One of the cliches most bandied about in the Japanese business world is yareba dekiru. An English equivalent might be the title of Jamaican reggae star Jimmy Cliff's great 1972 hit, "You Can Get It If You Really Want."

There will always be vested interests in a political bureaucracy such as Japan's, particularly when the politicians are lining their vests with cash graciously offered by corporations that benefit from their benevolence. As a result, it becomes easy to blame power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats for their lack of initiative in responding to the needs of individuals. They seem to be erecting the highest barriers to change.

Here, though, it is more often than not the timidity, skittishness and apathy of the general population that stands in the way of long-overdue changes. So, if Japan is widely viewed as a society stuck in aspic, it is due as much to its chicken-hearted citizens as to its porcine politicians. If those citizens don't "get" change, it could be said it's because they don't "want" change.