The following is from an article by Keishi Saeki, a professor emeritus at Kyoto University, which appeared in today's Sankei Shimbun under the title "A shift to public capitalism.
I first got to know him when I was reading WEDGE on the bullet train in the last time I was traveling back and forth between Tokyo and Osaka on business.
I thought to myself; he's the real deal. I introduced him immediately in this column.
When I first learned what Mr. Nishibe Susumu is, I introduced him immediately in this column.
When Mr. Nishibe was alive, Mr. Saeki was also in the position of being one of Mr. Nishibe's best understanders.
I also watched the live appearance of both of them on a BS Fuji program.
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Mr. Keishi Saeki, a thinker who has been a critic of globalism and a professor emeritus at Kyoto University, sees the global epidemic of the new coronavirus and its impact on the economy as the result of excessive globalism.
And it calls for A Post-Corona Society to strengthen its public infrastructure rather than global competition.
We asked him to contribute to it.
Infectious diseases are as old as human history, and even in the last 100 years, our civilization has been repeatedly threatened by contagious diseases.
And this new coronal pandemic is inseparable from the post-Cold War globalism.
It is the result of globalism that this infectious disease has spread so rapidly all over the world and has had a significant impact on the global economy as a whole.
At the same time, it was a significant blow to globalism.
The irony of market competition.
The post-Cold War world has promoted the borderless movement not only of goods but also of capital, information, technology, and people, aiming for economic growth through global market competition.
Neoliberalism and market-centrism advocated the minimization of the role of the state, and the United States sought to establish economic hegemony in the post-Cold War world by flying the banner of this policy.
Japan's policy of structural reform beginning in the 1990s was also strongly influenced by this policy.
Ironically, however, excessive global market competition has had very different results from those assumed by neoliberalism and market-centrism.
First, the global financial economy was incredibly destabilized, leading to the Lehman Shock of 2008.
The result is a return to Keynesianism in which the government supports the economy through strong fiscal and monetary policies.
Second, global competition will create income and asset disparities and upset the national economy.
Third, excessive global competition has led to states' strategies of growth, protectionist trade, etc., rather than the "exit of the state."
It is self-centeredness as represented by US President Trump.
Fourth, of all things, China, ruled by the Communist Party, became the winner of globalism, and the economies of each country became dependent on China.
Fifth, the European Union's (EU) experiment in regional globalism has mostly failed.
Sixth, excessive market competition has weakened public social infrastructures such as health care, welfare, education, and local communities in many countries.
Seventhly, information and knowledge, which should have been public property, have realized enormous profits in the market, giving rise to the so-called GAFA (four major U.S. IT companies) problem.
Besides, society and politics have been swayed by information from social networking sites and other sources.
And eighth, despite globalism and innovation, the developed world cannot grow much.
Broken Values.
It had already reached the point where it was no longer possible to compete in the global market.
It is where the coronal shock came in.
The Corona disaster shed more light on the problems brought about by these globalisms and propelled them to a more dangerous dimension.
The unilateralism will continue, and the conflict between the United States and China will become more serious.
Democracies, too, would consolidate the power of the state and government.
The EU will become more and more vulnerable, and the movement of people (immigration) will be a burden on the economy.
The government's control of information from SNS and other sources will be tightened in an emergency.
Despite the extreme fiscal, monetary policy, and pork barrelling of aid money, economic growth is not expected.
It is not a challenge to globalism, but a consequence of excessive global competition.
So values such as economic growthism through the rebuilding of globalism are no longer viable.
It is what this coronal outbreak has brought to the surface.
We are now at a crossroads.
On the other hand, some believe that the shock should be avoided and that a V-shaped recovery should be made to return to global competition.
On the other hand, there is the idea that this should be an opportunity for a significant social change.
I am the latter, but if there is to be a post-Corona social vision, it must be one that enhances the resilience of the "public social infrastructure" of health care, welfare, care, education, community, disaster prevention, and human connections.
Rather than the global competitive capitalism of efficiency supremacy, it would be a national (national) public capitalism that emphasizes stability.
Keisuke Saki graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo with a doctoral degree from the Graduate School of Economics at the same university. Professor Emeritus of Kyoto University and Specially Appointed Professor of the Center for the Future of the Mind at Kyoto University. He discusses the economy and conservatism in a civilized manner. He is the author of many books, including "The Future of Conservatism," "The Theory of the Dependent State," and "The Crimes of Economics.
He has received the Suntory Prize for Arts and Letters, the Sound Argument Award, and other awards.