"Mottaniai" And Japan As A Potential Model For The Future World Economy?
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I would tend to agree with Samuelson, but since I am not an economist I cannot back this assertion up with reams of data. In my view, this reappraisal is also very much an undercurrent rather than mainstream and appears in various forms, for instance in the Mottaniai Society. I really like the Wikipedia definition of Mottaniai: a Japanese term meaning “a sense of regret concerning waste when the intrinsic value of an object or resource is not properly utilized”. It gives the strong impression that something other than a GDP-growth-at-all-costs fixation is at play in parts of Japanese society.
But this undercurrent has not touched all Japanese and results from the most recent national elections in December 2012 showed how the majority of people basically voted for economic reform in an effort to escape from those “decades of stagnation”. Whether reform will be forthcoming and effective is another question. In the years ahead we are likely also to see more reflection upon what Japan’s transition to the “new normal” might actually look like. And remember, this “new normal” will be the future path for most industrialized and industrializing countries, if people like Heinberg, Rubin, Nagen and Jackson are correct.
But the reality is that the new normal may not be as stark as we might expect. There are some who suggest that Japan has not lost anything at all — echoing the findings of the Inclusive Wealth Report. According to financial journalist Anthony Hilton, “Japanese exports increased by 73 percent during the ‘lost decade’ and electricity usage — a key indicator of economic activity — increased by 30 percent. By 2006, Japan’s exports were three times what they were in 1989. As in The Wizard of Oz, being ‘lost’ might not be so bad after all.”
Over at the New York Times, Eamonn Fingleton argues that in recent decades “Japan has succeeded in delivering an increasingly affluent lifestyle to its people despite the financial crash. In the fullness of time, it is likely that this era will be viewed as an outstanding success story.” He points out that average life expectancy grew by 4.2 years in the period from 1989 to 2009 while unemployment remains at 4.2 percent, about half that of the United States (US). He also states that the current account surplus has grown threefold since 1989, standing at US$196 billion in 2010.
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http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-01-10/japan-as-the-new-normal-living-in-a-constrained-economy