Why U.S.-Japan Clash on Cultures Is Healthy
When Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa tells his parliament that “America may lack a work ethic,” we should pay special attention--but not because he’s right.
Miyazawa’s comments--along with parliament Speaker Yoshio Sakurauchi’s recent description of American workers as “lazy”--signals a truly provocative shift in the economic dialogue between Japan and America. No longer are thorny trade issues being defined and discussed in terms of Structural Impediments Initiatives and macroeconomic policy. They’re now openly being framed in terms of national character and culture.
There is no way to overestimate the importance of this shift. Just as conflicts surrounding naturalism and ethnicity now dominate the politics of Eastern Europe and what was once the Soviet Union, nationalism and ethnicity are now coming to dominate the U.S.-Japan debate on economic competitiveness.
Economists have long sought to explain “comparative advantage” in trade between nations in terms of a country’s natural resources, its capital and technological endowments. Today, Japan’s leaders are publicly wondering to what extent a nation’s comparative advantage stems from cultural factors.
Japanese nationalists such as Shintaro Ishihara (of “The Japan That Can Say No” fame) and even worldly internationalists such as Sony’s Akio Morita frequently come off sounding like “techno-tribalists”--arguing that Japan’s superb performance as a high-quality mass producer of innovations mirrors less the “administrative guidance” of a Ministry of International Trade and Industry and more the rigorous values seared into the Japanese psyche by tradition. Japan’s products, they argue, are successful precisely because they embody Japan’s values. (By implication, other country’s products succeed or fail because of the cultural values embedded in them.)
Policy makers and industrialists of both countries are kidding themselves if they believe that economic issues can be divorced from cultural perceptions. They can’t. In Europe, there are worried conversations about whether Germany will become more European or whether Europe will become more “Germanified.” The new waves of immigration--and its economic consequences--have prompted a resurgence of nationalistic movements across the Continent. Ethnicity and economics are no longer seen as separate concerns but as inextricably bound. This is a global phenomenon. With their comments, the Japanese leadership has done America an enormous favor by moving this topic from the realm of the unspoken to a focus of the dialogue.
Instead of merely looking at rules, regulations and institutions, trade negotiators will be forced to address the attitudes and assumptions that underlie them. Japanese firms could be required to encourage workers to set aside funds for leisure or vacation. MITI should encourage Japanese companies to invite foreigners to sit on their boards, to expose Japanese firms to other cultural perspectives.
Ironically, Americans have never had any difficulty offering up cultural explanations for Japanese shortcomings in various areas.
To this day, eminent American scientists and engineers argue that Japan’s group-oriented culture snuffs out individual initiative and creativity. Japan has a different culture of innovation. Japan’s culture, they argue, lends itself more to ongoing incremental technological innovation rather than fundamental breakthroughs. Many Japanese companies agree with this and have radically transformed the way they train and encourage their researchers and innovators.
The time has come to recognize that trade policies exist in a cultural context, not just an economic one. Take Mr. Miyazawa at his word. Give Japan the dialogue it wants to have: What is the role of national culture in shaping global economic competitiveness? We will end up learning as much about ourselves and our priorities as we will about Japan’s.
