In 1998, then-Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi launched the Economic Strategy Council as his advisory group. The council, headed by Hirotaro Higuchi, honorary chairman of Asahi Breweries Ltd., came up with a package of policy proposals in its February 1999 final report. The report deserves praise for the excellent recommendations based on the principles of market fundamentalism.
It is clear to most observers that the reform agenda being promoted by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet is an extension of the council's recommendations. Structural reforms in Japan should be aimed at transforming the nation's highly regulated, secretive and unfair economy into a free, transparent and fair one. To achieve that goal, the council recommended the implementation of its proposals.
In a book published in the late 1980s, I called for eradicating the premodern vestiges of Japan's economic structure, administrative service and politics. At this time the Japanese economy was booming while the U.S. economy was stagnating. Most economists extolled the superiority of the Japanese socio-economic system.
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