In a lot of ways Japan is quite a well-run country. For example, when Vice Defense Minister Takamasa Moriya was found to have accepted bribes from defense contractors in violation of the law, prosecutors did what they’d do in any similar situation, invading the Ministry of Defense with an army of men in suits to probe for evidence to support the indictments. That this was the equivalent of the U.S. Justice Department serving warrants on the Pentagon to search for evidence of wrongdoing impressed me, since I can’t see something like that happening under America’s less transparent system. Also, the Japanese Finance Ministry rightly foresaw the problems with U.S. mortgage-backed securities and ordered all Japanese banks to steer clear of them, resulting in far less damage to the banking industry on this side of the pond. Still, Japan does have their share of problems, and one of the most famous is the practice of amakudari, which means “descent from heaven.” It’s essentially the practice of high-ranking government officials taking cushy jobs in industries they used to oversee when they retire, which creates a lot of you-scratch-my-back cooperation that really shouldn’t exist between the private and public sectors. It’s analogous to the practice of former members of Congress becoming lobbyists after they retire, and it can create a lot of potential for improper exchanging of a lucrative career for influence that I think we’d be better off without. Amakudari has been a fixture of the postware era for so long it’d be difficult to imagine a Japan without it, and even American companies like Aflac and Coca-Cola owe their current position in the Japanese marketplace today to smart decisions to hire former high-ranking beauracrats to steer their companies through the complex regulatory system here. Still, embattled Prime Minister Taro Aso has declared his intention to end the practice of Amakudari by the end of the year, and I certainly wish him good luck on that. Of course, it’s likely that Mr. Aso won’t be Prime Minister for too much longer at the rate things are going for him. Maybe he can get himself a primo job at a government contractor before the ban kicks in.
The original meaning of the term, relating to Shinto gods journeying from heaven to visit the Earth.
