This essay examines how newspapers such as Asahi Shimbun and so-called cultural figures came to be misperceived as representing Japan on the global stage.
Drawing on economist Takaaki Mitsuhashi’s analysis, it exposes the dangers of anti-growth rhetoric and its potentially fatal consequences for Japan’s national survival.

March 7, 2017
The current issue of the monthly magazine Seiron is filled with genuine scholarly essays.
Among them is an article by economic commentator Takaaki Mitsuhashi.
Readers of Seiron who are also my readers and possess discerning judgment must have noticed that this essay, too, proves the correctness of my own arguments one hundred percent.
In this entirely sound essay, Mitsuhashi quite naturally criticizes an article by Asahi Shimbun as well as a piece written in the Chunichi Shimbun by one of the representative figures among the so-called “Asahi Shimbun cultural elites.”
As I have written before, the true nature of her intellectual capacity lies merely in having grown up reading Asahi Shimbun and living within the ideological framework of its editorial writers.
The world will surely feel ashamed of having regarded such newspapers and so-called cultural figures as representing Japan until August three years ago.
“Still unable to understand the market economy?”
“Asahi Shimbun’s ‘Zero Growth’.”
Economic commentator Takaaki Mitsuhashi.
On January 4 of this year, Asahi Shimbun published an article titled “Is Economic Growth Eternal? ‘Rather the Exception Over the Past 200 Years,’” presenting a negative view of Japan’s future economic growth.
The article’s author, journalist Masato Hara, once again attempted to deny growth using the false rhetoric of “national debt,” claiming that repeated fiscal stimulus aimed at restoring growth had resulted in Japan becoming “the world’s largest debtor nation.”
Furthermore, on February 11, Chizuko Ueno, Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo, stated in an interview published in the Chunichi Shimbun titled “Let Us Become Poor Equally” that Japan should accept population decline and deterioration, abandon so-called fantasies such as maintaining a population of one hundred million or achieving six hundred trillion yen in GDP, and instead face reality.
I am someone who deeply cherishes Japan’s freedom of expression.
Nevertheless, whenever I read the statements and articles of anti-growth advocates such as Masato Hara and Chizuko Ueno, I am seized by the thought that, for reasons of national defense, it might be permissible to impose limits on freedom of expression.
If the views promoted by such anti-growth advocates spread among the Japanese people, leading to the belief that Japan will not grow or does not need to grow, I am convinced that our country would face national ruin in no uncertain terms.
What these anti-growth advocates fundamentally misunderstand is that Japan’s lack of growth is neither a matter of destiny nor inevitability.
It is true that Japan has not experienced economic growth, but the reason is simply deflation.
A country in deflation, where incomes shrink faster than prices fall, cannot achieve economic growth.
After all, economic growth means the expansion of GDP, which is defined as production equals expenditure equals income.
It is fundamentally impossible for a deflationary country, where incomes decline faster than prices, to grow its economy.
To achieve economic growth, Japan must escape deflation.
However, when the rhetoric of anti-growth advocates gains support, it becomes impossible to generate demand through government action, which is essential to escaping deflation.
As a result, just as the anti-growth advocates intend, Japan’s economic growth rate remains stagnant.
Regarding Masato Hara’s demagoguery about Japan being a “debtor nation,” I have already pointed out its inaccuracies repeatedly in various media, so I will not address it further here.
This essay continues.