Small Is Beautiful

We Americans are great ones for learning lessons. Give us a good Red scare or a land war in Asia or a third-rate break-in and we can learn more lessons over longer periods of time than any other people on the face of the earth. Relentlessly we self-improve, and in so doing, more often than not, we wobble from the course of national purpose. Just now, for instance, the nation is embarked on an intensive home study course in the lessons of the Japanese economy. Like most of our lessons, this one promises to be expensive.

The figures are available and we concede them. From a standing start thirty years ago, Japan, whose gross national product was then one-third that of France, has now surpassed the combined GNP of France and Britain. Bereft of natural resources, the island economy bounds ahead in an era of scarcity. Verily, a miracle! To which the tropistic American response is: therefore. As in: Therefore we should study the Japanese model and apply what we can learn to our own tired-blood economy.

About the Author

Neal B. Freeman

Neal B. Freeman, businessman and journalist, was a director of National Review Inc. for 38 years.

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We Americans are great ones for learning lessons. Give us a good Red scare or a land war in Asia or a third-rate break-in and we can learn more lessons over longer periods of time than any other people on the face of the earth. Relentlessly we self-improve, and in so doing, more often than not, we wobble from the course of national purpose. Just now, for instance, the nation is embarked on an intensive home study course in the lessons of the Japanese economy. Like most of our lessons, this one promises to be expensive.

The figures are available and we concede them. From a standing start thirty years ago, Japan, whose gross national product was then one-third that of France, has now surpassed the combined GNP of France and Britain. Bereft of natural resources, the island economy bounds ahead in an era of scarcity. Verily, a miracle! To which the tropistic American response is: therefore. As in: Therefore we should study the Japanese model and apply what we can learn to our own tired-blood economy.