Strategic Capitalism: Private Business and Public Purpose in Japanese Industrial Finance

by Kent E. Calder

Overview

Was Japan's economic miracle generated primarily by the Japanese state or by the nation's dynamic private sector? In addressing this question, Kent Calder's richly detailed study offers a distinctive reinterpretation of Japanese government-business relations. Calder challenges popular opinion to demonstrate how Japanese private enterprise has complemented the state in achieving the national purpose of industrial transformation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691225173
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	02/09/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	395
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Kent E. Calder is Associate Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Director of Princeton University's Program on U.S.-Japan Relations. He is the author of Crisis and Compensation: Public Policy and Political Stability in Japan (Princeton), for which he won the Hiromi Arisawa and Masayoshi Ohira Awards. He is also the coauthor, with Roy Hofheinz, Jr., of The Eastasia Edge.

Table of Contents

	List of Figures	ix
	List of Tables	xi
	Abbreviations	xiii
	A Note on Conventions	xv
	Preface	xvii
	Introduction	3
1	The Weight of the Past: A Complex Heritage of Control	23
2	The Strategists and Their Tribulations	45
3	The Regulators and Industrial Credit	72
4	Profiles of Public Action	103
5	Private Financiers and Public Functions	134
6	Private Borrowers and Public Credit Controls	174
7	Changing Parameters	211
8	Beyond Strategy?	245
Appendix I	The Fiscal Investment and Loan Program: Its Role in Japanese Government Finance, Fiscal 1992	279
Appendix II	The Fiscal Investment and Loan Program, Internal Allocation	283
	Notes	293
	Bibliography	333
	Index	359

Editorial Reviews

"[Calder] challenges [Chalmers] Johnson's depiction of Japan as a supremely successful government-command form of capitalism. Japan's private sector, he asserts, has been more independent and self-starting than the Johnson school would allow. . . . Strategic Capitalism is magnificently researched."—-Robert Neff, Business Week

"Who ensured that loans flowed to Japan's winner industries, such as automobiles and consumer electronics? It wasn't brilliant bureaucrats, Mr. Calder argues with considerable force. The book marshals plenty of evidence of how passive and 'regulatory' the Japanese state frequently was, and how powerless its industrial strategists were against bureaucratic, business, and political foes."—-Urban C. Lehner, The Wall Street Journal

"Calder's book is well documented, lucid, and convincing—truly a landmark study."—-Thomas McNaugher, The Key Reporter

From the Publisher

Calder's book is well documented, lucid, and convincing—truly a landmark study.

The Key Reporter - Thomas McNaugher

Who ensured that loans flowed to Japan's winner industries, such as automobiles and consumer electronics? It wasn't brilliant bureaucrats, Mr. Calder argues with considerable force. The book marshals plenty of evidence of how passive and 'regulatory' the Japanese state frequently was, and how powerless its industrial strategists were against bureaucratic, business, and political foes.

The Wall Street Journal - Urban C. Lehner

[Calder] challenges [Chalmers] Johnson's depiction of Japan as a supremely successful government-command form of capitalism. Japan's private sector, he asserts, has been more independent and self-starting than the Johnson school would allow. . . . Strategic Capitalism is magnificently researched.

BusinessWeek - Robert Neff

Calder's book is well documented, lucid, and convincing—truly a landmark study.
— Thomas McNaugher

The Key Reporter

Who ensured that loans flowed to Japan's winner industries, such as automobiles and consumer electronics? It wasn't brilliant bureaucrats, Mr. Calder argues with considerable force. The book marshals plenty of evidence of how passive and 'regulatory' the Japanese state frequently was, and how powerless its industrial strategists were against bureaucratic, business, and political foes.
— Urban C. Lehner

The Wall Street Journal

[Calder] challenges [Chalmers] Johnson's depiction of Japan as a supremely successful government-command form of capitalism. Japan's private sector, he asserts, has been more independent and self-starting than the Johnson school would allow. . . . Strategic Capitalism is magnificently researched.
— Robert Neff

BusinessWeek

[Calder] challenges [Chalmers] Johnson's depiction of Japan as a supremely successful government-command form of capitalism. Japan's private sector, he asserts, has been more independent and self-starting than the Johnson school would allow. . . . Strategic Capitalism is magnificently researched.
— Robert Neff

Business Week