Through extensive cultural and spiritual indoctrination from writers, teachers and the government, technology for the Japanese became less an alien appendage than an extension of man, helped by the Shinto belief that everything – active or inert – has a soul.
Japanese culture mass-produced popular works that reflected technology’s benign presence. The robot ‘child’ named Astro Boy instantly became a cultural icon as a figure that embraces both scientific know-how and human frailty.
In addition, to pick up a theme touched upon last month, manga and anime comic books also portray technology as an instrument of salvation. Hence the adoption of both robots and artificial intelligence to resolve the shortage of labour within factories and care homes has been welcomed, not feared.
It is not only the Japanese that are beset with consensus and conventional thinking. It happens to all of us, and especially so to those who live or work within societies and companies with strong cultural identities. The problem is that most do not realise how their thinking is so constrained by those identities. This means that certain questions cannot be asked, since to do so is to raise doubts about self-identity. As an example, the current UK government cannot ask itself whether austerity is justified, even though it has not worked over the past decade, nor shows any sign of working, since that is to question the whole rationale of government. It is especially true of fund management, an activity that relies at least as much on self-belief as it does on analysis.
So often the large, hierarchic structure of the typical fund management firm – as part of a larger financial services group – fails to outperform the less-well endowed but freer partnership structures, which are able to think outside the box. This is certainly the case with the Baillie Gifford partnership, given its two outperforming funds in Table 1, and may ultimately prove to be the case for Asian specialist Coupland Cardiff and its recently launched Japan Income and Growth trust.
Recovery of hope
A love affair with technology has encouraged ‘system disrupters’ among the many new Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises. Some of these have western-educated founders, and many are now finding willing buyers among Chinese firms that are discovering their wage bills rising faster than they would like, or than their overseas markets can afford. Big or small, for the moment company valuations are reasonable, and shareholder pressure is encouraging dividend growth, as well as cash conservation.
Mr Abe, regarded by many in Japan as right wing, has views that many in the West would consider quite normal – a desire for greater gender equality and more women in the workplace, less business regulation and greater competition.
