2016/1/29
The following is a continuation of “I intuitively felt that this was precisely what best conveyed the greatness of Japan.”
The reason I insist that the very people mentioned in the preceding chapter must read this article of mine is that they must know the fact that the Japanese people who produce such truly magnificent food work throughout their lives, content with an annual income of no more than five million yen, while creating the very best.
Moreover, this spirit of the Japanese did not emerge yesterday or today; it is a spirit that has been steadily cultivated since the beginning of recorded history.
I believe that there is a source of greatness in Japanese culture.
When the Japanese government decided to install computers incorporating TRON, invented by Ken Sakamura, at their core in elementary and junior high schools throughout the country,
Bill Gates eventually mobilized the power of the United States government, exerted political and trade pressure on Japan, and made the Japanese government abandon the adoption of TRON.
He thus conquered the world with Windows and amassed a fortune of tens of trillions of yen, a sum whose possession by a single individual has no meaning.
As a result, however, the nine electronics manufacturers that Japan had proudly presented to the world lost the heart of their computers.
They were forced to abandon the adoption of excellent software created by Japanese people who had emerged from the tradition described above, and were reduced to manufacturers assembling computers whose operating core was American-made software.
They immediately found themselves exposed to competition from Samsung and other South Korean companies, as well as emerging Chinese companies.
These countries, however, are fundamentally different from countries that engage in fair competition.
In a hundred-meter race, while the others run a hundred meters, Japan’s electronics manufacturers must run a hundred and fifty meters.
Since no one can win such a competition, it is only natural that Japan’s electronics manufacturers should decline.
Exposed to such competition, they fall into difficulties and begin restructuring and cutting jobs.
Japan’s entirely middle-class society, which had been one of its strengths and virtues, also began moving toward a society of widening inequality like that of the United States.
The same applies to Masayoshi Son, who contributed greatly to the realization of Bill Gates’s ambitions and, as his advance agent, continued relentlessly attacking the relevant government authorities.
He then relentlessly attacked NTT, which Japan had proudly presented to the world, and ultimately built a large company using NTT as a foothold, becoming one of Japan’s wealthiest individuals.
What Carol Gluck, Alexis Dudden, and the others must know is that there are factory workers—in other words, craftspeople—who produce such magnificent food.
They have never, not even once, acted as Bill and Son have, driving countless people into poverty while amassing astronomical fortunes for themselves.
I ate this ice pop convinced that it went without saying to which side the gates of heaven would open.