TOKYO, Jan. 17, 2022-At about 6 percent of total domestic employment, Japan’s population of public-sector workers ranks the lowest percentage among OECD countries, far less than Norway’s ratio of nearly 30 percent. Is Japan the most liberal unbureaucratic country among the 36 OECD economies? In a bizarre twist, the country is probably one of the most bureaucratic members.
Government directories list only a couple of dozens of governmental enterprises: Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Narita International Airport Corporation and others invested by the national and municipal governments. The 6 percent figure also includes former governmental companies in which the national government continues to hold full or partial equity stakes, such as Japan Post and East Japan Railway Corporation. But the figure does not necessarily include numerous nonprofits, obscure funds and other forms of entities both the national and local governments manage that employ retired public servants. There also are countless trade and industry associations and lobbies that install former public servants that retired in mid-career or served up till retirement age, typically of central government ministries and agencies, as figurehead executives who loan their names in exchange for remunerations and grafts.
In all, the real bureaucracy and ex-bureaucracy population against Japan’s total employment of approximately 55 million should be about 10 percent.
That notwithstanding, the ratio is far humbler than Norway and other European countries, many of them far more liberal and free-wheeling.
The enigma of Japan’s bureaucratic societal structure, which is the reason why Japan is lagging behind China and Korea in the global digital economy, lies in the revere-and-fear-government mindset (known as ‘kami’) dating back for centuries and imbedded deeply in the Japanese people. It is sapping creativity and risk-taking letting the people to entrust complicated matters such as politics and government administration to kami (an invisible hybrid concept of god and government).
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