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From International Socialism (1st series), No.21, Summer 1965, p.32.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Businessman’s Japan
Takeshi Sato Michael Joseph, 30s.
Mr Sato has written a straightforward and competent survey of the Japanese economy up to roughly mid-1964. He devotes separate chapters to the,background of this period of growth, to the rising labour shortage, to agriculture and the expanding consumer market. He also examines separately the growth and problems of different key industries – light industrial goods, steel, shipping, textiles and cars, to communications and exports. Necessarily, a chapter examines inflation and the balance of payments, particularly in the context of Japan’s liberalised economy and the need to continue to accelerate both expansion and exports. Mr Sato restricts himself broadly to the factual material and the short-term trends exhibited – he does not concern himself either with the longer period or with speculation about the course of the world market, the key factor in the immediate future for Japan. He writes as an economic journalist writing pre-eminently for others with the same interests, so there is little about Japanese politics or the more complex undercurrents beneath the statistics – the cost of growth is mentioned briefly.
In descriptive terms, this book is an excellent introduction to Japan – it has no pretensions to deeper analysis, but within its own terms of reference, it is a tour de force.
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Last updated: 11.9.2007