[tlug] Re: [OT] Say _no_ to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Gernot Hassenpflug writes:

 > So what about the enormous costs of starting up (the law just changed
 > and many small business had to spend another whack to change their
 > registration)?

This doesn't stop Japan from having the second-highest rate of new
business formation in the OECD (as well as the second-highest rate of
closings).  (Both statistics IIRC, some student borrowed the book that
has the relevant tables in it; anyway, they're high in the OECD.)
It's a deterrent, yes, and it needs to be fixed.  But clearly people
get over it.  The problem is that most of those new businesses are
either paper businesses (for hiding from the taxman, or even blacker
pastimes) or noodle shops or low-level contractors in the keiretsu.
What Japan gets fewer of than it needs is business innovators.  (Your
point may still be well-taken in the sense that maybe these costs
discriminate against innovators somehow; I haven't really thought
about that, and it's a crucial kind of question.)

And while I did give an example which was drawn from basically small
business, and while I'm sympathetic to the barriers that (eg) software
engineering shops face, what I'm really talking about is Horie (minus
the faked accounts and empty partnerships) and Son and Murakami.  Not
to forget Toys R Us, Costco, and Amazon.  Product innovation is
important, but as the go-go years proved, Japan doesn't need to be at
the leading edge of technology.  It can always catch up.  Its business
culture is good at that!  What needs to be explored is new ways of
doing business, ways that might cut into the profits of other firms in
the market.

 > There's a lot to be said for the taxation system as I understand
 > it, whereby one can juggle money around before tax year end to
 > avoid paying any as a company.

Not as far as I can see; it works the same in any income-based tax
system.  Anybody used to a VAT system (which is much fairer, actually,
but does lead to higher costs on new businesses than an income-based
system) will think this is great, I suppose.

 > there are some pragmatic reasons. I do think this environment would
 > take the initiative out of anyone,

Agreed.  It certainly has that effect in academia.

 > and introduce a portion of moral apathy

I'd be cautious about that.  I'm not really sure what "moral" means in
Japan, even after 17 years here.

 > and probably add to the desire to do things that would be called
 > collusion elsewhere.

They're called collusion here, too.  The difference (as I see it, but
I'm not a sociologist) is that the Japanese tend to be situational
about their morality, and as long as the businesses aren't too greedy
and they pay their workers and give sa-bisu to their customers
commensurate with profits, the fact that the customers are being
screwed royally (by comparison with prices elsewhere in the rich
countries) doesn't register, and it's hard to condemn the collusion
when the companies are doing all the right things according to custom.

Also, Japan is like an onion (among other things the closer you get to
the heart the more you want to cry :-).  People expect that you will
strive to promote your "bu" at the expense of the "sha", and the "sha"
at the expense of the "gyoukai", and the "gyoukai" at the expense of
the "kuni".  But somehow this works for the best of everybody in the
end.  Sort of turning Adam Smith's invisible hand on its head (except
that no Japanese economist has yet appeared to get a Nobel Prize for
creating and analyzing a rigorous model to show that the idea itself
is coherent).  More concretely, people expect that you will cooperate
with those you work with, and there's a very long tradition in Japan
that says that if we all work together, there will be enough business
for all of us, but if we fragment/compete, we'll all starve together.
I dunno about Europe's agricultural tradition, but the American
tradition of the rugged independent homesteader has no place
whatsoever in the communal "paddy rice" culture.  "It takes a village"
to construct an irrigation system; a single farmer (or even farm
family) really can't do it.