ABSTRACT
The impact on Japan's competitive position in the world economy is only one of the considerations Japanese leaders are expected to think through and weigh carefully before espousing a policy or taking a course of action. The Japanese indeed have learned how to act in the world economy effectively and with national consensus behind their policies. The more successful the Japanese automobile industry, Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) economists argued, the worse the impacts on Japan. Some of Japan's most successful entrepreneurs and business builders—Honda, for instance, or Matsushita at Panasonic, or Sony—have shown scant respect for some of them. Adversary relations in Japan have historically been fiercer, fought more violently and with less forgiveness or compassion than in the West. The industrial harmony of Japan is usually attributed to history and traditional values. Indeed, the Japanese "rules" could just as well be explained with purely "Western" teachings and traditions.
