The Power to Compete

This is a dialogue between Hiroshi Mikitani, who founded Rakuten, and his father Ryoichi Mikitani, an economist who had worked with Joseph Stiglitz and who was terminally ill during its writing. They discuss why Japan's economy stopped growing and what would restore it.

The son's diagnosis is about corporate practice and openness. He argues that Japanese companies became inward-looking, that the seniority system prevents capable people from having authority, that consensus decision-making produces slowness that global competition punishes, that the education system and the language barrier isolate Japanese business from international markets, and that regulation protects incumbents. His most publicised action, making English the official internal language of Rakuten, is defended here as necessary for hiring and for operating internationally rather than as symbolism.

The father's contribution is macroeconomic and more measured, covering monetary policy, deflation, the banking crisis and structural reform, and he pushes back on some of his son's positions. The dialogue form lets disagreements stand.

The book was written during the early Abe government and treats its programme as promising, which dates it. It is short and readable, and its use is as a first-hand statement of what a successful Japanese entrepreneur thought was wrong with Japanese business, which is more direct than most outside analysis. The economics is not rigorous, the sample is one company's experience generalised, and the reforms proposed have been partially attempted with mixed results in the decade since. The reference has not verified the specific data claims made in the dialogue.