Japan and the Shackles of the Past 일본의 굴레 by Murphy, R. Taggart.

Japan and the Shackles of the Past (What Everyone Needs to Know) - Kindle edition by Murphy, R. Taggart. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Japan and the Shackles of the Past (What Everyone Needs to Know) by [R. Taggart Murphy]

by R. Taggart Murphy  (Author)  Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 out of 5 stars    52 ratings

Part of: What Everyone Needs to Know® (110 Books)

Oxford University Press

Publication date

November 7, 2014

Japan is one of the world's wealthiest and most technologically advanced nations, and its rapid ascent to global power status after 1853 remains one of the most remarkable stories in modern world history. Yet it has not been an easy path; military catastrophe, political atrophy, and economic upheavals have made regular appearances from the feudal era to the present. Today, Japan is seen as a has-been with a sluggish economy, an aging population, dysfunctional politics, and a business landscape dominated by yesterday's champions. Though it is supposed to be America's strongest ally in the Asia-Pacific region, it has almost entirely disappeared from the American radar screen.

In Japan and the Shackles of the Past, R. Taggart Murphy places the current troubles of Japan in a sweeping historical context, moving deftly from early feudal times to the modern age that began with the Meiji Restoration. 

Combining fascinating analyses of Japanese culture and society over the centuries with hard-headed accounts of Japan's numerous political regimes, Murphy not only reshapes our understanding of Japanese history, but of Japan's place in the contemporary world. 

He concedes that Japan has indeed been out of sight and out of mind in recent decades, but contends that this is already changing. 

Political and economic developments in Japan today risk upheaval in the pivotal arena of Northeast Asia, inviting comparisons with Europe on the eve of the First World War. 

America's half-completed effort to remake Japan in the late 1940s is unraveling, and the American foreign policy and defense establishment is directly culpable for what has happened. 

The one apparent exception to Japan's malaise is the vitality of its pop culture, but it's actually no exception at all; rather, it provides critical clues to what is going on now.

With insights into everything from Japan's politics and economics to the texture of daily life, gender relations, the changing business landscape, and popular and high culture, Japan and the Shackles of the Past is the indispensable guide to understanding Japan in all its complexity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Murphy is very persuasive in building a case for his solutions for bringing real change to Japanese politics and foreign relations ... 

The most fundamental of his prescriptions, though, is undeniably necessary: the Japanese government and people must, for their own sake "confront what put their country in the hands of those who destroyed its independence and made it a byword abroad for brutal, inhuman fanaticism. Trying to bury accounts of what actually happened with fables of a pure and virtuous land, as Abe seeks to do, is simply a way of making it more likely that something similar will

happen again soon"."

-- Morgan Giles, Times Literary Supplement

"Without doubt, this is the most important book on Japan by a non-Japanese writer to have appeared in the last two decades. It should be required reading for anyone professing to know Japan or wishing to teach others about it."

-- BCCJ Acumen, Ian de Stains OBE

"[An] insightful analysis of what ails Japan."

- Economist

"Taggart Murphy knows his Japanese history. His theories about Japan's political economy shed interesting light on the country."

-- David Pilling, Financial Times

"Japan and the Shackles of the Past is an excellent -- and engagingly written -- introduction to Japan, and a thought-provoking work of political and economic analysis (with quite a few lessons for America and other nations, too)."

-- Complete Review

"Murphy sheds much light on Japans current dependence upon the U.S. for maintenance of its political system and its future prospects, closing with an in-depth analysis of the current administration."

-- Publishers Weekly

"Taggart Murphy has crafted a precise and highly critical analysis of Japan's problems."

-- Satyajit Das, Naked Capitalism

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

R. Taggart Murphy is Professor, Graduate School of Business Sciences at University of Tsukuba (Tokyo)

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00O0URMBQ

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (November 7, 2014)

Print length ‏ : ‎ 472 pages

› Visit Amazon's R. Taggart Murphy Page

R. Taggart Murphy

 

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars

Top reviews from the United States

S.T. Wellman

5.0 out of 5 stars The best analysis of Japanese society I have ever read

Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2018

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The best analysis of Japanese society I have ever read, bar none. Murphy provides almost all you need to know about the Japanese past, and then follows through to show you what the consequences have been of the historical patterns. Masterful. After living in Japan for 35 years and writing about it extensively myself I could not disagree with a single thing he had to say. He covers the political, economic, and cultural history by turns, with penetrating insights throughout. Anyone who is truly interested in Japan should buy this book, and give out copies to your friends!

