My Entrepreneurship Book Is Out In Japanese

Hear podcast dialogue on the book

I’m delighted to announce that my book on reviving Japan by resurrecting entrepreneurship—The Contest for Japan’s Economic Future—is now out in Japanese under the title: 失われた30年」に誰がした――日本経済の分岐点. You can get it in hardcover or ebook from either the publisher, Hayakawa, or from Amazon Japan.

Here's a podcast for those who want to preview the book as well as for those who’ve read it and are interested in a dialogue about it. It’s a conversation with Adam German, a real estate business executive in Tokyo. Here’s a timeline of the topics for those who want to hear only parts of it.

2:30 -- Why I wrote the book. A challenge to identify specific proposals to Diet members or bureaucrats. I decided to focus on entrepreneurship because of the importance of firm turnover to growth. That turnover is the economic analog to natural selection: survival of the most innovative and efficient.

4:30 – Creative destruction was prevalent in Meiji and the postwar high-growth era. However, what if the destruction side is too destructive of individuals? Japan did not have a big social safety net because, in the high-growth era, it didn’t really need it. Rather than building it, Japan slowed down creative destruction beginning in the 1970s. Protecting zombie companies, allocating R&D subsidies to big companies, etc. Rightwing populism in North America and Europe is another symptom of this problem.

10:00 – Scandinavia as a model. Post-Reagan America is not a good model for Japan. Countries need a market-friendly social safety net. America has a thin safety net for working-age people. Continental Europe: thick, social safety net but not market-friendly. Scandinavia has a better balance of market and social safety net. Parallels between Japan and Scandinavians, institutionally and culturally.

17:50 – What Japan traditionally did well: social mobility, education, universal health care. Human capital is Japan’s only resource.

22:00 – STEM and Productivity. Manufacturing. vs. services. STEM also needs the humanities to understand the market and strategy, and Google hires Humanities PhDs. Only part of manufacturing is productive, primarily sectors exposed to international competition. Many services are business services that can be very productive and value-adding. Japan was strong in the analog era, but not in the digital.

33:55 – People think of Japan as stodgy. But it was always this way. Postwar era and Meiji were very entrepreneurial. Breathtakingly innovative. But in the postwar era, once former entrepreneurial companies became giants, they worked to block new challengers. Propagated various cultural myths that the evidence shows are not true.

41:50 – lifetime employment was introduced in the 1890s to prevent workers from shifting jobs in search of higher wages... Then came propaganda about “the company as a family.” Like everything else, lifetime employment has pros and cons. Earlier pros outweighed the cons. Now, the cons outweigh the pros. One con is companies are less open to new ideas.

43:50 – The bubble and its popping were not the cause of the lost decades. The bubble was a symptom of underlying flaws. The role of monetary policy and banking flaws.

49:35 – Corporate self-delusion based on interests. Why did Fujitsu lose dominance in networking technology to Cisco?

51:55 – Reaction in Japan to the book. Lots of positive reaction from some bureaucrats, Diet members. I met with a BOJ senior official who had read half of the book soon after it came out in English. Many experts know the problems and solutions and are looking for ideas; the book has specific proposals for remedies.

57:30 – Next 20 years: Optimistic or pessimist. It’s a contest. For most of my career, I have met the elite, but in working on this book, I have met the best and brightest among people in their 20s and 30s. Most younger people are cautious because of three lost decades. But the people I met were assertive, ambitious, confident, and willing to fight conventional wisdom. You feel a buzz in the office. Lots of women who could not advance in traditional firms. All sorts of encouraging signs. Change of mindset at Sharp when Foxconn took it over. Technological change has opened new opportunities for newcomers. It’s a contest, and no one knows which side will win, but the potential for a recovery led by a new generation of companies is the greatest since the lost decades began in 1990.

To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

To provide more support, donate several subs at $50 each. You do not need to name the sub recipients, just how many. This is a one-time contribution; it does not repeat automatically. Please click the button below.