1991 should be remembered as a year when the gilt of business ethics came off Japanese firms. In June alone, the news media reported: Nomura Securities Co. (ranked first in Japan in 1987 in terms of ordinary profits) had provided funds for the head of the Inagawa-kai crime syndicate to buy up the stocks of Tokyo Electric Rain Co. Nomura also gave him lucrative golf club memberships. The Big Four securities companies (including Nomura) paid secret compensation (128.3 billion yen) to big clients for stock market losses. Nomura chairman, Setsuya Tabuchi, who took the blame by resigning, had been the vice-president of Keidanren (the Federation of Economic Organizations) which is responsible for business ethics. Among 229 paid secret compensation, many were large corporations such as Toyota Motors, Hitachi, and Matsushita Electric Co.

These scandals did not shock the politicians of "Economic Power" Japan out of their arrogance. By January 1992, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yoshio Sakurauchi, and the Prime Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa, were confidently expressing prejudiced views about Americans. Their confidence was based only on Japan's economic success. As many have pointed out, they misunderstood the strength brought about by ethnic diversity in America.

After the 1988-1991 boom-and-bust faded, the Japanese began to notice that Mammon had driven the old deities out of the mountains, rivers, and forests of Japan. The Japanese now work under Mammon's whip. The number of "Karoshi" (death from overwork) is still increasing. Annual working hours in Japan averaged 2159 in 1989; 200-500 hours more than in advanced industrial countries such as the US or Germany. An average company employee cannot build his own house until retirement. To buy a lot for a residence in the Tokyo Metropolis, one needs more than 26 times the average family's annual income. Management scholar Tadashi Mito compared the Japanese management system, which forces employees to work overtime without any restriction and to swear allegiance unconditionally, to that of an army.

Many Japanese firms have traditionally treated their employees according to corporate paternalism. Life-time employment, ranking by seniority, and the enterprise union are the institutionalization of corporate paternalism. Recently, however, new management policies have appeared. For example, Toyota Motors decided on a policy that changed the just-in-time (JIT) production system, wringing water out of a dry towel, into the "friendlier" system. Konika, which had adopted the JIT production system, is also trying to ensure that workers control the production lines by allowing them to change the speed of the lines at their discretion. Toshiba and Kobe Steel, responding to ethnocenterism in Japanese firms, tried to raise non-Japanese men of ability to higher positions. NEC and Nissan Motors are trying corporate philanthropy. NEC seeks to assist young and unknown artists, while Nissan hopes to foster creative activities by artists who have yet to establish reputations. Mitsubishi (which caused the "Art Scandal" in 1989 by violating the Antique Dealing Law) tried to recover its lost reputation by showing interest in ecology. It has opened a global environment bureau.

Are these new policies sincere steps toward a new business ethics or only camouflage for profit seeking? To know which, we must wait to see what Japanese firms do over the next decade.

But I am not hopeful. Japan is now under the cultural influence of big business. What has big business shown us other than that "respectable" business ethics is camouflage? Big business has only worshipped money and technology, which are not ends but mere means for obtaining human ends. Most statesman and scholars, who should show us the ends of life, have only followed business. The President of SBS Associates, Stephen Schlosstein, said that there are values such as duty, hierarchical organization, and loyalty in Japanese society but that these cannot be sublimated into the more universal values of democracy, liberty, and justice. Although we have boasted of Japanese diligence, aimless diligence is no better than the diligence of slaves. The arrogance of Japanese politicians might be the flipside of anxieties stemming from the impossibility of finding any purpose in life. As political scientist Susumu Nishibe tells us, the time when we should reconsider Japanese culture is here.