Japan, the system that soured : the rise and fall of the Japanese economic miracle

After seven long years of economic malaise, it is clear that something has gone awry in Japan. Unless Japan undertakes sweeping reform, official forecasts now warn, growth will steadily dwindle. How could the world's most acclaimed economic miracle have stumbled so badly? As this important book explains, the root of the problem is that Japan is still mired in the structures, policies, and mental habits of the 1950s-1960s. Four decades ago while in the "catch-up" phase of its economic evolution, policies that gave rise to "Japan, Inc". made a lot of sense. By the 1970s and 1980s, when Japan had become a more mature economy, "catch-up economics" had become passe, even counterproductive. Even worse, in response to the oil shocks, Japan increasingly used its industrial policy tools. not to promote "winners", but to shield "losers" from competition at home and abroad. Japan's well-known aversion to imports is part and parcel of this politically understandable, but economically self-defeating, pattern. The end result is a deformed "dual economy" unique in the industrial world. Now this "dualism" is sapping the strength of the entire economy. The protection of the weak is driving Japan's most inefficient companies to invest offshore instead of at home. Without sweeping reform, real recovery will prove elusive. The challenging thesis articulated in this book is receiving widespread media attention in the United States and Japan and is sure to provoke continuing debate and controversy. The Theme Of Universals Has Attracted A Great Deal Of Research And Speculation In The Last Decade. Psychologists And Linguists In Particular Have Attempted To Identify Substantive Universals That Underlie The Social Diversity Across Cultures Which Anthropologists Have Documented. These Efforts Are Still Inconclusive, And Controversial, But Have At Least Served To Provide A Necessary Antidote To Certain Narrow Forms Of Relativism And Empiricism That Had Become Current, And Social Scientists Generally Have A Crucial Interest In The Success Or Failure Of The Attempt. The Contributors To This Volume All Focus On The Relevant Data In Africa To Explain And Test The Major Questions At Issue. The Book Is Divided Into Three Main Sections, Dealing Respectively With Perception, Cognitive Development And Language. There Is Also A General Review And Prospectus By Jerome Bruner, And A Wide-ranging Introduction To The Philosophical Background By Ernest Gellner. Michael Ogbolu Okonji : African Psychologist / Herman A. Witkin -- General Introduction : Relativism And Universals / Ernest Gellner -- Pictorial Perception And The Problem Of Universals / Gustav Jahoda -- Tallensi Children's Drawings / Meyer Fortes -- Space And Community Behaviour : A Discussion Of The Form And Function Of Spatial Order In Settlements / Roland Fletcher -- Taxonomic And Multi-dimensional Representations Of Reality / John Gay -- Strong And Weak Universals : Sensori-motor Intelligence And Concrete Operations / Pierre Dasen -- Psychological Differentation / Obgolu Okonji -- Cognitive Development, Education And Social Mobility / Barbara Lloyd -- Language And Learning : Some Observations On The Linguistic Determination Of Cognitive Processes / Nigel Lemon -- The Formation Of Relative Clauses / Bernard Comrie -- Literacy And Literature / Ruth Finnegan -- Review And Prospectus / Jerome Bruner. Edited By Barbara Lloyd, John Gay. Based On A Conference Held By The African Studies Centre Of The University Of Cambridge At Clare Hall, April 14-15, 1975. Includes Bibliographies And Indexes.