Standing Up To Culture

By Daniel Yankelovich

IN a changing world, Japan and the United States face similar challenges even though our histories and cultures are very different. In both nations, the influence of tradition and culture is wearing thin while individual choice grows stronger. This places a heavy burden of responsibility on the individual, more than most people are comfortable with.

In late September, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe wrote an editorial in The Wall Street Journal 1, titled “Unleashing the Power of Womenomics.” He out- lined a series of policies for which the dual purpose is to boost women in the workforce significantly and thereby also raise fertility rates.

Prime Minister Abe is well aware that combining these two goals runs counter to the long-held belief that female participation in the labor force lowers fertility rates. He cites a number of government policies that would make his twin goals compatible. These include: expanded day-care and nursing-care services, flexible work arrangements and better pay for women.

文化への抵抗
ダニエル・ヤンケロビッチ

この変化の時代にあって、日本と米国は、歴史的文 化的背景が大いに異なるとはいえ、似たような問

題 に直面している。日米のいずれでも、伝統と文 化がすたれつつある一方で、個人の選択が優先されるよ うになっている。この流れにより、多くの人が望む以上 に個人に重い責任がのしかかっている。 この秋、ウォール・ストリート・ジャーナル紙に安部 晋三首相の寄稿があった。タイトルは「安部総理、ウィ メノミクスのパワーを解き放つ」。女性の雇用を大幅に増 やし出生率上昇を促す一連の政策をまとめたものだ。

この2つの目標を掲 げることが、女性の雇用増は出生率 を下げるという長く正しいとされてきた論理に反するこ とを、安部首相は十分承知している。そのうえで彼は、 この2つの目標を両立させるための多くの政策に言及し ている。デイケアや介護サービスの拡大、柔軟な就労形態、 女性の賃金増などである。

THE British philosopher A.N. Whitehead had many wise things to say about business and society. One of his wisest observations was his statement that a great society is one in which its busi- ness leaders “think greatly of their functions.” When they fail, Whitehead concludes, the consequences are “orgies of exploitation” followed by “a descending standard of living.”

This philosophical way of thinking about business and society is strikingly different from the dominant view of economists and politicians. They favor a more technical picture of economies operating in accord with impersonal laws. In this view economies are semi-autonomous entities obeying laws that are independent of the norms, mores and characters of the societies in which they are embedded. The moral vision of the nation’s business leaders carries little economic weight.