This article examines how mobilizing just one percent of Japan’s vast household assets could restore the nation as a global financial superpower and sustain prosperity for the next 170 years.
It argues that true civilizational leadership depends not on sheer economic scale alone, but on freedom, intellect, cultural depth, and a uniquely Japanese form of capitalism capable of supporting long-term national flourishing.
This is a continuation of the previous chapter.

◎ One Percent of Household Assets Can Restore Japan as a Global Financial Power

If just one percent of household assets—ten trillion yen—were channeled into the equity market, Japan would instantly become a massive market standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States, that is, a global financial superpower.
Capital gains from stock trading should be taxed at zero percent, provided that the profits are demonstrably spent on consumption and verified by receipts.

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In the United States, wealthy individuals invest roughly two-thirds of their assets in equities.
As a result, money is continuously returned to society, and the economy grows ever larger.
Most Japanese asset holders, however, do not do this.

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When seventy percent of a capitalist nation’s stock market is owned by foreign capital, it is effectively equivalent to that nation being taken over.
If just ten trillion yen—only one percent of Japan’s 1,000 to 1,500 trillion yen in household assets—were mobilized, the foreign ownership share would immediately fall into the twenty-percent range.
That level is more than sufficient for economic stability and security, even for a country that calls itself “global.”

I am someone who senses greed lurking behind the word “global.”
At present, foreign investors hold approximately eighty-eight trillion yen in Japanese equities, about forty-five percent of the total.
If ten percent of household assets—one hundred trillion yen—were guided toward acquiring shares in Japan’s outstanding large corporations and in companies that dominate global market share across many fields, domestic capital holdings would rise to two hundred ninety-six trillion yen.

If dividends were made tax-free, as has long been the case in Singapore, deflation would end instantly, again limited to cases where consumption is verified by receipts.
With the average dividend yield of listed companies at around two percent annually, a massive 5.92 trillion yen would flow directly into consumption, expanding domestic demand and GDP.
If not only dividends but also taxes on stock trading were reduced to virtually zero, again limited to receipt-verified consumption, the amount of money directed toward consumption would become even more enormous.

If one percent of household assets moved daily through market trading, and ten percent were directed toward acquiring shares in Japan’s superior companies as an industrial nation, it goes without saying that the world would begin to move by watching the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Osaka Exchange, and the New York Stock Exchange.
If a weak yen serves Japan’s national interest, then Japan should simply adopt a weak-yen policy as a sovereign nation.
Almost every other country in the world acts with national interest as its top priority.
There is no need for restraint.

When vast sums of money flow into consumption, domestic demand expands dramatically, and world-class products and luxury goods that appeal to the Japanese aesthetic sense will be consumed on an entirely different scale.
Japan should decide its own path.
As a nation with the world’s largest financial market and cutting-edge technologies across all fields, Japan can truly be, in the best sense, a Galápagos nation.
For the next 170 years, Japan should simply enjoy its status as a world champion alongside the United States.

That is the role of a nation to which the turntable of civilization has turned, and it will inevitably become a savior of the world.
What Yoshiyasu Ono advocates, such as consumption tax hikes, unfortunately cannot restore Japan.

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◎ The Theory of Japan’s 170 Years of Prosperity

Rather than collapsing into decline in a miserable and foolish state, it is far better, according to the historical order of splendor—which customarily lasts two hundred years—to fulfill our allotted time of prosperity and only then play a “Melancholy of Japan,” not Santana’s Europa.
Resignation and lamentation are one hundred seventy years too early.
Needless to say, the kind of murder-ridden society born of poverty caused by foolish stagnation is completely unacceptable.

There is no need to concern ourselves with other countries.
The recent global financial upheaval has already proven that capitalism is not one hundred percent correct.
Nor do the value of our lives or of great corporations fluctuate daily.

As another world-leading nation distinct from the United States, Japan should be a country where the shares of excellent companies do not fall—indeed, they continue to rise—falling only when performance deteriorates and dividends disappear, at which point management is immediately dismissed.
Even in such cases, if the cause is unavoidable, such as a Western-origin financial crisis like the present one, we should fully exercise one of the Japanese people’s defining traits—endurance—without panic selling, enduring together.
No one would object to such a form of capitalism being born in the world.

For the next one hundred seventy years, Japan should reign in glory as a Galápagos nation, beholden to no one, and rule as a country of the world’s highest intellect and freedom.
Within such champion-level prosperity, children will naturally be born in abundance.
That is why it lasts two hundred years.

We may respect the United States, but there will come a time when there is no need whatsoever to read its mood—when Japan reaches a population comparable to America’s, twice the current size, and at the very least becomes a consumer power equal to the United States.
There is, of course, ample space to live throughout Japan.
We will be able to bid farewell to words like depopulation and regional decline.

Give birth.
Raise children.
This country overflows with beautiful seas, green forests, and mountain ranges.
Thanks to the monsoon climate, Japan is one of the world’s most beautiful nations, rich in seasonal change.
There is absolutely no need to concentrate only in cities like Tokyo or Osaka.

A country will emerge where people eat delicious and safe agricultural products and fresh seafood, swim in the sea, run through fields, gaze upon mountain peaks, pursue lovers since prehistoric times, and speak of love.
For the next one hundred seventy years, this island nation will realize the Peach Blossom Spring dreamed of by ancient Chinese thinkers.
That is our true role.

I can see with absolute clarity how the world’s admiration will gather here.
There will be no need to proclaim ourselves a tourism nation.
People will come—especially the young and talented.
Because the world’s richest and most beautiful Peach Blossom Spring will have appeared.

The current culture and media with a mental age of thirteen will vanish in an instant.
The fact that this prediction of mine from fifteen years ago is now becoming reality is indisputable.

Music of truly deep resonance that leads the world will be born, and films rivaling Hollywood will be made.
That is the next one hundred seventy years of Japan—a country where each individual is the protagonist, the king, the Emperor, and the head of state.

That is why the firebombings happened.
That is why Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened.
The four million dead—more than half of them young and beautiful—did not die in vain.
They died so that this country could become the world’s richest and most beautiful, a nation that celebrates the highest freedom and intellect.

They died so that this beautiful country might become a champion nation of freedom and intellect.
The only way we can repay them is by achieving the world’s greatest prosperity and showing the world why Japan prospers.

Finally, Japan will become a global financial superpower, a market-capitalization giant, and a top-tier technological nation standing alongside the United States, and will continue to prosper until the turntable of civilization moves on to the next nation.
It will not turn to China.
Civilization does not turn on economics alone.
It turns only to nations that have built true freedom and the highest intellect.
As long as China remains a communist dictatorship, the turntable of civilization will not turn.
As long as India cannot overcome the caste system, it will not turn.
I suspect it may turn to Brazil, where inequality and poverty alone remain the issues.

Until that next turn arrives, for the next one hundred seventy years, Japan should simply continue to prosper.