The Future Begins When We Abandon the Regime

To truly make the world better, one must first dismantle everything. We inhabit a world where everyone knows this truth, yet no one can act upon it. Or rather, a world where people will do anything else, but will absolutely refuse to do that one thing, solely because it threatens their vested interests and social status. As things stand, no matter what countermeasures are taken, reaching a better future is impossible. When viewing matters from this vantage point, what strikes the eye first is that the fundamental issues—those preceding any attempt to change or improve the world—are not being considered.

I felt this acutely, once again, observing the Bank of Japan’s Monetary Policy Meeting in the middle of this month and the abnormal market reaction that followed. At this meeting, the BOJ decided to raise the policy interest rate from 0.50% to 0.75%. This is the highest level in approximately 30 years, since 1995, when the bubble economy was ending yet still lingering. By the iron laws of economics, raising interest rates should increase the value of the currency (the Japanese Yen). Yet, immediately following this announcement, the foreign exchange market was flooded with fierce selling of the Yen, causing the exchange rate to plummet to the upper 157-yen range against the dollar—the highest (weakest) level this year. Simultaneously, the yield on 10-year government bonds breached 2.1%. Thus, Japan fell into a “triple weakness”: bond prices falling due to rising yields, coupled with a simultaneous sell-off of the Yen.

Fundamentally, a situation where a currency continues to depreciate even when the central bank raises interest rates is an indicator—indeed, irrefutable proof—that international confidence in that nation’s currency has collapsed. Strictly speaking, this situation is identical to the chronic currency crisis of the Turkish Lira; viewed dispassionately, one must conclude that Japan has already fallen into a state of currency crisis. After all, this was the turning point that exposed to the world, in no uncertain terms, that Japan’s currency policy has finally become uncontrollable, ending the phase where it could be glossed over by mere exchange rate fluctuations. Yet, shockingly, the Japanese mass media reports nothing of this fact. They make no mention of the reality that international trust in the national currency has already collapsed and that Japan is effectively in a currency crisis. Instead, they continue to report on trivial news and gossip, ignoring the sequence of events that occurred on December 18-19 as if they never happened. Consequently, the majority of the citizenry knows nothing of the fact that the Japanese Yen is already in a state of crisis.

For those who do not fluctuate with the situation, who observe the form of their motherland calmly without being swayed by emotion, this was a shocking event that reaffirmed, in visible form, that Japan has crossed the point of no return. Just as the Turkish Lira crisis was caused by the economic policies put forth by President Erdoğan between 2021 and the first half of 2023, the collapse of the Japanese Yen today is caused by “Abenomics,” orchestrated by the then-dictatorial Prime Minister Abe Shinzo of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and BOJ Governor Kuroda Haruhiko, who dominated the 2010s. Yet, the mass media does not touch upon this either. Neither the government nor the bureaucracy will ever admit that Abenomics was a failure, and the media refuses to pursue it. In other words, Japan’s pathology lies in the very fact that the social transparency which existed prior to the second Abe administration has vanished.

The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, gave rise to a Shock Doctrine. Through this, the resurrected LDP brought out Abe Shinzo—a man devoid of political capability—successfully annihilated the opposition parties, and entered a state of dictatorship. The World Press Freedom Index, published by Reporters Without Borders, is one indicator of a nation’s transparency. In fact, until 2010, Japan ranked 11th out of 180 countries, possessing a relatively high level of social transparency. However, due to the circumstances regarding the non-disclosure of information during the nuclear accident, the rank dropped to 22nd in 2012. Then, in 2013, upon the inauguration of the Abe administration, it plummeted to 53rd, followed by 59th in 2014, 61st in 2015, and 72nd in 2016 and 2017. In short, during the period from the start of the second Abe administration on December 26, 2012, to Prime Minister Abe’s resignation on September 4, 2020, Japan became a symbolic example of a nation with significant issues regarding international transparency.

Because this regime continues while effectively zombified, strict information control is still being exercised at the mass media dimension. In Japan’s hyper-aged society, the primary information source for the majority of the public remains the mass media, and since this generation grew up with it, their trust in it remains high. This means that although Japan’s bankruptcy is proven from all directions when viewed internationally, a situation persists domestically where the citizens do not know, and are not informed, that the bankruptcy is occurring.

To me, experiencing this situation daily in the flesh, this state of affairs appears strikingly similar to the late period of the Edo Shogunate (around the mid-18th century), when the system that had lasted for about 300 years suffered institutional fatigue and lost its ability to govern. In the sense that it was the end of the Shogunate, this era is called the Bakumatsu. I will proceed to consider the situation of that era by overlaying it with the present; I invite each reader to interpret it by comparing it with the current situation in Japan. It will be easier to understand if you read “Shogunate” as “Government (or Regime).”