COMEBACK: Charting the Future for America

by Azra Vogel ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1985

It was Harvard sociologist Vogel who wrote that harbinger of American doom, Japan as Number One. Here, following in a horde of footsteps, he presents four instances each of ""Success, Japanese Style""--the high-priority shipbuilding industry, the low-priority machine tool industry, the phase-out of Kyushu coal mining, the computer/telecommunications onslaught--and of ""Success, American Style"": NASA, the US agricultural export program (specifically, the USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service), the post-WW II housing boom, North Carolina's Research Triangle. Readers will readily agree that the Japanese are more attuned to world trade competition than we are: here are the familiar Japanese government-and-industry mechanisms not only to maximize exports but also to obstruct imports. The American examples, of course, also illustrate the benefits of government-and-industry teamwork--as well as demonstrating that Vogel is almost as much a cheerleader in writing on America as in writing on Japan. (Apropos of Japan's ""Information Revolution"": ""With the world's best-educated work force, with the world's largest trading companies collecting the information, with the world's best informed bureaucrats leading the government, they are increasingly optimistic. . ."") What is missing here is a sense of reality. The closing of Kyushu's coal mines involved the loss of 200,000 jobs in a backward industry and region--hardly ""comparable to the loss of American employment in steel and autos in the 1970s and 1980s."" The government held the cards and called the shots, and the people had no choice but to comply; this occurred, moreover, during the 1960s economic surge--so 100,000 migrated to Honshu's booming cities. The premiere American example, of the Foreign Agricultural Service, comes (with due credit) from Richard Bolling and John Bowles' 1982 America's Competitive Edge, a general inspirational source. Apart from glorifying US agricultural exports (which allegedly ""greatly raised standards of nutrition around the world""), Vogel can only suggest that some such apparatus be set up to serve US industry--which apart from being infinitely more complex, enjoys few of the same natural advantages. . . and is already global, an aspect of the world economic scene that Vogel ignores. This is simplistic overall: another recitation of Japan's sociocultural blessings, and some rough US parallels to suggest we needn't be done in.

Pub Date: April 1, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1985

Categories: NONFICTION