People around the world are celebrating the arrival of a new century and the start of a new millennium. We all feel we are in a new age, and few are willing to wait another year, as the purists insist, before we close out the 20th century.This is particularly true for Japan, where the last 10 years have been a dismal experience. Disasters struck, the economy tumbled, the social fabric unraveled, and the government has accumulated massive debts to maintain a semblance of prosperity which, deep down, few people feel is real. This grisly new reality calls for a new start and a new sense of purpose in the management of our nation's affairs.

In charting a new course for the country, Japan must first debunk some of the myths that have both sustained and blinded the Japanese in the conduct of the nation's affairs: for instance, the myth that Japanese society is the paragon of order and stability. The 1995 sarin-gas attack in the Tokyo subway system is proof enough that this country is as vulnerable to odd-ball fanaticism as any other modern, urban society. Vicious crimes have been on the rise as criminals become younger and younger.

In the economic sphere, Japan has degenerated from the pinnacle of world success to a fumbling giant that seems to have lost its sense of direction. From the dizzying heights of the "bubbling" 1980s, the economy has collapsed. Some of the proud names in commerce have vanished, industries have been on the retreat, and the financial system has survived only by dint of public largess. Once the paternalistic "life-time" employer, big corporations have had to let go of employees as they try to shape up to confront merciless competition in a globalized market.