Book review: Dogs and Demons

Kerr argues that Japan is a society in decline, belying Western notions of it as a high-tech powerhouse. At this time Japan's economy has been in the doldrums since the early 1990s, an economy dependent upon countless public-works projects and mired in government bureaucracy. Chapter by chapter, Kerr goes through the problems, citing statistics and relating dozens of anecdotes so good I couldn't help retelling them. Some of the issues are:

• Pervasive bureaucracy maintains its priorities and budgets, refusing to change or adapt. The bureaucracy manages for its own benefits, extracting fees and hindering people, but doesn't manage for safety or soundness or attractiveness, whether in business, architecture, or life.
• An incestuous web of public ministries and private companies has embarked on an endless series of construction project, skimming off funds at every node. These projects are environmentally damaging, unnecessary, and ugly.
• Part of the reason for all the construction, Kerr suggests, is that the Japanese view concrete and glass and plastic as clean, modern materials, and view natural materials as cheap and dirty. So every historical site needs a massive visitor's center and hotel, and the ministry will cut down a historic grove of trees,
• All that public spending has created an enormous public debt. Accounting and banking standards are so loose that it's impossible
• Japanese education teaches conformity, and the non-conformists usually leave for other Asian countries or for the West.

Kerr glumly hopes for a solution, or that the unhappy Japanese populace will rise up and change the system, or at least elect reform-minded governments, but that last point about education means that most of the activists and entrepreneurs leave.

I was really surprised by this book, being aware of Japan's 1990s malaise but thinking that its economy was still fundamentally solid. But Kerr notes that industrial manufacturing is all Japan is good at; it doesn't have much presence in software or services, is not a top tourist destination (Croatia gets as many tourists as Japan does; most people go elsewhere in Asia), has little cultural impact except for anime. It was worth reading this book just to turn my perceptions upon their heads.