ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to consider three controversial issues: the objectives of government economic policy; the operation of the government’s decision-making machinery; and the impact of the government’s stabilization and industrial policies. Since the economic troubles of the 1970s, however, a more balanced view of the situation has come to be adopted. The present political trend is towards the above-mentioned ‘Japanese-style welfare society’, a different concept from the welfare states of Western Europe. Hand in hand with the view that the government has given economic growth absolute priority, goes the belief in a kind of ‘general headquarters’ that determines government policies, and whose ‘commands’ are carried out faithfully by all the various departments within the government. Another factor that throws doubt on the view that economic growth was the government’s sole concern is that, especially during High Economic Growth Period, the balance of payments situation imposed a decisive check on growth.
