(^472) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
tions and reprisals. Now die Japanese learned that they had more to
gain by buying than by grabbing.
Their quickness stunned Japan's competitors. Some know-how came
to them because producers in other countries hired Japanese firms to
make objects (watches, auto parts) that the more advanced country
could label and sell as its own. Much they copied by reverse engineer
ing, taking Western models apart and learning to make them better.
They also sent missions to visit Western lands and humbly learn by
watching and asking, photographing and tape-recording. "Humbly"
was the word: the Japanese are the proudest of people, but that very
sense of pride raises humility to an art and a virtue. These bowing and
hissing embassies were repeatedly astonished by the openness of their
hosts, especially in the United States. But why not? The Americans
thought they had litde to fear from these defeated litde people.^3
Even more impressive was the Japanese ability to go beyond imita
tion and invent. A visit to a Japanese showroom is a look into the fu
ture: the objects look familiar, but they do new things. Their greatest
success came in automobiles, an industry so voracious and varied in its
appetite for materials and parts that it could act as locomotive to most
of the manufacturing sector. Beyond that they set their eyes on the
most advanced and demanding high-tech products: optical devices,
precision machinery and instruments, robotics and electronics. Before
the war, the Germans held a quasi-monopoly on high-quality cameras;
names like Leica and Zeiss were legendary. At the end of the century,
Leica is still there, but a good Leica camera costs three times as much
as the Japanese equivalent. For rich aficionados, price does not matter.
But for most users, including professional photographers, that kind of
difference is prohibitive. Japan dominates the market, leaving niches to
others.
All of this has been supported by the world's most effective quality
controls. Before the war, Japanese goods were scorned as rubbish—
shoddy, meretricious, unreliable—made for five-and-dime stores. That
was pardy a rational response to deep depression and sharply restricted
demand. But now, in the growing affluence of postwar growth, the last
had become first, and Japanese cars, cameras, TVs, and minicomput
ers set the industrial standard. How did they do it? Pardy they were in
spired by American example, in particular, the doctrine of W. Edwards
Deming, who became an honored prophet far from his own land. But
the idea alone would not have been enough. It was the Japanese ethic
of collective responsibility—one simply does not let the side down—
that made for effective teamwork, sharing of ideas between labor and
nora
(Nora)
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