Overview

This book tackles global economic and social issues from a perspective that may seem obvious but which no author has yet taken: that we humans are living beings. In today’s artificially globalized world, we have increasingly lost sight of our original humanity. Despite the serious environmental, social, and political problems we are facing, we cannot stop focusing on economic growth, efficiency, and liberalization. In doing so, we continue to make the world “slicker” and more unstable. This book identifies these conventional values and ways of thinking as the root cause underlying many of today’s challenges, and it offers the perspective of a “bumpier” and more organic human existence that provides a greater sense of traction and stability. The book begins with a discussion of global systems and structures, proposing a “world with two systems” to limit the effects of artificially constructed globalization. The second part examines the modern welfare state, outlining a process to revive democracy and social capital by making social issues the business of everyday citizens. The third and final part focuses on human well-being, emphasizing physicality and the Japanese concept of kata as keys to restoring our humanity. Rather than searching for specific solutions through specialized knowledge, this book makes use of the author’s broad perspective acquired through many years of public policy research and reform. It asserts that knowledge should be acquired through hands-on experience and in studies based on real-world situations, involving people at the forefront of society’s challenges, whether politicians, businesspeople, scientists, craftspeople, or farmers. In both its analysis of humanity’s problems and the solutions it offers, this book takes an entirely new yet utterly natural approach to steering humanity off the global economic superhighway.

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9789819974597

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Hideki Kato started his career at the Japanese Ministry of Finance, where he was involved in fiscal and monetary policy, taxation, and national macroeconomic management, as well as practical operations. Through his time at the Ministry he was able to grasp the essence of Japan’s political issues, which are described in detail in this book. At the Ministry’s Policy Research Institute, he conducted a comparative study on the political, administrative, and welfare systems of ten countries around the world, publishing the findings. He also published a book describing a range of environmental issues and measures to deal with them—a pioneering work at the time—and organized a study group comprised of scholars from the fields of history, anthropology, religion, and natural sciences, publishing several books on a theory of civilization that summarized the achievements of the study group. As Founder and President of the policy think tank Japan Initiative, Mr. Kato hasbeen involved in a variety of research and proposal activities regarding financial, monetary, welfare, educational, and political systems. He has placed particular emphasis on activities in the field of local government, where national policies are carried out. Across hundreds of projects, Japan Initiative has engaged citizens and residents, chosen through random sampling, at both the local and national levels, and in many cases the results have become government policy. In addition, at the request of the Indonesian government, the same method has been adopted by local governments in that country, and is attracting attention as a new form of democracy originating from Japan.

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