Jedd’s Reviews > Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State > Status Update

Making! Progress!

as fundamentally insignificant. Parts of a whole. Cogs in a machine. And take pride in operating together as part of a ruthlessly efficient machine aimed squarely at state progress and growth. Indoctrinate pride and anger. That "we are owed something collectively."

...a common goal and this vague idea of a "Great Public," in return erecting institutions that at least have the interest of multiple people in mind rather than the enrichment of a few families?

I wonder if our curse (PH) is that we allowed family ties to be the primary organizing principle of our lives. Blood rather than sweat. To this end, what we can learn from this book is that we must learn to see ourselves...

Is it not better, even if "better" comes with its own "brutish" consequences, to at least organize the resources of the state around a clearly defined "common goal?" At least in the denial of self one can serve causes greater than the pursuit of profit and/or cronyism, no? At least those in public service can be conditioned to leave something behind that surpasses one's self — and one can be trained to serve...

And finally...is rule by calculated bureaucrat really so bad when democracy is slow, inefficient, and corrupt? I don't agree with all that the likes of Nobusuke Kishi stands for and does, BUT there is something to be said re: one's attempt to distill personal ties down to cold, hard, numerical relations. Where once there was only disorder...is it not better to have imperfect order vs. none at all?

...worship of authoritarian power vs. democracy. Good books that expound on this include Robert Caro's "The Power Broker."

At what point do we not allow "getting things done" to justify the suppression of one's personal rights and freedoms?

On the other hand, surely there comes a point where human rights and freedoms must make way for concrete action. We cannot dismiss the importance of the "nation builder."

This book is soooo boring — Enlightening! — but boring. Interesting though how there are so many left-wing economic principles that are grafted on to the Reform Bureaucrat's Total War state. If our race is superior then all within the race must be equal in ability...and thus resources allocated "according to need" instead i.e. the needs of the great Japanese nation.

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Some parallels here in terms of...

What's really scary is that sans the racism, there's a lot of passages and ideas here that could easily find a home in more left-wing economic and political texts...

...don't seem at all evil in the slightest. I don't think a desire for more efficient planning and resource production/targets monitoring processes are evil. Nor I think is the desire to motivate production more positively through incentives rather than restrictions.

It's the guiding force behind such administrative drives that sets us on a path towards "evil", I suppose.

I don't think however that that means...