A Lesson

INSIGHTS OF THE WISE “America, still the most powerful economy, nonetheless feels itself to be somehow the diminished thing. The old enemy, the Soviet Union, has vanished. With the U.S running a $41 billion trade deficit with Japan, the once deferential partner begins to look to some Americans like the new enemy.” (p. 9) When the Second World War ended, America was the victor and Japan the vanquished. Yet today, that order has been reversed—and the reason lies entirely in the moral realm. America had gained supremacy over Japan through the power of its weapons, but in the end, the strength of character prevailed. Japan, equipped with superior moral discipline, ultimately rose above America. According to a magazine report, most Japanese—and many Americans as well—place the blame for America’s economic problems on America itself. Masao Kunihiro, a Japanese anthropologist, asked: “Whatever happened to the good old Emersonian credo that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door?” He noted that this very belief had once made America economically and industrially powerful. “But many of us,” he said, “rightly or wrongly, now feel that the U.S. is no longer producing mousetraps better than ours.” (p. 14) Another Japanese commentator, Yoshio Sakurauchi, reflected the prevailing Japanese view of America’s