based on continuity and solidarity. Another handicap consists in the
scarce inclination of the average Japanese for business enterprise and
risk. Unlike Italy, where medium and small businesses have always represented
the prime-mover of the economy and offset loss of jobs in the larger
industrial concerns, the fortunes of Japan are still firmly in the hands
of the majors, which have spread their names throughout the world and
which use the smaller enterprises as suppliers, sacrificing them as
the need arises. The new economy on the other hand requires something
different, which in Japan is lacking. Despite the country’s advanced
technology and long experience in the sector, it still has no Silicon
Valley and neither has it produced a Bill Gates. Many observers pinpoint
the roots of the problem in the severe and selective school system which,
notwithstanding all its advantages, does not encourage Japan’s young
people to think for themselves and shoulder responsibility. When it
comes to working as a team, of staying in the office until late at night
and perhaps sacrificing holidays on the altar of duty, the Japanese
still beat their European colleagues (but not the Koreans or Taiwanese,
who have become their competitors and rivals). In an age that favours
original initiatives and free-lance work, they feel uneasy. Nor have
the Japanese, who before the boom period immediately after the war lived
in virtually total isolation, yet assimilated all the rules of globalisation;
and sometimes, it seems, they have missed the train. None of the governments
that have succeeded one another over recent years, with a speed worthy
of our First Republic, has had the courage to take the bull by the horns,
and whenever they tried, they were stopped by a Parliament dominated
by “established interests” and mined by endemic corruption. Now even
Prime Minister Mori has resigned, after his popularity rating fell to
10%, but despite this, prospects are not brighter. Turning inside out
like a glove a Country where, by tradition, everything must be done
by consent, is practically a superhuman task. And many people, in Tokyo
and elsewhere are beginning to fear that instead of being the century
of Japan, as was presumed ten years ago, the 21st could be that of China.
(traduzione Interpres sas-Giussano)
 |
|