7 people found this helpful

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Edith B. Terry

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you need to know about Japan

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2017

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This book started out as one in a series of "Everything you need to know about X" and morphed into the best book on Japan since Karel van Wolferen's "The Enigma of Japanese Power." This book builds on some of van Wolferen's ideas to explain Japan's "lost decades" and beyond. If culture is history, Murphy's book goes a long way to unpacking Japan's famously closed culture as well as telling a very good yarn about how Japan came to be in the modern age.

3 people found this helpful

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Brent G Hunsaker

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredible history of the last 100 years of Japan ...

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2016

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An incredible history of the last 100 years of Japan from the perspective of economics. A story of its leaders to struggling a country out of a feudal era through WWII and into the second half of the 20th century. As Japan struggles to exit a decade of stagflation, an aging population, declining working age population they still lend to the world. This is a story we all need to hear. Correlate this history of Japan as one part of a multi-part story of the global economy. What you learn here will add to your understanding why the USA is pivoting to the Pacific rim.

2 people found this helpful

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Roger D. Williams

5.0 out of 5 stars An exceptionally comprehensive account of Japanese politics

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2015

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Although I am a long-term resident of Japan, arriving at the age of 30 in 1966, I have often been mystified by Japanese politics, its leaders and those who vote for them. This book has opened my eyes to the factors behind the scenes and has helped me to connect the dots in my own experiences, I suppose the many Japanese names mentioned may be hard to remember for those unfamiliar with them, but the author has provided an appendix with brief biographical summaries of all the leading players that will doubtless help. But I have seen and heard most of these men in person and am amazed at the credibility with which the author portrays the influences upon them, and explains (without condoning) their actions. This should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand Japan.

6 people found this helpful

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james hammill

5.0 out of 5 stars Great condition

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2020

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Learned a lot about Japan and its successes and failures.

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Christopher Roberts

5.0 out of 5 stars nice blend of historical context and current analysis

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2016

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Nicely written, engaging style. The introductory history was a nice addition and really set up the book. Author clearly has a point of view about current state and isn't afraid to argue it. Found it insightful in viewing Japan today.

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A. J. Sutter

5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome counter-narrative to the usual Western picture of Japan today (4.5 stars)

Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2015

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This book fills an important niche in Western commentary about Japan. It provides a passionate, coherent narrative that ties together many aspects of Japanese history, political economy and even society, written by someone who's lived here a long time and who cares about the country's future. As a roughly 400-page book from a major academic press, it may seem a bit odd that it lacks a proper bibliography and set of foot- or endnotes. But even though I wished that the sourcing were better in a couple of places, this book doesn't seem intended to serve the purpose of a usual academic study. A better way to think of it would be like a transcript of a two- or three-day orientation seminar about modern Japan by a very intense expert who wants you to see through the conventional wisdom.

I certainly didn't agree with all of it, and I would have emphasized some topics that the author mentions only in passing, if at all. But if you're not already convinced that Japan's problems stem from economic inefficiency, protectionism and a racist population that refuses to acknowledge history, this book will vindicate your reluctance to accept such clichés. And if you admire Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz, or believe the Obama Administration is more high-minded in its foreign policy than was its immediate predecessor, this book could give a healthy shake to your confidence in your views.

In what follows, I'll start by explaining what's special about this book's point of view (1), and highlight some points that most aggressively challenge the received wisdom about the country's current condition (2). Then, after mentioning some missing details that would have lent even more support to the book's argument (3), I'll conclude with a focus on some significant blind spots (4 and 5). Although I'll go on at some length about this last category, you can see from the star rating that these criticisms, though substantive, don't greatly dim my overall recommendation of this book.

