Never Mind a Perfect Civilization — What is an Adequate Civilization?

I grew up with Japan as an economic powerhouse, outstripping the U.S. in electronics, automobiles — everything modern except spaceflight. A generation after inflicting a bombing campaign on Japan that left few buildings standing even before we dropped two atomic bombs, this country watched Japanese banks buying up prime real estate in our cities. Japan was leading with both innovative designs and quality manufacturing.

These ruminations were touched off in a debate about the world’s economic woes. We had begun comparing the U.S. response to Japan’s. This conversation happened after Japan’s “Lost Decade” (approximately 1991 to 2003) but BT, “before Trump.” I was saying at the time that Japan had too many healthy elders needing the social safety net and too few youngsters paying in, but the customary fix for that problem — immigration — was not possible because the Japanese still do not wish to compromise their superiority. Most of the work Japanese don’t want is handled by Koreans, but the Koreans are not allowed to stay.

I had not looked closely enough to see that Japanese banks had pushed the country into a liquidity trap by inflated loans to corporations whose chief asset was being “too big to fail.” The short term issue was very like the run up to the Great Recession in this country — Japan just got there first — but I was feeling pretty smug about the long term issue because the U.S. has a substantial history with immigration and a society that does not depend on…