전후 일본이 어떻게 세계2위의 경제대국이 될 수 있었는지를 설명할 때 반드시 언급되는 책이다. 저자는 원래 중국혁명사의 대가였다. 찰머스 잔슨이 중국혁명을 설명하는 논리는 중국공산당의 이념은 공산주의가 아니라 민족주의라는 것이다. 일본의 전전과 전후를 보는 관점 역시 민족주의, 특히 부국강병이란 말로 이해한다고 주장한다. 즉 엘리트들의 켓치프레이즈 부국강병은 정치엘리트들의 유일한 관심사였고 전후 강병이 거세되면서 정치엘리트들은 자신의 사명을 부국에만 제한하게 되엇다. 통산성 지금은 경제성이 된 MITI의 관료들을 사로잡았던 것도 바로 부국이었다. 그러한 관료들의 사명의식이 잿더미가 된 일본에서 경제를 다시 일으키는 원동력이 되엇다고 말한다. 관주도의 경제가 어떻게 나오게 되었는지 통산성 내부의 역사를 쫓아가며 설명한다.
다음은 내가 아마존에 썼던 리뷰이다.
This book is the classic to be read in the field of the developmental state which refer to East Asian economic developmental strategy not only for Japan. thou Chalmers Johnson is not the one who coined the word, developmental state, he has been most influential in that field by this book. btw dry and technical? I can't see why this book recieves that kind of respose. the overall style of description is something of an well written novel. the author gave the life to the past with details. and that it's interesting enough to be sombering overnight. Below I try to depict the position of this book on the discouse of economics
Johnson revived almost forgotten ghost from the sea of oblivion: mercantilism.
Mercantilism seemed completely beaten away long before modern economics took shape. Mercantilism was a pragmatic adaptation, not a theory of how economies are supposed to operate. It anticipates or at times contradicts market signals, with the goal of channeling resources to (or away from) selected sectors, in the interests of the prosperity of the one or the power of other. But economists argued that such a policy is no more than the terror against market efficiency. The wisdom of the state can¡¯t be claimed to be more efficient than market. Moreover, it often mass-produces rent-seeking distortions on resource allocation. It makes more harms than benefits. The state should not guide the resource allocation. The role of the state lies in other area: providing the public good and responding to market failures.
Johnson labeled this kind of role as the ¡®regulatory state¡¯. The United States and Britain exemplify the ¡®regulatory state.¡¯ Such state¡¯s task is the setting of rules that govern entry, exit, competition, investment, pricing, and other basic functions of the market. That kind of task is called as economic regulation. Economic regulation provides the basic framework of rules needed to keep market operate and responses to the problems of market failure.
But developmental state, as Johnson found in Japan¡¯s success story, holds that economic regulation has the goals beyond market maintenance. Developmental state takes the long term national welfare as the primary mission of state. It actively intervenes in economic activities to improve the international competitiveness. Japan¡¯s economic bureaucrats and business leaders rejected the philosophy of laissez-faire, free trade of open markets. To them, these concepts were little more than protection for the economically powerful exporters. The strategy of developmental state is the denial of extant hierarchy of comparative advantage. To achieve high growth rate, there should be high return sectors. But such sectors, in general, have no relation with developing countries. Then, should developing countries rest with agriculture or labor-intensive industries? Not necessarily. Such sectors tend to be low value-added, in other words, with low growth prospect. If you don¡¯t have it, then make it! Japanese bureaucrats sought to use activist policies to generate ¡®competitive advantages¡¯. In this regard, developmental state is a logical offspring of economic nationalism and neo-mercantilism. Driven by such a motive, developmental state use economic regulation to foster the technological development, capacity growth, and competitiveness of targeted industries considered essential to national economy in the future.
Both models don¡¯t deny the role of the state. But they differ from each other in the perception of resource allocation. The point of neoclassical economics is the efficiency, whereas the one of neo-mercantilism is the effectiveness. There could be no a priori or empirical criterion to judge which model is valid to the real world, for each has its own supporting evidence. The arbiter is the whim of trend. Chalmers Johnson captured the public not for its theoretical superiority but for its timing. The 1980s is the time when orthodox recipes of economics lost its effectiveness. The US lost its competitiveness not only in the world market but also in its domestic market. The word, competitiveness or competitive advantage has seized the day. Competitiveness or competitive advantage is not the word of efficiency but the word of effectiveness. Even if the economy were efficient, it could be not effective on the market. Then what efficiency is for at all? Formidable competitor, Japan, became the teacher. ¡®Japan is No.1.¡¯The US should learn from the superior. It was the reason why Chalmers Johnson took the attention. He was not the only one who drew such a picture of Japan. But the manner he challenged neoclassical economics and its timing were Johnson¡¯s advantage. But the time swung against developmental state theory. Japan has been lost in doldrums. Now the time reveals cracks in and limitations of the developmental state theory. Criticisms focus on a reductionism of the state, incomplete and even misleading elucidation of state-society links and growing doubts about the positive correlation between the state and economic performance. Still the developmental state theory has the validity in explaining certain period (from 1945 to 1973) of Japanese economy. But it lost once the dominant position it enjoyed.