Reviews for Moral Visions And Material Ambitions

The average rating for Moral Visions And Material Ambitions based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-10-30 00:00:00 Shannon Wagnon A No-Punches-Pulled Look at Japan In the 1970s and '80s, Japan seemed to be unstoppable. Its economy grew endlessly and rapidly. Japanese individuals and corporations bought up iconic companies and sites all over the world. Tokyo property values skyrocketed beyond all imagination. It was the Japan that could say "More". But after all the media attention and wild predictions of Japan being No. 1, what was the reality ? Was all this a miracle ? Was Japan the best model for a number of developing nations wanting to go for broke ? McCormack, fluent in Japanese and deeply interested in the society he'd chosen to study for life, delves deeply into the underside of the economic "miracle" and--surprise, surprise--finds out that Godzilla might have feet of clay. But if anyone thinks that mine is a snide comment, let me hasten to say that he proves that he has every reason to doubt. The book is divided into several sections. In the first, he argues that "Japanese expansion has outrun the social and political structures necessary to determine social priorities and needs and has begun to threaten the fragile ecosystem." That is, such a giant boom was not sustainable. He analyzes three areas: construction, leisure, and farming, noting the way the first two impact the third. The use of state-financed construction of public works (whether necessary or not) and the encouragement of vast "leisure" areas for a population rather deprived of actual leisure time (areas whose construction helped destroy the environment of a not very large country) have wreaked havoc on the Japanese environment and depleted farming land. Though not an expert on these matters, I very much appreciated that McCormack used Japanese sources for his arguments and did not indulge in "Japan-bashing" from afar. The book goes on to discuss Japanese identity and the ins and outs of being a "peace state", that is, one without a formal military (though Japan's "self-defense force" is one of the major militaries of the world). I think this section is usefully connected to the first part of the book because knowing who you are and where you want to go help a nation to decide its long-term goals. The last part of the book, on Japan's treatment of its past, especially World War II, may be accurate and compelling, but seemed to me to be tangential to "the emptiness of affluence". However, a country that cannot unwind itself from its mid-20th century imperialist vision, that is led by people with the same mindset, cannot find a proper path to that more sustainable affluence that McCormack and many Japanese scholars envision. Now that China has become an enormous power---not really foreseen in this book---the chickens may come home to roost. This is a most serious study of Japan. If you'd like the background to Japan's current malaise, you've definitely come to the right place. Disclosure: I was a colleague of Gavan McCormack's a few decades ago at La Trobe University. I have not seen him or contacted him in 30 years and so have no reason to praise without merit. He always seemed to be determinedly iconoclastic and not one to take sides easily. His view of Japan was not the usual one found in Australia. In this case, I think time has proven him to be right.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-05-11 00:00:00 Jean Fran�ois Mcsween Full review will go up later. For now, I'll say that it's a relevant diagnosis, circa 1994-5, of Japan's emerging post-bubble ills as well as those that had been festering in the years before. Doesn't theorize any common cause or ground for these problems, and it could be more theoretically coherent, but its arguments hang together pretty well and stand the test of time. Unfortunately, not much has changed in Japanese politics since the 90s.