At the dawn of a new century, the Japanese seem to be looking to the future with more worry than hope. The realities of contemporary Japan are grim. The nation seems to have lost its way. The social and economic systems that raised it to unprecedented levels of prosperity are falling apart at the seams.

Scrapping or reshaping those systems will require determination and courage; we will have to endure a lot of pain and a lot of friction in the years ahead. But there is no other choice if we are to rebuild our nation. The task falls as much on the present generation as it does on those of the future.

Japan ascended throughout most of the half-century that followed defeat in World War II, and claimed its place as the world's second-largest economy. Protected under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, the nation needed only to seek economic prosperity. It reindustrialized itself rapidly under a powerful triumvirate that combined the worlds of politics, bureaucracy and business -- the three marched together in lock-step, forging a system that foreigners dubbed "Japanese socialism."