The sun also rises

Last week, Japan sustained its most powerful earthquake ever. A cataclysmic one-two punch—an earth-shattering quake followed by a destructive tsunami—has destroyed the homes, cars and daily routines of hundreds of thousands of people and left the nation reeling. Lives, dreams and futures were literally washed away. The pictures are apocalyptic, the stories absolutely mind-numbing. Japan may very well develop a “Lost Generation.”

There was a lot of doom and gloom in Japan even before this most recent catastrophe. Last year, the country was surpassed by China as the world’s second largest economy, a distinction it held for four decades and was hoping to shed for first place, not third. In fact, during their heyday in the 1980s, the Japanese (and Americans, too) fully expected Japan to surpass the United States in economic output, but bad politics got in the way. A political malaise, followed by economic stagnation, has made for 20 years of hopelessness bordering on tragedy.

Few people understand how tough the past two decades have been for the Japanese. In 1989, at the height of its asset bubble, the plot of land housing the Imperial Palace was reportedly worth more than the state of California. Japanese were buying up property in Hawaii and California. Things were great—and then the bubble burst. After years of half-hearted bailouts and ubiquitous political scandals, the country amassed tremendous debts and saw no growth. The Japanese stock index, Nikkei, is at a quarter of its 1989 high, people float in and out of employment, the country owes twice as much as it produces, and too few people are born to support the ballooning elderly population.

The problem in the 1990s was destructive politics. In his book “The Rise and Decline of Nations,” late American economist Mancur Olson frames the buildup of small interest groups as problematic. Because politics is local, he says, these small interest groups can procure small favors from their politicians but at a substantial cost to society. This same political “atherosclerosis” (as one New York Times review of his book called it) in Japan has made the system almost unworkable and people have begun to despair. Japanese politics is notorious for pork-barreled corruption, embarrassing funding scandals and countless ugly exits: There hasn’t been a whole lot to believe in as of late.

Now, two “Lost Decades” later, the country is confronted with what its Prime Minister Naoto Kan has called its greatest crisis since World War II. When any Japanese invokes the Second World War, it is necessarily a statement: The war remains the single greatest tragedy on the national conscience. Kan is the leader of a political system that most Japanese have lost faith in, and he needs to be a Churchill-like figure to bring Japan through this current calamity and put it on a road toward renewed prosperity. He finds himself surrounded by a sea of troubles but may be in a better position to change things than many of his predecessors.

In the wake of the earthquake and tsunami, there is only one interest group in the spotlight in Japan now—the one that wants Japan to be whole again, to be great again—and everyone adheres to it: Naoto Kan, despite his dry personality and unrelenting obstinacy, is the leader of that interest group. A man who puts policy over personality (rare in Japanese politics), Kan has some good ideas about how to get Japan back on the road to prosperity, and he has the resilience and will to see that they are put into practice. Cleaning up the damaged nuclear reactors and devastated areas is just part of his job now. He must also work to make Japan great again.

It is naïve to think that the current crisis in Japan will silence the country’s many counter-productive interest groups forever. When things return to normal, there will undoubtedly be political squabbling again. Scandals may surface, and there is always the possibility that the current leadership steps down. But it is also naïve to think that when Japan returns to normalcy there will be no change in its outlook. This disaster is different than the Kobe earthquake that wracked Japan in 1995: It is more global, more visceral and more destructive.

The current disaster has affected Tokyo, a truly international city at the heart of Japan’s economy, where all the most important policymakers are. It has triggered a nuclear calamity that harks back to August 1945 and Japan’s darkest hour. It has touched the hearts of millions in Japan and countless more around the world, who have shared in the horror but who will also share in the great test of human resolve and inevitable strengthening of the human spirit.