1. Let's start with how this book differs from more conventional works about Japan. Most Westerners' access to information about Japan is filtered through people who are just passing through, physically and/or intellectually. There are a few classic types: General news reporters sent here for a couple of years of purgatory before going someplace they believe is really exciting, like China, some war zone, or at least Seoul. Business reporters who freely spout off about what Japan needs to do, based on ideas they learned from Econ 101 and the investment bankers they interview. Long-term bureau chiefs who've figured out what types of stories will fit the preconceptions of their editors in New York, D.C., Atlanta or London, and who write a longish memoir around the time they leave Japan to become one of those editors. Callow grad student and post-doc bloggers who spend a couple of years here before returning to a perch in the US or elsewhere from which to continue pontificating without having to suffer the consequences of policies implementing their thoroughly conventional advice. And let's not forget op-eds by superstar economists who spend a couple of tightly-packed days here wheeled around in a pumpkin coach, visiting suitably august members of the Japanese elite. (To be fair to superstars, I got the impression that Thomas Piketty was more willing than others to speak truth to pumpkins during his January 2015 whirlwind visit here -- but on the other hand he doesn't show up so often in the New York Times.)

The author of the present book (RTM) is distinguished from this motley bunch in at least two ways. First, he's already been here more than 20 years and has put down emotional roots in the country. Second, he's a former investment banker who later published in New Left Review, so he's capable of evolving his views.

Of course, there are a number of long-term foreign residents and maybe even a handful of short-termers, both academic and not, who have very valuable and insightful things to say abut Japan. But all too often their material is hard to find, stays close to some specialty (e.g. civil liberties, energy policy, etc.), and in some cases may even affect to disdain the word "should" when they write about Japanese policy. A virtue of this book is that RTM presents a much more encompassing and interconnected view than you can get even from excellent monographs or online articles. And it's a view that isn't afraid to say that something bad is bad -- nor, by the way, to offer a variety of idiosyncratic commentaries about pop divas, TV shows, anime songs, handsome politicians and schoolgirl fashions, among other things. At least when it comes to matters of politics rather than pulchritude, this isn't so much "bias," as an opinion backed up by an historical argument.

2. Apropos of that encompassing view: Part I of the book is a review of pertinent Japanese history and institutions, from roughly 1500 years ago until the 1980s. This provides some foundation for Part II's deeper focus on Japan's postwar economy, business, social trends (or some of them) and politics. RTM's professional experience in finance shows in his very clear explanations of some features of Japanese industrial and fiscal policy. He also sounds a clear and correct alarm about some of the serious dangers to Japan from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade deal being negotiated as of this date -- the same trade deal that at least one of the callow bloggers mentioned above insists "has the potential to save Japan's economy." And unlike many financial types, he's not an economic reductivist, spending a lot of time discussing Japanese politics from a truly political point of view.

While I disagree with one prominent aspect of his political narrative in the last two chapters of the book (as I'll expand on below), in many ways this narrative is one of the book's most valuable contributions. For one thing, it clearly calls out President Obama, then-Secretary Clinton and the US and Japanese foreign policy establishments for going out of their way to undermine Japanese electoral democracy, by punishing the newly-elected DPJ government during 2009-2010. What were the DPJ's crimes? Not to roll over and accept US ukase about relocating the (utterly non-strategic) bases in Okinawa, and to send a trade delegation to Beijing. For another thing, the book makes a good case that current PM Abe's main agenda isn't about "Abenomics" and the economy, it's about rehabilitating the elite class structure and non-democratic order of pre-1945 Japan, and especially about rehabilitating the reputation of his grandfather Kishi Nobusuke. (Kishi was minister for Japan's Manchurian colony until 1941, Minister for Munitions throughout the war, and then held briefly as a suspected war criminal. Then he became PM at the end of the 1950s and rolled over in obedience to Eisenhower on the Japan-US defense treaty, while ignoring million-person-strong demonstrations in Tokyo against the pact.) If you can understand Bush 43's Iraq War as a sort of payback for Bush 41's failure to topple Saddam Hussein during the war in Kuwait, then you might be able to imagine the sort of family drama we who live in Japan are being pulled into today. But actually this situation is much worse: for Japan's current Baby Boomer leader, the Good Old Days (which of course he never lived through) were a police state. Unfortunately, the New York Nobelists and other foreign pundits who praise Abe's economic policies are giving him more power to push us back into that future.

It's for this background especially that the book merits inclusion in a series the publisher calls "What Everyone Needs to Know."

3. Every author has to make choices about what to include, but there are a few topics where even slightly more detail could have strengthened the book's argument. I'll give one political and one economic example.

