A few years ago, wrote Taichi Sakaiya, a career bureaucrat, novelist, and lately the Japanese cabinet minister responsible for economic planning, a French journalist asked me if Japanese have some kind of national goal that motivates them to sacrifice their living standards for economic and corporate growth. I responded to his question with a metaphor.
A jet has a lot of different parts, like wings, a cockpit, a fuselage. These components all look different, they use different materials and require different levels of precision in their workmanship. Each performs a distinct function, but as a whole they have a single purpose to fly. Now, countries like America and France are similar to jet aircraft...
