The Great Deception

Motivation for Deception

Let us now consider some of the reasons for deception as they might have applied to problems arising in postwar Japan after the disappearance of GHQ.

The Nature of Deception

Often we deceive ourselves when we are torn between doing things that we want to do, but should not, because we have been told, or even believe, that they are wrong. In such cases we look for ways to justify our actions by finding reasons for doing them that appear more convincing than those given for not doing them. This deception can easily be achieved by; one, pointing to others who are doing the same and saying "Well, if they can do it, so can I";  two, restructuring the arguments for not doing something in such a way that doing it and not doing it both appear correct; or three finding exception with ourselves that allow us to do what others are not permitted, because they are different. Then too, if we think we can evade reproach altogether, we may simply choose to ignore the reasons given for doing anything.

Of course the reasons for deceiving others are more numerous and vary with the person or people whom we wish to deceive and our need for deceit. Generally speaking we deceive others so as to: one, conceal things that might retard our progress, if known; two,  shield ourselves from the recrimination of others for things we believe to be correct, but others do not; three, protect others from hurt that could occur, if they were confronted with the truth; four,  simplify our lives by finding ready answers to complex problems that might otherwise take too long to explain; and five, deny others what is rightfully theirs, but that we seek to obtain or retain for ourselves.

Obviously, the reasons for deception our numerous.

Lifetime Employment

Up until just recently employment in Japan could be best described in Western terms as a kind of employment servitude. Rather than treating workers as free market agents, who offered their service to employers in return for cash rewards later converted into consumer purchases, Japanese workers were treated as fixed company assets that employers cultivated and exploited. As such, workers were provided with numerous incentives and opportunities to improve their work skills, but were rarely able to employ these skills outside of the companies in which they were acquired.

Although workers' needs were taken into consideration, managers have always had a relatively free hand in determining the fate of each. This is not to say that Japanese management did not depend on worker cooperation for successful operation; rather Japanese workers had little say in matters that reached beyond their own immediate area of authority and competency. Moreover, workers were always at the mercy of their company's leadership for direction.

Management decisions on the other hand were often influenced by managers of other firms who belonged to the same industrial group or association. ­ These associations were often occupied by previous employees of national and local government bodies selected through a system of corporate appointments called ama-kudari. Because of tacit agreements among large firms not to hire workers from companies outside their respective group, and because company-specific retirement benefits were not extended to employees who left their company before retirement age, Japanese workers were trapped in their companies like sailors aboard a ship at sea. They joined their corporate navy at a naïve age never to return to harbor until the day they retired. While aboard these mighty industrial ships the fates of individual workers were determined by one's ability to get along and grow with one's fellow crew members, the managerial skills of the officers at each ship's helm, and the security of the "industrial fleet" to which each ship and sailor was necessarily a devoted member.

Because unemployment insurance offered by the government was hardly adequate to meet most workers' needs, workers simply drowned at sea when their company failed. Under such conditions one hardly dared to jump ship for fear of being eaten alive by the sharks of unemployment. Japanese society is not particularly known for its charity -- this despite the Japanese government's enormous industrial investments disguised in the form of overseas developmental aid. So long as the fleet to which their ship belonged formed a tight unit, and their own company's industry could survive the vicissitudes of the world market place, these devoted sailors had only to endure. With luck, much hard work, and sheer patience they could even someday become their ship's captain, if indeed they were hired on as potential officer material at the outset.

Although much of this system persists today, in recent years the opening of a secondary labor market has brought about significant changes in Japanese employment practices heretofore unimaginable in Japan.

Certainly this over-generalized description of Japan's employment system should make clear the trade-off that Japanese workers have generally been forced to make between market freedom and job security. This trade-off is absolutely crucial to the discussion at hand, because its ideological foundation runs diametrically opposed to the Western system of free market enterprise. In brief, the employment system that has existed in Japan for most of the postwar period in no way reflects the system that the United States government must have sought to install in Japan at the end of the World War II ­ -- a system, by the way, that the US government in cooperation with its European allies spent nearly a half-century in bitter, but indirect struggle with the former Soviet Union and Communist China to preserve.

Considering that Japan has been an important ally to the United States throughout this period, the need for explanation and justification of this contradiction on the part of the Japanese government was ever-present. Somehow, Japan's ruling elite had to satisfy both the United States government and the Japanese people that things could not have been otherwise.

Trade and Investment Barriers

For much of the postwar period import-substitution was considered to be a reasonably good strategy for developing nations to follow. Although still employed today this strategy has largely been replaced by more export-oriented strategies that permit the importation of foreign produced goods and services. Certainly import subsitution was the celebrated solution to Japan's magical rise to economic power.