For politics, a little more might have been said about Japan's election law. RTM describes some changes that were made in the law in 1994, but omits to mention that the result is still an extremely disproportional system, i.e., one in which the percentage of of seats doesn't reflect the number of votes received. In Japan's case, the system chosen is one of the most imbalanced, known in political science jargon as "mixed member majoritarian" -- the same as used by Putin's Russia. (Some other more technical choices compound the problems in Japan.) Thanks to our Russian-style system, Abe's coalition could win a 68% majority in the Diet in 2012, with only 42% of the votes cast; in 2014, they won a similar supermajority, still with only around 48% of the votes. Without this background, a reader might believe that the fact that LDP repeatedly gets elected means that they have majority support.

Other important aspects of the election law include the Japan Supreme Court's crucial role from the 1960s to the present in allowing unconstitutional elections to stand again and again (notwithstanding the constitution's explicit and self-executing invalidation (Art. 98(1)) of acts not in conformity with the constitution), and the law's draconian restrictions on political speech. E.g., in 2013, the Abe government pushed through changes that make it a crime punishable by prison to send an email to your mom during Japan's 2-week campaign period recommending she vote for a specific candidate. It also became a crime for you to say anything online about politics during that period if you're under 20 years old. (BTW, the Japan Supremes have always upheld restrictions on free speech, too.) A few factual details like this might make it clearer to the general reader that Japan is nothing like a Western democracy -- and that this is a difference that's embedded in the law, not just in politicians' attitudes.

On the economy, a more nuanced discussion of exports and exchange rates would also have put the LDP agenda into sharper relief. RTM does mention in general terms that Japan isn't quite as dependent on exports as it had been earlier in the postwar era. But this doesn't go quite far enough to blast the clichés we hear daily on the news about Japan's export-led economy: the book doesn't mention that, expressed as a percentage of GDP, Japan's export sector has long been *smaller* than any other developed economy's, except America's. In the early 1980s, it hovered around 13-15% of GDP, and then declined to between 9%-10% during most of the 1990s despite the yen's being much cheaper during most of that period than it is now. Today, the percentage is around 15%-16% -- compared to around 28% for France, 30% for the UK, 45% for Germany, 54% for S. Korea and 72% for Switzerland. (The rate for the US is around 13.5%.)

With its "export-led" nonsense the mainstream press isn't merely wrong, but perpetuates a myth that conveniently masks the true politics of today's cheap yen. The point of the Bank of Japan's cheaper yen is *not* to make exporters "ecstatic" (@359), but relates more to the fact that the biggest "exporters" don't export anymore: they manufacture locally. Companies like Toyota, Sony, Panasonic and others have factories overseas and earn most of their profits in dollars, Euro, renminbi or other foreign currencies. A cheap yen means that those profits, as stated on their financial statements, get hugely inflated when converted back into yen. That does nothing to help Japan's GDP and Japanese workers, but it pumps the company's share price, and therefore management compensation; and in a larger sense it helps the stock market and the few who invest in it. The cheap yen is actually a Japanese symptom of the global separation of the financial economy of equity, currency, derivative, etc. markets from the real economy of goods and services. This benefits the members of Japan's big business organizations like the Keidanren, who are among Abe's most passionate admirers and political contributors. In the meantime, the cheap yen makes life difficult for us ordinary salaried folk who live in Japan. In this light, the yen policy can be seen as furthering the LDP project of restoring prewar inequality, which RTM correctly identifies elsewhere (e.g., @272).

4. The book does have a couple of significant blind spots. One is an overly rosy view of South Korea, and the supposed way in which Korean companies are "cleaning Japan's clocks" in many fields (@225-227), including exports of pop culture. (Could this be due more to the relative appeal of long-legged, sexily-clothed surgically-modified women and pretty boys versus tuneless chipmunk schoolgirls, rather than to differences in corporate governance? And does exporting this kind of stuff bring great merit to a country, anyway?) While this view is currently a fashionable trope of Western commentary, it ignores the extent of corruption in the Korean system, the lax enforcement of safety regulations, the exploitation of entertainment workers and many other weaknesses. And sorry to say, but judging my own career experience in tech and other fields, many Korean companies still lag far behind their Japanese counterparts in business ethics. These factors deserve more candid attention before touting Korean business as a role model.

