Formulating a Strategy for Economic Development

There are two important and characteristic features of industrial development in Japan: 1) the Japanese willingness to plan and, 2) the development and use of man-made resources. The first emerges from my general observation that Japanese people are frequently ready to organize themselves and make plans in conducting economic activities. Given the unfortunate economic conditions of the shortage of economic resources under which Japan had to promote its industrialization this willingness has led them to explore various ways to develop the work force into highly productive human resources. Individual workers made initiatives to become productive workers and effective operators at offices and factories, with objectives that went beyond making simple efforts to work hard to acquire educational and professional work skills. They made social engineering efforts so as to build man-made resources to counter the paucity of economic resources. This willingness to plan for the better construction of the economy and society and the large effort to build human resources in the economy has developed in to the driving force of the building of economic society in Japan.