If this thesis is valid, Japan offers an alternative big push prescription for today’s
emerging economies. That Japan’s experience is replicable is unclear. Inefficient SOEs
became a political liability in Meiji Japan, perhaps because of Confucian expectations
that bureaucrats should be honest. Japan’s feudal elite, central planners, and zaibatsu
families were auspiciously discredited in circumstances difficult to replicate elsewhere.
Elites, once established, are usually hard to dislodge.