Japan today is caught up in chronic economic crisis, its financial system wracked by record-breaking bankruptcies and its companies hobbled by bad balance sheets, overproduction, and weak consumer demand. In turn, Japan''s faltering fortunes have sent shock waves across Asia, triggering the collapse of economies in South Korea, Thailand, and other Asian countries that followed its model for rapid growth and development. While a growing chorus of Japanese politicians, business leaders, and economic analysts blame the current troubles on the misguided policies of Japan''s Ministry of Finance, the root of Japan''s malaise lies more fundamentally in the contradictory relationship that first made it an economic powerhouse: the combination of businesses that aggressively compete for profits in the best tradition of free enterprise with a government bureaucracy that controls the economy with a heavy thicket of regulation and guidance. And so far, despite ringing declarations of reform
