Prime Minister Naoto Kan recently said that Japan is facing its greatest crisis since World War II. Can a reinvigorated Japan emerge from this crisis, one with a renewed sense of national purpose?
In an intriguing survey in the April issue of Bungei Shunju magazine, one conducted before the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, the monthly queried 125 leading citizens on the causes of Japan's recent political impasse and long-lasting stagnation.
Beyond criticism of the postwar educational system and the current electoral system, several respondents noted that the de facto 1955 political contract formed to catch up with the West and achieve a certain level of material prosperity for every Japanese citizen had, in fact, accomplished those goals by the 1980s and early 1990s, but that Japan's leaders have not moved on to face the new problems of a postindustrial society in a changed world.