Although it would be wrong to consider postwar Japan a developing country, it did share many of the characteristics of one. Because much of Japanese industry had been destroyed during the war, many Japanese firms sought protection with the Japanese government so as to bar foreign competitors from entry into domestic markets. Also, in order to import new, and restore old technologies without sacrificing national private sector control of investment, government-approved industrial and financial cartels were constructed. In order to accelerate the rate of reconstruction a financial system was also needed that would divert consumer savings into industry at below market rates. Without this domestically generated capital more capital would have been required from abroad and national private and public sector sovereignty further eroded. In addition, firms were allowed to carve out large segments of domestic markets and fix prices, so as to capture rents that could later be used for reinvestment and stimulate growth. In so doing both new Japanese and foreign market entrants were excluded. All of these innovations ran clearly contrary to the general way of doing things in the United States, and most of these practices were surely not on the agenda of reforms envisioned by GHQ. 

These contradictions also had to be explained.

Unlike government officials in many developing country, however, Japanese businessmen and government officials were not new to industrialization, foreign trade, and overseas investment; they had just spend the better part of the previous 100 years building an industrial empire that spread across all of East Asia. Although eager to obtain innovative technology from the US, they no more wanted to be dominated by USAmerican industry, than they were already dominated by the US military. Thus, Japanese industry and government, sometimes separately, sometimes together, and sometimes at odds with one another, systematically sought to close USAmerican investment and goods from Japanese markets. Of course, these policies also stood in direct opposition to the laissez-faire principles of USAmerican enterprise -- principles that the United States continued to defend at enormous cost and sacrifice during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War. Somehow these contractions had to be justified -- not only to the United States government who continued to occupy Japan throughout the postwar period, but also to the Japanese public who looked to the United States for post-war diplomatic guidance.

Despite its tremendous industrial advancement prior to the outbreak of World War II Japan was still a nation composed primarily of farmers at the close of the war. Thus, the most difficult ideological challenge must have arisen in Japan's major urban centers.

Democracy

When I listen to Japanese students talk about their government, they tell me about its constitutional framework, civil codes, and organizational structure, and even the democratic principles upon which all of these are based. What I rarely here from them is an explanation of the actual mechanisms employed to make their system work. The reason for this is that they are largely unable, and will likely never be able until they are far older and have learned that democracy in Japan is often little more than paper tiger.

In Japan democracy is much more a lofty notion acquired in school classrooms, than it is a mode of thought and behavior that one practices in school. Outside of school the contradiction worsens. Japanese bureaucrats and industrial leaders repeatedly flout US economics principles and Japanese politicians tend to view US political elections in the way they might view a horse race. Perhaps needless to say, the differences in the way democracy and free-enterprise are practiced in the United States and Japan are both profound and numerous. Nevertheless, we are often told what good friends the US and Japanese people are, because they share the same fundamental beliefs. This is a  serious error, and much of the reason for it can be found in the deception that began during the immediate postwar period and has been perpetrated ever since -- namely, nihonjinron.

Fortunately, not all deception is either dangerous or damaging; but with the close of the Cold War the relationship between the world's two most important allies has not only become strained, but it is likely to worsen.

Surely Japan has many characteristics of a democracy, but it is neither a democracy in the way that USAmerican think of a democracy, nor is it the democracy that many young and a fewer number of older Japanese believe it to be. This is unfortunate, because what democracy there is in Japan could be usefully employed by new generations of Japanese to improve their lot and Japan's relationship with the rest of the world.

Legitimacy

In order to move forward we must come to terms with the past. How we overcome our past is crucial to our future, because we use our past as a benchmark for decisions when our future is unclear.

Certainly there must have been many Japanese in the immediate postwar era who wanted very desperately not to repeat the same mistakes. On the other hand, there must have been just as many, if not more Japanese who wanted to rebuild Japan as quickly as possible. This desire to rebuild was also strongly encouraged by the United States government as a means to thwart the perceived communist threat.

Japanese leadership was neither naïve about its past, nor about what it needed to do in order to rebuild its future. Certainly being occupied by a foreign power to the extent that the United States was now present in Japan was new. Certainly having to rebuild itself after a crushing military defeat was not something Japanese had ever faced before. Nevertheless, it was only a matter of time before prewar national ambitions were rekindled, pre-war technological know-how put into place, and the dilemma of US occupation finally resolved. The biggest challenge must have been convincing the Japanese public that the new direction in which the nation was now moving was the correct one.

Japan's defeat must have resulted in an incredible lack of confidence on the part of Japanese toward their own government. The withdrawal of the Japanese emperor from power was surely only a partial remedy. What may have proved convincing for the naïve and ignorant would not be easily believed by the wise or well-educated, those who were needed to fill the shoes of those who had perished in the war, or who were forced out of office when the war ended. Surely, there must have been a myriad of questions that could not be easily explained away by a mere change of state. Japan had to find ways to come to grips with its past, while the presence of US troops stood before them as a constant reminder of a now embittered past.