Japan Without Blinders: Coming to Terms with Japan's Economic Success

Oppenheim defends the Japanese from charges of exclusionist trade practices in a trenchant, hard-hitting critique that urges the United States and Europe to come to terms with the real reasons for Japan's success. The most powerful antidote to Japan-bashing yet, this timely cross-cultural assessment by an antiprotectionist member of Britsh Parliament documents the West's own underhanded trade practices, comparable to those of which Japan is accused. Puncturing the notion that the Japanese government's interventionist role in industry has been the key to the country's development, Oppenheim argues instead that Japan's industrial triumph is attributable far more to its postwar government's growth-oriented policies, including moderate taxation and massive investment in education. Reassessing Japan's hegemony in electronics, the book shows that the Japanese are innovators, not mere copiers. Oppenheim provocatively urges the West to emulate the best of Japan Inc. and to overhaul its own business and governmental practices, a move that he predicts will elicit opposition from U.S. corporations, trade unions and pressure groups. (Apr.)