Time for a re-think, Sempai

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, American democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all the others being tried outside our shores. Just look to Japan.

The New York Times has a good backgrounder about how the nuclear crisis is exposing the flaws in Japan's form of democracy.

"Never has postwar Japan needed strong, assertive leadership more — and never has its weak, rudderless system of governing been so clearly exposed or mattered so much. [... ] Postwar Japan flourished under a system in which political leaders left much of its foreign policy to the United States and its handling of domestic affairs to powerful bureaucrats. Prominent companies operated with an extensive reach into personal lives; their executives were admired for their role as corporate citizens."

"But over the past decade or so, the bureaucrats’ authority has been eviscerated, and corporations have lost both power and swagger as the economy has floundered. Yet no strong political class has emerged to take their place. Four prime ministers have come and gone in less than four years; most political analysts had already written off the fifth, Naoto Kan, even before the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster."

In the 1993 movie Rising Sun (based on the best-selling Michael Crichton novel), the wise sempai (guide) character played by Sean Connery observed: "The Japanese have a saying, 'Fix the problem, not the blame.' Find out what's fucked up and fix it. Nobody gets blamed. We're always after who fucked up. Their way is better." Given the worsening crisis in Japan, I'd say this adage is looking a bit hollow, Sempai.