[w1ntermute]

> I got the feeling whatever they may have been in the past, they currently run on a fairly bureaucratic model, and are not the kind of place that inspires or rewards innovation and creativity.

You could say exactly this about most Japanese companies these days. Now what's interesting is that change may be in the air. The current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has managed to line up the incentives correctly in the Japanese government's notoriously intransigent bureaucracy and started massive economic reform (often referred to as "Abenomics"), a topic that is the cover story of this week's issue of The Economist[0,1].

What Abe has done so far cannot create permanent change by itself, but if he is able to follow through on his other goals and make lasting structural reforms to the Japanese economy and society, then we may see an economic resurgence in Japan. That's something that the West should be looking forward to and supporting, given the need for a stronger counterweight in the Asia-Pacific region to China. It was previously believed that India would take this role, but things haven't progressed there as fast as people had hoped a decade ago[2].

0: http://www.economist.com/printedition/2013-05-18

1: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21578052-shinzo-abe-s...

2: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21577373-india-will-s...

[obviouslygreen]

The problem is that the structural reforms are the one thing that actually would make a difference, and they're also the one thing that not only hasn't happened but hasn't even seen a plan put forward.

'Abenomics' is forced inflation (which is drawing more and more concern from the G8 since it's going to become a problem for the rest of the world soon) accompanied by massive public works spending (which was a failed previous LDP platform that they can't seem to get past) that provide absolutely no change, and only work in the short-term, if you can even consider this "working," as it's creating no lasting change.

[fungi]

i understand that structural reform is the 3rd phase in the "3 arrows" agenda.

printing money / pork is obviously easier politically. if there is to be any significant reforms, my guess is it will not kick in until well after the upper house elections.

edit: worryingly the gov appears far more interested in nationalism then economic reforms... so my hopes are not high.

[obviouslygreen]

Exactly my point. Structural reform is a nigh-impossible problem, upper house elections or not, in any country, and Japan has a well-established and deeply-rooted history of "change is bad."

In that culture of consensus, change simply has no chance. I have many friends in Japan, and my fear for them is that their government is even more obstinate than others, despite their situation being even worse. The thing that makes this problem intractable, though, is that their people are the same as people everywhere: They'll swallow the propaganda, they'll believe in the radical, just as long as the radical doesn't require they change their lives.

No one wants to change, and the current administration in Japan knows that. They're playing on it, just as the last administration did, and as the next one will. No one will do anything until it's too late; change is too hard, too expensive, too invasive, too inconvenient.

I hope things work out for Japan. I just really, really worry that if the current political movements go through and amend the constitution in the ways proposed, Japan will go from a traditional and slightly stilted democracy to an oligarchy in all but title, run by reactionary nationalists without their people's interests at heart.

[edit: This is a problem that's playing out in many industrialized nations and will play out in many more; Japan is just seeing more and different parts of it more quickly due to its unique situation.]