Back in the late 80′s there was a lot of talk in business and finance circles that Japan was rapidly overtaking the United States and would soon be the top dog so to speak. I seem to recall seeing a book at the book store with the cover picture of the globe with a British Naval captain walking down the right side, Uncle Sam at the pinnacle, and a Samurai walking up the left side. All meant to show the rise and fall of global empires I suppose. Hey, I was a kid at the time, more interested in the latest science fiction book than on some dry economic treatise.
By 1990 the property bubble was bursting and Japan was entering what would be two decades and counting of stagnation, ZIRP, and the yen as the carry trade currency. At the time, most economist thought Japan’s economic malaise would be a little speed bump before they resumed their ascendancy. China wasn’t really on anyone’s radar as the up and coming world power.
Even in the early 90′s, cultural relativism was becoming or had become entrenched in academia. I’m really not sure which since it really was for me the first time I’d run into this type of level playing field mentality. Business school classes discussed all the differences between Japanese and American culture and attempted to give students a firm grasp of the realities of working for our future Japanese bosses. Remember, up until their bubble burst, the Japanese seemed to be buying up any and everything that was for sale here in the United States.
I remember one point that my professors made quite clearly. There was a Japanese speaker who pointed out that the Japanese people were not good at innovation, but they are very good and refining an idea to make it better. On the other hand, he thought Americans were the exact opposite. Good at creative thinking, experimentation, and innovation, but then they seemed to drop an idea once they had achieved their goal. There was a story, a parable, that he told. He said, in Japan, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. The point being that ego and standing out are frowned upon, conformity and group participation are prized.
There has been a lot of talk about women outnumbering men in colleges, earning more post-graduate degrees, and holding more jobs than men in this current recession. I bring this up because I want to point out that like the Japanese culture, women also highly value conformity to group norms and group participation (see Snark 1, 2 and the Social Pathologist 1,2,3). Women are seen as the consensus builders, the ones who promote inclusiveness when bringing together people of disparate backgrounds. Women are the ones who constantly check their actions against the group norms and then modify their behavior as necessary.
The one thing women have historically not been good at is innovation or invention. Innovation involves taking risks, often thinking outside of convention, even choosing a new path not traveled before. These aren’t things that are easy to do when one is not naturally or culturally inclined in that direction in the first place.
With women leading the way what will become of our culture, society, and country? We haven’t completely stamped out men’s desire to tinker, experiment, and push the limits as of yet. The nanny state, onerous regulation and regulatory capture, the litigation society, etc all add to the costs. I look at the Japanese economy, and I think that the feminization of the west will result in nothing less than stagnation.
