Wednesday, June 04, 2014

Imagine Abe Shinzo, Idealist Liberal Icon


You may Say I'm a Dreamer
But I'm Not the Only One.
I Hope Someday You'll Join Us
And the World Will be as One.

-- John Lennon, "Imagine" (1971)


In our future, the highway to peace and prosperity rolls out wide before us. Our responsibility to the next generation is to bring this region's potential for growth into full bloom.

So once again, Japan for the rule of law. Asia for the rule of law. And the rule of law for all of us. Peace and prosperity in Asia, forevermore.

Abe Shinzo
Keynote Address to the Shangri-La Dialogue
30 May 2014

- He is for rapid and dramatic increases in the percentage of women in corporate management, and has set a goal of reserving 30% of all government positions for women.

-- He has ordered a massive build out of child care to eliminate waiting lists.

-- His government is considering eliminating the deduction for non-working spouses, which will encourage (force?) a movement of Japan’s highly trained but underemployed women into the work force.

- His government has warned the sprawling and electorally powerful agricultural cooperatives that their days are numbered.

- He replaced a conservative governor of the Bank of Japan with a radical bent on creating 2% inflation, no how lousy the BOJ’s portfolio becomes.

- His government is confronting the issue of the mistaken transfer of wealth from the young to the old even though seniors vote in vastly greater numbers and may punish his party at the polls.

- His government and party have approved massive fiscal stimulus bills in the face of daunting government deficits and national government debt.

- He is a strong advocate for labor immigration, setting a target of 220,000 new immigrant worker arrivals per year ad infinitum.

- He is emphasizes the importance of the rule of law and collegiality in international affairs. (Link - check out the intelligent comments!)

- He browbeats corporate managements for their stinginess in paying their workers and their failure to offer more permanent employment positions.

- He speaks about "proactive pacifism" -- not just the defense of Japan but greater participation by Japanese forces in the defense of others.

Sure he has some legacy issues -- Yasukuni, history awareness, education, the Special Secrets Protection Act (which, upon reflection, should be called the "Protection of Lying Ministers From Embarrassing Revelations Act"). Sure he still listens to and employs some out-and-out-idiots (Link) and has a Nigel Tufnelesque hard time discerning stupidity from cleverness. Sure he is way too close to some corporate empire builders.

However, in a world where demagogues offering nativist, isolationist, oligarchic, constrictive and violent solutions to problems, Abe is rowing hard in the opposite direction. Indeed, with President Barack Obama crippled by his low popularity and the likely loss of control of the U.S. Senate to the Know-Nothing Republicans, Abe Shinzo should perhaps now be considered the standard bearer of liberalism around the world.

Imagine that.

3 comments:

A.J. Sutter said...

There are several senses of the word "liberal." One can be a liberal in the sense of believing that positive liberty comes from some sort of natural law, and that people have certain human rights that shouldn't be abrogated. One can be liberal in emphasizing negative freedom, i.e. freedom from government interference; this can take on an economic "free market" flavor or be even more broadly libertarian. One can be liberal in the sense of US political discourse, in which Democrats who, had they been in politics 40 years ago, would have been to the right of not only Nelson Rockefeller and Elliott Richardson but even Richard Nixon, are today called "liberal" or even "socialist." Probably only one of these senses applies here.

Abe certainly isn't a liberal in the first sense. Witness, e.g., the proposed draft constitution promulgated by the LDP in 2012, the associated Q&A that decries the notion of natural human rights, and the opinions of the people whom he has elevated to the power positions at NHK. As for the "legacy" issue of the Special Secrets Protection Act, this could also properly be known as the "Lock Up Political Opponents as Terrorists Act," which is another use to which the law could be put, as hinted by LDP Secertary-General Ishiba during the debate on the law.

In the second sense, Abe's credential are mixed. His proposals for getting women into the workforce aren't for women's empowerment, but for the sake of economic growth (which politicians of all stripes are bound to accept as an unquestioned Good Thing). His immigration proposals are similarly instrumental, for the sake of growth, not for providing a dream for the tired, sick, etc. His proposals for expanding daycare are not only numerically inadequate (according to Nakamura Noriko, the CEO of private daycare service provider Poppins, who contrasts the 400,000 slots proposed by Abe with the ca. 850,000 slots needed), but rely on expanding private daycare, rather than the government-subsidized variety. His exhortations to raise salaries are toothless, and in any case even if effective would do nothing to benefit the 30+% of the workforce who are non-permanent workers. So far, kind of liberal. But if his support for TPP is insincere, and actually is the passive-aggressive bargaining chip for negotiating leverage on defense issues with the US that it currently appears to be, then he is not so liberal as he might be.

As for the final sense, here I think you're on safe ground. If a Democratic US President made such proposals, he'd be called much worse than a liberal. But probably the same could be said for many policy proposals of Marine Le Pen's Front National. At best, Abe is Asia's standard-bearer for Beltway liberalism.

Anonymous said...

Linus, meet football

Yours truly,

Lucy

Yakimi said...

R.E. A.J. Sutter

>His proposals for getting women into the workforce aren't for women's empowerment, but for the sake of economic growth

> His immigration proposals are similarly instrumental, for the sake of growth, not for providing a dream for the tired, sick, etc.

Of course those policies are for growth. That's what makes his program relatively liberal when compared the tepid economic policies of other governments, what with their aversion to fiscal and monetary activism.

>(according to Nakamura Noriko, the CEO of private daycare service provider Poppins, who contrasts the 400,000 slots proposed by Abe with the ca. 850,000 slots needed)

You say this as if it isn't in her interests to overstate the problem.