Customer Reviews

The Ministry: How Japan's Most Powerful Institution Endangers World Markets

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fantastic investigative reporting with compelling analysis. as easy to read as a good spy thriller and as informative as a good textbook. valuable reading for anyone interested in Japanese finance and the relationship between bureaucrats, politicians, and business.

read the first chapter on amazon.com and you'll be hooked.

I read this book before being seconded into the Japanese Ministry of Finance, and I'm afraid that not only has much of the material suffered badly from the passage of time, but the (perhaps inevitable) selective use of anecdotes risks leaving the unwary reader with a rather warped view of the MoF.

The workings of the Japanese political system and the bureaucracy have been subject to many critiques however, although Hartcher limits himself to examining just the MoF, he does not sufficiently focus his analysis to produce a truly enlightening text. Sadly, certain areas of the book are also subject rather exaggerated and, while such liberties may help make dramatic titles and sell copy, they do not make for informed debate.

Although there are very few other English language texts that focus on the MoF, this one is not scholarly and I would advise you to skip it (there is another book on MoF by Brown - available on Amazon - but I have not read it yet). Gerald Curtis provides more insightful comment into Japanese politics, and Takatoshi Ito offers a far better review of the workings of the Japanese economy. These texts may be more general, but they will give readers a more balanced and rounded view of the Japanese political and economic system.

Published in 1998, this book describes an institution that no longer exists: the Okurashô has given up its name and most of its power to become, more conventionally, the Ministry of Finance, also known as MOF in English or as zaimushô in Japanese. It is only a shadow of its former self. The core function of supervising the financial sector has been handed over to the Financial Services Agency. The Bank of Japan is jealous of its independence. A large part of the budget's preparation work now takes place at the Cabinet Office.

On top of that, the victory of the Democratic Party of Japan at the 2009 Lower House elections and the long awaited alternation in power has led to a "government led by politicians" where bureaucrats are now required to apply the directives of their political masters. This comes as a shock for an institution which, according to Peter Hartcher, worked "under the assumption that politicians represent special interest; it is left to the bureaucracy to represent a national interest."

Some things have changed and some haven't. The building is still an old-fashioned pre-war concrete construction with long corridors and high ceilings, and the offices are still stacked with the piles of paper and crammed desks that made Paul Krugman deride the lousy work habits of Japanese bureaucrats. Economists are still a rare breed: "In Japan, and specifically in the Finance Ministry, writes the author, economists rank second and remain suspect." The great bulk of men--there are still very few women--appointed to the top echelons of the MOF are graduates of Tokyo University's faculty of law, not economics. After entering the ministry, they are sent overseas for two full years of postgraduate studies, and some of them thus get exposure to economics and financial theory as it is taught on US campuses. But many remain defiant of US-style capitalism, and insist on the distinctiveness of Japan.

The author notes that there is a curious paradox in the ministry's approach to economics: "In its approach to regulating markets and industries, its impulse is interventionist. Yet in its approach to the overarching question of the size of the government, it favors small government and lower spending." MOF officials see themselves as the nation's fiscal guardians. They are constantly lobbying, so far unsuccessfully, for a raise in the consumption tax rate in order to match growing social expenses with revenues and shift the national debt down from its explosive path. As the author notes, the Budget Bureau's preoccupation with minimizing government spending has shaped the ministry's overall approach to the policy mix.

One thing for sure is that MOF officials do work long hours. "Let's get home while it is still dark" is still a catchphrase in Kasumigaseki. The preparation of the national budget is a year-round time consuming task.In additions, bureaucrats have to work through the night to compile lists of questions for their Minister when he appears before the Diet on the following day. They have no time for going out and flirting with the opposite sex. The Minister's Secretariat therefore used to provide matchmaking services and arranges "omiai" opportunities with daughters of senior officials or politicians.

It also used to look after top civil servants after they retired from the ministry, usually at age between fifty and fifty-five when a member of their age cohort reached the top job of administrative vice-minister. The practice of "amakudari", literally translated as descent from heaven, has now come under heavy attack from politicians and is practically banned, although there are still some postings available to senior MOF officials in public institutions and international organizations.

How did a book about a lackluster and slow-moving bureaucracy in a faraway place found its way to Harvard Business School Press? There are certainly no lessons for private sector managers to be learned from this book, as Japan's Ministry of Finance is by no means a model of efficient organization. Contrary to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (or METI, formerly MITI), the Ministry of Finance does not influence the strategies of large Japanese corporations, and it has only an indirect impact on their competitive environment. The purpose of this book, and others which focused on Japan's macroeconomic policies at about the same period, was no longer to find the roots of the Japanese miracle, as Chalmers Johnson did with MITI.

Rather, it is a tale of hubris and failure, and the question asked in the subtitle is how Japan's most powerful institution endangers world markets. In retrospect, the MOF bears a heavy responsibility for the policy failures that plunged Japan into its first home-grown recession since World War II. But it did not engineer a world recession, and the "lost decade" was contained to Japan. This book is not the best one available on the course of macroeconomic policy in Japan during the bubble and post-bubble years. But it is to my knowledge the only source available in English to lift the veil on the functioning of this key Japanese institution. Of course, readers proficient in Japanese will have access to many more sources, as reporting insiders' stories from Kasumigaseki was and still is a popular genre, with many journalists and disgruntled former bureaucrats specializing in the subject. For more scholarly inclined types, the books on the Okurashô's demise by Masaru Mabuchi from Kyoto University are still considered as the best sources on the subject.

The entangling bureaucracy that keeps a chokehold on Japan is exposed at last! I doubt if the Japanese Ministry of Finance wants you to read this one! Hartcher not only exposes how the bureaucracy works but also explains why Japan will always face an uphill battle until it is conquered. An excellent look at the ceremonial democracy that manages Japan!

Very informative, very revealing, very insightful!

Hartcher leaves no stone unturned in his mission to detail the power base assembled at the Ministry.