Far more unfortunate, though, is the book's neglect of Japan's regions, the places outside the three major metro areas of Tokyo/Yokohama/Chiba/Saitama, Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe, and Nagoya (Toyota's hometown). They appear in the book only as undifferentiated "poor, `backwards'" areas (@292) or as destinations for politicians' pork barrel projects. In fact, however, these regions are where roughly half of Japan's population still lives, and are rich sources of cultural diversity -- as diverse as the regions of Italy or France, with their own dialects, cuisine, folklore and terroir.

Most regions are simply ignored, but the book does occasionally mention the Tohoku region, whose Pacific coast (including Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures) suffered the tsunami in March 2011. Since I live there as well as in Tokyo, I'll focus on it for a bit. First, it certainly was surprising to read that Sendai, capital of Miyagi Prefecture, escaped the tsunami "almost unscathed" (@203). Actually, Sendai was one of the worst-affected areas. (The "unscathed" characterization also doesn't quite fit the book's closing encomium of Sendai skater Hanyu Yuzuru, which mentions that his ice rink was wrecked and his home badly damaged in the quake (@ 389.) [REVISED, 2015/04: In an earlier version of this review, I had attributed this to RTM's ignorance about the region. However, he subsequently communicated to me that he had lived in Sendai when he was young; he was thinking specifically of the downtown area. He's correct that the tsunami didn't reach the city's downtown centre. Since before 2011, though, the city has extended to the coast; and this area was inundated, with terrible loss of life, on March 11 -- on live television, as it happens. The waves reached 10 km inland. We agreed that this wasn't phrased as well as it might have been in the book.]

Second, the "poor, backwards" epithet mentioned above is applied to Iwate Prefecture, but actually that gives a reader a very mistaken impression. Aside from being more agriculturally diverse than other parts of Japan (famous for seafood, beef, dairy, vegetables and rice -- and sake, though the best is hard to get in Tokyo), Iwate has produced a couple of Prime Ministers, a number of other cabinet members, one of Japan's most beloved and internationally-famous authors (Miyazawa Kenji), and a famous educator whose face can still be seen on some ¥5,000 bills in circulation (Nitobe Inazou). The capital, Morioka (pop. ca. 300,000), has the highest per capita consumption of gourmet coffee in Japan, and is famous as a jazz capital and as a test market for overseas fashion. (For what it's worth, guitarist Jeff Beck's 2014 Japan tour included only Tokyo, Yokohama and Morioka -- Morioka is always on his itinerary.) Iwate also had savvy politicians who early on seized the chance to make Morioka the northern terminus of the shinkansen (bullet train) -- today it has more shinkansen stations than any other prefecture in Japan. That's not the only sign of its political clout: roads become noticeably smoother as soon as one enters the prefecture from its neighbours, and post-3/11 repairs were effected there soonest. Morioka also happens to be where I live for a good chunk of each year and maintain a law office, and where my wife's mother's family has been established for generations.

5. This blurriness about Tohoku, and Iwate in particular, might have remained a small nit, were it not for its its impact on the book's political narrative. If the book has a tragic hero, he is politician Ozawa Ichiro, in whose capsule biography the "poor, backwards" terminology crops up. The book suggests that Ozawa's vision of a "genuine two-party system" was thwarted by a vindictive political establishment, treacherous party colleagues and, only slightly less directly, the Obama Administration. Yes, tragic, and a good example of how Japan trips over the shackles of its past -- if only it were true. As it happens, my wife's extended family had been supporting Ozawa for decades, and one or two members were even local politicians under his wing for a while. The fact is that he had been alienating his local base for a long time, with his arrogance and heavy-handed tactics. Rubber masks of politicians are a popular novelty item at Morioka drinking parties; I bought one of the last available Ozawa ones at a shop near Morioka station a few years ago. The caricature on the label portrays him as a white-suited Mafia godfather.

