SSJ-FORUM members, particularly those who do not read Japanese, might be
interested in the September 1995 edition of Tokyo Business Today. The edition
carries three interesting articles, two of which centre on transwar phenomena in
the Japanese political economy. The carry-over of wartime structures and
policies in public finance, regulation, cartels, etc. has been commented on
before, notably by Chalmers Johnson (eg, _MITI and the Japanese Miracle_
Stanford U. Press, 1982), John Dower (eg, "The Useful War," in Daedalus, Summer
1989), Sheldon Garon (_The State and Labor in Modern Japan_ U of Calif. Press,
1987).

More recent work in Japanese has included _Gendai Nihon Keizai Shisutemu no
Genryuu_ [The Origins of the Contemporary Japanese Economic System], published
by Nihon Keiza Shinbunsha in 1993. This book contains articles on the financial
system, the main bank system, relations between capital and labour, the food
control law, and the fiscal system. The article on the fiscal system, for
example, is Tokyo University Professor Naohiko Jinno's "Nihongata Zei, Zaisei
Shisutemu" [The Japanese Fiscal System]. Jinno unpacks the conventional wisdom
that the 1949-50 Shoup reforms are the basis of Japan's fiscal system, and shows
instead that the 1940 wartime reform, which centralized public finance for
warfighting, more closely resembles the current arrangements, especially in the
area of intergovernmental fiscal relations.

The articles in September's Tokyo Business Today focus on the arguments of
Hitotsubashi University Public Finance Economist Yukio Noguchi, in his _1940
Taisei_ [The 1940 System], recently released by Toyo Keizai Inc. (the same
outfit that publishes Tokyo Bus. Today). The first article, "The 1940 System
Lives On," reviews the essentials of the transwar argument as it applies to
corporate finance and management, public finance, and other areas of the
political economy.

The second piece is a discussion of the issues between Noguchi and Taroichi
Yoshida, a former MOF bureaucrat who first entered the bureaucracy in 1944 and
charges that "bureaucrats have grown accustomed to doing a good job as defined
by the1940 system, which glorified intervention and encouraged protection of
specific groups."

The third article gives a brief overview of the current debate on what kind of
reforms are necessary in Japan in order to deal with the problems highlighted by
the sluggish economy. While some elites insist the system is not in trouble,
others argue deregulation and restructuring of the centralized bureaucratic
order are necessary.

In what some might see as a hopeful sign, all of Tokyo University bookstore's
copies of _1940 Taisei_ have been bought up, so a summary of its contents cannot
be presented here. List members who were able to buy a copy somewhere are hence
strongly encouraged to comment on the book's arguments.