Shinzo Abe's First 100 Days: Sasaki Takeshi

Shinzo Abe’s Government Needs to Deal with the Design of a New Way of Working and a New Way of Life for the Japanese People.

The situation that I mentioned from the very beginning and one, which Japan has to “overcome”, is the fact that the citizens of Japan are beginning to feel a big change in their way of life. This also includes the increase in social inequalities. The reason why I raised this issue is, because no answers seem to have been provided to directly address it. The issue of social inequalities is, in a certain sense, a result of other factors and so it can not be solved by simple emergency policies.

In order to keep citizens’ sacrifices as low as possible, one idea is that the government should devise a system to provide necessary minimum support for the people. There after, the citizens should look out for themselves. A real discussion has materialized whereby, for example, the government should offer support for a certain area of social problems but not for all. In making this firm promise, the government would be allowing a sort of exit to take form, through which people could escape social difficulty. Shinzo Abe’s government is yet to provide such an explanation.

Perhaps, what will become a core issue is whether the present economic system will be able to cope with changes in how people work and the way in which people live their lives, or whether it will have to be drawn up afresh if it is not compatible with these changes. How will people’s lives change? How will people’s working trends change? What should people study? How should education be changed? These questions are all part of a connected debate.

So in a sense it is not possible to return to how things used to be. We must say good-bye to those times and move on to the next stage.

So how should we go about creating this “Beautiful Country, Japan”? We have no reason to oppose the idea of a “Beautiful Country” itself, but it must not be one of a past era. Instead the pressing question is how to create a “Beautiful Country” from now on.

If Shinzo Abe wants to positively forge a new role for the government, then besides obviously dealing with social inequalities, he should make the intention to tackle this issue clear. If he does not wish to deal with any other issues then that is fine, but I think a trend of dealing with whatever comes along is not a good one.

It is important that the successor to Koizumi’s government makes efforts to become the cause of stability within society. Therefore it should use taxes to address certain areas of social security. Whilst doing this on the one hand, it should steadily demand individuals to make their own efforts too. I think it is important that the government create this sort of device to help individuals free themselves from the prevailing social situations.

In other words, what I mean when I say “the situation Japan has to overcome” is nothing more than the fact that the government has to start a debate face to face with the people about the broader infrastructural design of their lives.

There is talk of a society that can spur itself on to make fresh challenges but if there is no plan for how this will take shape as a whole, then talk of it will just seem banal and repetitive. I think that the most difficult problem in Japan at the moment is ultimately,
How people will live their lives? How working trends will change and, how to create a system to support this?

Koizumi was destructive in his approach. No matter how long it lasted he did it with the same ethos that saw the way things were in the past as being rosy. However, I now believe that we are at a stage where we need to review this policy.

Personally, last year I became the chairman for civil servants’ basic labour rights.
In fact I think that this is a core problem that needs to be drawn up again. How should civil servants’ work ethic be changed. Are things fine the way they are? If not, then it is time for our way of thinking to change? Then is it important to apply the same rules to dealing with central government civil servants as to civil servants, who belong to self governed regional systems? I am starting to think that, at the moment, this is the most important basic question.

I think moving Japan from the twentieth century and adapting it to the twenty-first century, in this area, is one of the core issues. In doing this, a corresponding order should be brought to several of the present systems. Then, necessary finances should be invested. Whether these investments will mature or not will not be known until it is tried, but until they do, in the meantime, the government will have to try to pull through. Perhaps there is no promise that a result will come of this. However, if the government does not attempt to go this far, then it will not be able to envisage how to draw up the next phase.

If we think about the way in which Japanese people work, indeed changes that affect civil servants have quite a large impact on the private sector as well. If the public sector changes, then this will perhaps induce an even greater change on the private sector. Social inequalities, other various problems and ultimately questions about future changes, job opportunities and options and the infrastructure of a society to support these changes are all interrelated issues. To put it in other words, in order to create a new structure for society the government is being asked to find solutions to how the public sector will be structured.

So for the time being, debating the pros and cons of a “Beautiful Country” should be put aside. Such a grand-scale aim will probably take 50 or 100 years to achieve. Until that time I think that we should organize the situation in our minds by setting mid-term aims, highlighting the core problems and the various surrounding issues connected with them.

The debate may turn to the educational reform, which is also part of the above mentioned issues. Now, I think bullying is a bad thing, but if it becomes overemphasized then we risk creating a debate about weeding out bullying, and although this is not a bad aim, the logical connection with the core issues will be lost.

I don’t think it is a negative thing that the government wants to distinguish itself from Koizumi’s government. However, in doing so, the question is what group of issues will the government seek to take on?

Shinzo Abe is probably noticing various branching issues. There does not necessarily have to be one issue alone, however, I don’t think that he is viewing these problems and then trying to grasp the root cause of them by looking at our daily lives.

This is not an easy task. However, the Prime Minister must discern what the core issues to this problem are.

It is important that the government looks at the problems, that are lined up and then, acknowledging that in fact these are one group of issues, it needs to sort them and explain them to the people.

Is a “Beautiful County, Japan” or are amendments to the constitution the core issues? Are these the aims? What are the central themes of the political issues? The government must offer people answers after narrowing down these questions. If it fails to do this, the government will not be able to shake off its intermissive and lethargic image. In other words, the feeling that its grip on politics is not working.

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