Just as a wave of entrepreneurship created Japan's postwar "economic miracle," so it will take a new generation of entrepreneurs to revive its stagnant economy. A complex distribution system dominated by the incumbents has made it hard for newcomers even to get their products on store shelves. Fortunately, major social changes are now opening new opportunities. Generational changes in attitudes about work and gender relations are leading more and more talented people to the new companies. This includes ambitious women who are regularly denied promotions at traditional companies. The rise of e-commerce is enabling tens of thousands of newcomers to bypass the traditional distribution system and sell their products to millions of customers. Three decades of low growth have convinced many within both the elites and the public of the need for change. Still, progress remains an uphill climb because of resistance by powerful forces. Bank financing remains quite difficult. For example, the system of "lifetime employment" has made it very hard to newcomers to recruit the staff they need. Banks, who are often in the same sprawling conglomerates as the corporate giants, are still loath to lend to new companies. While parts of the government try to promote more startups, other parts resist making the needed changes in regulations, taxes, and budgets. Japan's economic future will be determined by the contest detailed in this book.

The Contest for Japan's Economic Future: Entrepreneurs vs Corporate Giants

Business & Money

Katz, Richard

Economics

Oxford University Press

Anthropologist/clincial psychologist Katz spent two years on a remote Fijian island in his search for the moral, psychological, and spiritual wisdom known as the "Straight Path", an ancient healing tradition with tremendous relevance for health and psychology in the West.

The Straight Path: A Story Of Healing And Transformation In Fiji

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Da Capo Press

An advocate for the mentally ill recounts her own struggle to overcome mental illness

Nobody's Child

Balter, Marie

Marie Balter's courageous story of hope and healing has inspired millions around the country. After spending the first twenty years of her adult life in a mental hospital, she gradually emerged from the terror of the back wards, eventually to attend graduate school at Harvard University and become a leading champion for the mentally ill.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Da Capo

Anthropologist/clincial psychologist Katz spent two years on a remote Fijian island in his search for the moral, psychological, and spiritual wisdom known as the "Straight Path," an ancient healing tradition with tremendous relevance for health and psychology in the West. Photos.

Probes the motivation of criminals--from juvenile delinquents to cold-blooded murderers--to commit their crimes and poses a unique moral reasoning informing the acts of such individuals

Seduction Of Crime

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Basic Books

Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung

Anthropology

Harvard University Press

This account of the ancient healing dances practiced by the Kung people of southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert includes vivid eyewitness descriptions of night-long healing dances and interviews with Kung healers.

After seven long years of economic malaise, it is clear that something has gone awry in Japan. Unless Japan undertakes sweeping reform, official forecasts now warn, growth will steadily dwindle. How could the world's most acclaimed economic miracle have stumbled so badly? As this important book explains, the root of the problem is that Japan is still mired in the structures, policies, and mental habits of the 1950s-1960s. Four decades ago while in the "catch-up" phase of its economic evolution, policies that gave rise to "Japan, Inc". made a lot of sense. By the 1970s and 1980s, when Japan had become a more mature economy, "catch-up economics" had become passe, even counterproductive. Even worse, in response to the oil shocks, Japan increasingly used its industrial policy tools. not to promote "winners", but to shield "losers" from competition at home and abroad. Japan's well-known aversion to imports is part and parcel of this politically understandable, but economically self-defeating, pattern. The end result is a deformed "dual economy" unique in the industrial world. Now this "dualism" is sapping the strength of the entire economy. The protection of the weak is driving Japan's most inefficient companies to invest offshore instead of at home. Without sweeping reform, real recovery will prove elusive. The challenging thesis articulated in this book is receiving widespread media attention in the United States and Japan and is sure to provoke continuing debate and controversy.

Japan, the System That Soured

Routledge

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Katz, Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Katz, Richard

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Katz, Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Contest for Japan's Economic Future: Entrepreneurs vs Corporate Giants

The Straight Path: A Story Of Healing And Transformation In Fiji

Nobody's Child

Nobody's Child

The Straight Path: A Story Of Healing And Transformation In Fiji

Seduction Of Crime

Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung

Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung

Japan, the System That Soured

Japan, the System That Soured