The final straw for Ozawa's Iwate base was his behavior after the March 11 disaster. Not only did he never show up on the coast, not only did he never intercede with his own party, then in power, for more support for the afflicted -- he moved kit and kaboodle to Kyoto. That turned him into a despised figure everywhere outside of his inland home district in the south of the prefecture (and even there it looked for a while like his estranged wife might give him a run for his money). Today, you don't see Ozawa drinking masks in Morioka -- he's persona non grata, an irrelevancy. Unlike what this book suggests, it's not because the establishment he threatened used its forces to bring him down, though yes there was that too at a national scale. But in his base, it's because the people who knew him best saw him for the selfish jerk he is. He betrayed his supporters, not the other way around. (Contrast Ozawa, by the way, with another nationally-demonized politician who caught the ire of Koizumi and eventually served jail time: Suzuki Muneo, who appears here only in a capsule biography in Appendix B. At no time during his peak years of activity in the late 1990s and early 2000s did this man ever appear to wear a halo; Ozawa at times could seem elegant by comparison. Yet Suzuki remains beloved in his home of Hokkaido, and despite his travails retains 1,000-watt charisma in person today.)

There's one more point to be made about the Ozawa narrative: what is so great about a two-party system? Should we regret that Ozawa failed, supposing he had been a sterling fellow? Actually, the US and UK "first past the post" style of elections can also be highly disproportional: in theory, a party that gets just over 50% of the votes could wind up controlling 100% of a legislature. There are other, more proportional systems out there, such as the one used for electing the German Bundestag. Germany has prospered with multi-party democracy due to a national disposition toward working together -- something not so alien to Japanese culture. The German constitutional system also has many other good features, including a constitutional court that's vigorous in protecting human rights and the integrity of the political system: there's something Japan could really use. And Japan has a long history of legal borrowings from Germany, starting with its Mimpou, or Civil Code. The blind spot here -- which, to be fair, isn't at all unique to RTM or this book -- is in the concept of what a healthy politics should look like. It would be more in keeping with RTM's other keen observations to assume that American politics is one of the worst role models for Japan to adopt. From that perspective, Japan maybe dodged a bullet when Ozawa faded from the national scene.

6. The book is is written in a comfortable style. While there's plenty of personal judgment expressed, it doesn't overwhelm the book's usefulness as a source of background information about Japan. I'd have wished for better sourcing and a full bibliography, but I'll probably contact the author about some particular cites I'd like to track down; otherwise, if you can adopt the point of view suggested above -- thinking of this more as a briefing than as a reference work -- the lack of documentation may sting less. The dedication includes a clever musical allusion to a familiar nickname for Japan, though whether this was intentional or more of a coincidence connected to the dedicatee's taste wasn't clear. In sum: despite my reservations above, this book contains much more of what you really ought to understand about contemporary Japan than any other individual book I've read in the past few years.

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Top reviews from other countries

R. J. Miles

4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting, & apparently well-informed, but I would ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 5, 2016

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Very interesting, & apparently well-informed, but I would have more confidence in its arguments & conclusions if it were not riddled with minor errors. Wagner's opera is not called Tannenhauser; the Portuguese for 'thank you' is not 'obbligado'. To cite but two: there are dozens of others. After a while, they stopped shocking me, and just contributed to a lower respect for what I was reading.

2 people found this helpful

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주진형

지난 가을, 페북으로만 아는 Susan Yun (윤영수) 씨가 연락을 해왔다. 일본에서 살고 있는 자기 부부가 공동 번역한 책 <일본의 굴레>가 곧 출판되는데 추천문을 써 줄 수 있냐는 것이었다. 내가 익히 아는 사람이 쓴 책이었기에 한번 읽어 보고 결정하겠다고 했다.

 
윤영수씨 자신의 말에 의하면 자기는 "전문 번역가도 아니고, 그냥 두 아이의 엄마이며, 남편은 회사원입니다. 회사일로 중국 상하이에서 12년을 살았고, 지금은 일본 도쿄에서 7년째 살고 있습니다." 전문 번역가도 아닌 사람들이 이렇게 어려운 책을 번역하기로 마음 먹었고 또 이 정도로 번역했다는 것이 놀라웠다. 요즘 젊은 세대들 중엔 전문가 못지 않은 실력을 갖춘 사람들이 많은 듯하다.
책도 훌륭하고 번역도 아주 좋아서 추천사를 썼다. 오늘 어떻게 되고 있냐고 물으니 반응이 좋아서 2월에 나온 책이 벌써 4쇄에 들어갔다고 한다. 역시 좋은 책은 사람들이 알아보는가 보다.
다음은 내가 쓴 추천사다.
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1982년 여름 20대 초반인 나이에 일본을 처음으로 방문했던 나는 충격에 빠졌었다. 처음으로 땅을 밟는 외국이었는데 너무도 익숙했다. 내가 일생을 살아왔던 한국 사회의 모습이 거기에 있었다. 내가 익숙하던 일상의 자잘한 모든 것들이 거의 다 일본에서 건너온 것으로 착각할 정도였다. 그게 아니고선 이렇게도 흡사할 수가 없었다. 도쿄 시내 건물과 길거리 풍경은 물론, 뒷골목 담장부터 밤 유흥가 거리 모습 하나하나가 모두 그랬다. 글과 말만 다르지 겉으로 보면 다를 것이 없는 세상이 비행기로 두 시간 만에 도착한 곳에 있었다. 이처럼 일본은 전 세계에서 한국과 가장 비슷한 나라다. 그 이후 나는 일본에 큰 관심을 갖게 되었다. 한국의 미래를 알기 위해선 현재의 일본을 알아야 한다고 생각했기 때문에.

