ABSTRACT
The economic growth has been accompanied by wrenching social change: rural–urban migration on a massive scale with all the consequent social changes attached; large-scale pollution problems; along with a spread of domestic political problems, the inevitable accompaniment of such broad programmes of social reconstruction. In the rapidly developing countries of East Asia this message was not at first well received but acute problems have driven the issue up the elite's political agenda. Economic growth thereafter there are issues of schedules of social reform and social costs and finally as an independent nation-state implies the existence of a distinct people, raising issues of culture. The Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) authorities had removed the old pre-war and wartime elite of soldiers, politicians and industrialists and they had inaugurated an ambitious reform programme. However, the SCAP numbers were slight and they issued their instructions via the remaining cadres of the Japanese state civil servants or bureaucrats.
