2017-12-31
Meiji-era Japan invested approximately forty percent of local-government tax revenues in education, formed a “common” within society through compulsory education, and accomplished its modernization.
Ryūichirō Matsubara points out the limits of individualism and argues that education is the very foundation that creates the “common.”
Postwar Japan, meanwhile, neglected investment in education and infrastructure, producing serious social distortions, including the expansion of poverty and inadequate disaster preparedness.
It is further alleged in severe terms that enormous amounts of tax revenue have been poured into breeding grounds for forces acting in concert with anti-Japanese propaganda.
Ryūichirō Matsubara points out the limits of individualism and states that Japan cannot move forward unless it once again creates a “common.”
During the Meiji Restoration, Japan recognized that a nation could not function through individualism alone, established compulsory education, and had local governments invest approximately forty percent of their tax revenues in education.
Dore credits this enormous investment with driving Japan’s modernization.
After the war, the “common” was revived in the form of corporate communities, but Japan subsequently neglected investment in education and infrastructure, exposing serious social distortions involving poverty, disasters, and inadequate disaster preparedness.
Behind this lies the reality that enormous amounts of tax revenue continually poured into local regions were ultimately used not for purposes serving the nation’s survival, but by anti-Japanese forces.
The essence of the Meiji state’s success lay in implementing the “common” within society through education before pursuing individualism.
The determination of local governments to pour forty percent of their tax revenues into education—something unimaginable today—supported Japan’s modernization.
Postwar Japan, however, abandoned this century-long national plan of its own accord.
Education and infrastructure were sacrificed, while enormous amounts of tax revenue flowed into breeding grounds for forces acting in concert with anti-Japanese ideology.
The result is the present misery of Japan: expanding poverty, the collapse of disaster preparedness, and the weakening of national consciousness.
Matsubara’s argument clearly demonstrates that Japan’s modernization was established with the “common,” rather than the “individual,” as its starting point.
Compulsory education was a mechanism for the compulsory social distribution of cultural capital, and the Meiji government’s decision to invest forty percent of tax revenues in it was highly strategic.
Postwar Japan, meanwhile, failed to reconstruct this “common” and temporarily substituted corporate communities for it, but these too gradually collapsed.
As a result, a distorted structure became entrenched in which taxation was absorbed not into strengthening the foundations of the nation, but into reproducing anti-Japanese ideology.
Japan was once a country that poured forty percent of its tax revenues into education.
It was a country that understood that protecting the nation meant protecting its children first.
But what of Japan today?
It has become a country in which one child in six sinks into poverty, cities burn, and even disaster mitigation cannot be performed adequately.
Even so, we have continued handing over more than three hundred billion yen in tax revenues for the sake of people acting in concert with anti-Japanese ideology.
Meiji Japan invested forty percent of its tax revenues in education.
That was because it clearly understood that a nation must first create its people.
Postwar Japan, however, destroyed this foundation of the nation with its own hands.
Education and infrastructure were cast aside, while more than three hundred billion yen in enormous tax revenues continued to be poured into breeding grounds for people acting in concert with anti-Japanese ideology.
What emerged as a result was poverty, disasters, the collapse of national defenses, and the loss of national consciousness.
In the face of this reality, the offenses of those who participated in pseudo-moralism and pseudo-communism have already reached the level of a historical crime.
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
The portion omitted from the beginning of the special dialogue between Tsuyoshi Nakano and Ryūichirō Matsubara, published on page 68 of this month’s issue of the monthly magazine HANADA and introduced under the title “Sony Has Now Become a Mediocre Organization in Technological Innovation.
The More Individualistic Japan Becomes, the Less Successful It Will Be,” contained the following passage.
The preceding portion is omitted.
The Limits of Individualism
Matsubara
Let us now consider individualism, or something that might replace individualism.
I believe Japan cannot move forward unless it once again creates a “common.”
At the time of the Meiji Restoration, the leaders intuitively understood that individualism alone would not work.
Terakoya schools had existed before then, but they charged fees.
They therefore made reading, writing, and arithmetic part of compulsory education and strengthened the nation’s cultural capital.
Instead of elitist terakoya attended by only some people, compulsory education taught everyone.
By raising the overall level of communication ability, they attempted to create a “common” between the individual and the whole.
They believed that primary education was necessary to create the “common.”
Arinori Mori, for example, spent an extraordinary amount of money on the education system.
Local governments at the time invested an astonishing forty percent or so of their tax revenues in education.
Dore, whom Mr. Nakano mentioned earlier, points out that this enormous investment drove Japan’s modernization.
During the Restoration, they placed the Emperor as the symbol of the “common” while simultaneously pursuing liberalization.
This worked remarkably well.
After the war, the “common” was revived once again by placing a community within the corporation.
This was relational capital.
Dore was intrigued by the fact that, while technological innovation in the United States occurred only inside the minds of individuals, technological innovation in Japanese organizations occurred within the “common.”
The remainder is omitted.
＊The emphasis in bold within the text is mine, but it can also be said that Japan’s investment in education and infrastructure had been neglected as a result of continuing for many years to pour far more than three hundred billion yen in enormous tax revenues into a prefecture with a population of only 1.44 million.
There is the statistic that one child in six is being raised in a household experiencing poverty, the Great Itoigawa Fire resulting from inadequate fire-prevention equipment, and the repeated lack of defenses against disasters caused by various natural catastrophes.
For the sake of a prefecture controlled by people who act in concert with the anti-Japanese propaganda of South Korea, which is in reality a Nazi state, and China, which is ruled by one-party Communist dictators—and who, as previously described, are also people who drink awamori and sing leisurely while it is still broad daylight—we have continued sacrificing the matters described above and pouring in far more than three hundred billion yen in enormous tax revenues for people who appear to be participating in endangering the survival of Japan.
In other words, through taxation, we have cultivated people who appear to be controlled by South Korean and Chinese operations.
Through taxation, we have subsidized the anti-Japanese propaganda of South Korea and China.
In the face of this undeniable fact, it goes without saying that I hold Kenzaburō Ōe in the greatest possible contempt for writing the utterly nonsensical book Okinawa Notes, the product of a mass of pseudo-moralism and pseudo-communism, thereby emboldening them and creating the present evil and disastrous condition of Okinawa.