하지만 나에게 일본은 가장 이해하기 어려운 나라다. 역사적으로, 문화적으로, 경제적으로 가장 가까운 나라이니 서양인에 비해 직관적으로 이해하기 쉬워야 한다. 개인적으로 친하게 지내는 일본인 친구들도 있다. 그러나 알면 알수록 이해하기 어려운 것이 한 두가지가 아니었다.

 자살 행위라는 것을 모르지 않으면서도 2차대전을 도발한 것, 

광기에 가까운 외국인 혐오증을 보이다가 항복 후엔 너무도 순종적 자세를 보인 것 등은 겉으로 드러난 현상으로서는 이미 잘 알려져 있다. 

하지만 그것이 어떤 집단적 논리와 설득을 거쳐서 가능했는지는 외국인으로서 이해하기 어렵다. 

2011년 후쿠시마 지진 때 일본인들이 보인 성숙한 시민의식에 비해 

일본 정부와 동경전력이 보인 무책임하고 기만적인 일 처리를 보면서 이것이 어떻게 같은 사회 안에서 동시 병립이 가능한지 물을 수 밖에 없었다.

• 아마 일본에서 가장 이해하기 어려운 것은 그 나라의 정치일 것이다. 2차대전의 잘못을 인정하지 않는 일본 정치인들 얘기는 잘 알려져 있다. 
• 명색이 민주국가인데도 거의 육십년간 자민당이 장기 집권하는 것도 이상하기 짝이 없는 현상이다. 2009년 모처럼 정권을 잡은 민주당이 4년만에 붕괴된 것도 미스테리다. 
• 1980년 대 이후 일본의 총리들의 면면을 보면 최근까지 세계에서 두번째, 지금도 여전히 세번째로 경제규모가 큰 나라가 저렇게 부실한 정치지도자들을 돌아가며 선출하는 것은 신기할 정도다. 
• 세계 제 3위인 경제규모에 걸맞지 않게 일본이 국제 사회에서 전혀 영향력을 발휘하지 못하고 미국에 종속되어 끌려 다니는 것 역시 누가 보기에도 이해하기 어렵다.

그런 점에서 태가트 머피 교수의 이번 책은 일본을 알고 싶어 하지만 외부인으로서 이해하기 어려운 구석이 너무 많아 당혹스러워 하는 사람들에게 매우 요긴한 책으로 보인다. 그의 가장 큰 장점은 그가 일본을 외부자의 시각에서 보면서도 내부자의 감각과 호흡을 이해하는 사람이라는 점일 것이다. 서양인이 일본에 관해 쓴 책은 대개 몇 년 정도 특파원으로 일한 언론인이나 몇달 간 방문한 학자들이 쓴 책이다. 그에 비해 머피 교수는 미국인이지만 지난 35년간 일본에서 산 사람이다. 게다가 처음엔 투자은행가로서, 나중엔 쓰쿠바 대학 교수로서 살면서 일본 사회가 내부적으로 어떻게 돌아가는지를 몸소 체험한 사람이다.

사실 나는 번역자로부터 추천사 의뢰를 받고 놀랐다. 저자가 머피 교수였기 때문이다. 번역자는 내가 그를 알고 있는 줄을 모르고 부탁했지만 나는 그와 2000년에 한번 만난 적이 있다. 그가 과거에 썼던 책, <The Weight of the Yen>에 매료되어 흠모하는 마음이 생겨 일본에 사는 그에게 연락해서 저녁 식사를 같이 했었다. 그런 내가 20년이 지나 생면부지인 분으로부터 머피 교수가 쓴 책을 번역 했는데 그에 대한 추천사를 써달라는 요청을 받다니 이런 우연이 있을 수 있는가!

내가 왜 그의 책에 매료 되었는지를 설명해보자. 

20세기 말 당시 외환위기 직전에 귀국해서 내가 접한 한국경제는 그야말로 이해가 불가능했다. 특히 금융 시스템은 상식적으로 이해하기가 어려운 구석이 한 두가지가 아니었다. 

자기들이 개방한 자본시장 앞에서 무얼 해야 하는지 모르는 것 같이 허둥대는 재경부 관료들, 신용위험은 전혀 안중에 없는 듯이 행동하는 국내 은행들, 수익성은 무시하고 남의 돈으로 덩치만 키우려는 기업 경영자들. 

이렇게 하고도 경제가 돌아가는 것이 신기했는데 결국은 사달이 났다. 하지만 위기가 발생하고 나서도 도대체 어디부터 손을 대야 하는지, 여러 나라들의 경제 정책을 분석해온 나로서도 갈피를 잡기가 어려웠다.

그러던 중 우연히 외국 잡지에 난 서평을 보고 그의 책을 구입해 읽은 나는 눈이 확 뜨이는 느낌을 받았다. 

그가 전하는 얘기는 일반 경제학자의 설명과 성격이 달랐다. 

머피 교수는 버블기 일본에서 투자은행가로 직접 일한 경험을 갖고 있었기 때문에 그는 일본 금융산업과 기업 내부에서 무슨 일이 벌어지고 있었는지를 내부자로서 생생하게 겪었다. 

일본 경제가 실제로 어떤 논리에 따라 움직이고 어떤 딜레마에 빠져 있었는지를 설명하는 그의 글은 마치 내가 내 눈 앞에서 벌어지고 있는 한국 경제의 작동 원리 및 딜레마를 설명하는 듯했다. 

그저 다른 것이 있다면 한국 경제가 일본보다 더 허술하고 부실했다는 점 뿐이었다.

이렇게 외부자로서의 시각과 내부자로서의 이해를 모두 갖춘 그의 설명을 읽으면서 나는 한국 경제에 대해 내가 갖고 있던 복잡한 생각들이 한꺼번에 정리되는 느낌을 받았다. 

그래서 나는 일본에 회사 일로 체류하게 되었을 때 굳이 그에게 연락해 좋은 책을 써주어서 감사하다는 마음을 표시했던 것이다.

이번에 출간되는 이 책은 과거 그의 책이 경제와 금융에 국한되었던 것과 달리 정치, 경제, 사회, 문화, 역사를 모두 다루고 있다.

 그가 책 서문에서 말했듯이 일본의 정치와 경제에 대해 갖고 있는 그의 생각을 역사 및 문화에 대한 그의 생각과 결합시킨 것이다. 

내가 보기에 이 책은 과거 그의 책과 같은 장점을 갖고 있다. 외부자적인 시각과 내부자적인 이해를 겸비한 저자가 제공하는 다면적인 일본 사회 분석은 그 어디에서도 보지 못했던 통찰을 제공한다. 복잡하고 이해하기 어려운 현대 일본의 사회 현상 뒤에 어떤 역사적 배경과 경제적 논리가 숨어 있는지를 이만큼 총체적이면서도 촘촘하게 엮어 설명해낸 책을 나는 아직 읽어 본 적이 없다.

한국에는 일본에 관심이 있고 호기심을 가진 사람이 많다. 그러나 나처럼 대부분의 사람들은 깊이 알아보거나 생각해 볼 기회가 없다. 그런 사람들에게 이 책은 현재 일본이 과거 일본과 어떻게 연결되어 있고, 과거 일본이 어떻게 지금의 일본을 구속하고 있는지를 잘 설명하고 있다. 이 책을 읽고 나서 많은 독자는 현대 일본을 더 잘 이해할 수 있게 될 뿐만이 아니라 한국이 갖고 있는 문제와 고민이 일본의 그것들과 별로 다르지 않다는 사실도 깨달을 것이다. 이것이 우리가 일본을 알아야 하는 또다른 이유이기도 하다.


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