There’s a rumble in Nagoya as the mayor is clashing with the assembly over a reduction in local taxes, and commentators are mulling over the possibilities of what could happen next. Will the assembly pass a no-confidence resolution against the mayor? Could a citizen petition demand the dissolution of the city assembly? Or will the assembly dissolve itself?

In Kasumigaseki, the central government is a classic example of a parliamentary system. The people elect their representatives to the Diet, which in turn selects the prime minister. A chief characteristic of this form of government is that the parliament and prime minister have their hands around each others throats: the parliament can pass a motion of no-confidence in the Prime Minister with a mere simple majority vote and force resignation or an election at any time, just as the prime minister has the power to dissolve the parliament at will (but which is not as straightforward as you might think).

Local governments are structured differently. Under the Local Autonomy Law (地方自治法) passed in 1947, Japan’s local governments follow a more republican form of governance that incorporates direct democracy. The voters elect not just the members of their municipal and prefectural assemblies, but also the mayor of the municipality in which they live, and the governor of the prefecture. In addition, the people have the right to petition to dissolve the assembly or force a vote to have the mayor or governor resign. The relationship between the governor or mayor—let’s call this person the “Executive”—and the assembly is more distant than relationship between the Prime Minister and the Diet. For a no confidence resolution to pass in a local assembly, 2/3rds of all assembly members must be in attendance, and 3/4ths of all attending members must vote for the measure. Once the chairman of the assembly delivers the resolution to the executive, he has ten days to either dissolve the assembly or resign. This is the only case when an executive can dissolve a local assembly.

The Local Autonomy Law, passed during the American occupation, did not grant the assembly the right to dissolve itself, because that’s not in the arsenal of an elected assembly in a republican government. But it wasn’t long before the Diet came under intense popular pressure to recognize the right of a local assembly to dissolve itself and call an election. So eighteen years after the passage of the Local Autonomy Law, the Diet passed in 1965 the “Special Measures Law concerning Dissolving the Assembly of Local Governments” (地方公共団体の議会の解散に関する特例法). The law is noticeable for its brevity at a mere two articles long, and yet the first article states the law’s purpose in a long-winded statement which shows, I think, how reluctant the scholars of political theory in Kasumigaseki were to meddle with the direct democracy of local governments:

Article 1. This law sets out special measures to the Local Autonomy Law regarding dissolving the assembly of local governments, following the trend of public opinion concerning petitions on dissolving the assembly of local governments, so that such assemblies can dissolve themselves and hold elections to listen to the opinion of local residents.

The second and final article goes on to set incredibly high standards for dissolution: 3/4ths of all assembly members must be in attendance, and 4/5ths of all attending members must vote for the dissolution. I do not know of any other elected assembly in the world that has such a steep threshold for passing a resolution. Consequently, you might think that this is an obscure procedure that exists under law, but which is never practically used.

Not so—a mere month after the law passed, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly dissolved itself after public and opposition pressure following an LDP bribery scandal (refereneced previously by Adamu in this post on Tokyo’s local elections). And the next year the Ibaraki Prefectural Assembly dissolved itself. Prefectural assembly dissolutions have been just about unheard of since, but dozens of municipal governments have dissolved as well, usually following the revelation of fraud or gross illegality during an election.

I posted this article on ComingAnarchy.com, and feel it worth sharing here also because it serves as a good international comparison to the controversial introduction of the law school system in Japan. In Japan, new law schools have been introduced that, at the time devised, were supposed to produce graduates who would pass the new bar exam at rates close to American law school rates, about 60-70%. Those rates have in fact been at around 20%, meaning that despite the new system, thousands of promising young graduates sacrifice some of the most important years of their lives on a wasted course of study that will not result in a career.

Critics write on this as if it is unique to Japan. But it’s not—especially not America in recent years. Of the hundreds of thousands of lawyers in the profession, there are many tens of thousands who never find employment in practice, with many thousands who were added to the unemployment roster over the past two years due to the sharp economic downturn, and yet the American Bar Assocation and numerous state legislatures are pushing to open even more law schools.

The author thinks the solution is to regulate and limit the power of the ABA, and maybe he’s right, although I tend to take a more cynical view and think that the complicity with the reckless expansion of the profession is far broader. An abridged version of the article appears below. Every paragraph is basically enough to expand into an entire book chapter. I think the numbers are also a worthwhile comparison—many more thousands of people (tens of thousands) waste their youth in American law schools than in Japanese law schools.

No more room at the bench
Mark Greenbaum

Remember the old joke about 20,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea being “a good start”? Well, in an interesting twist, thousands of lawyers now find themselves drowning in the unemployment line as the legal sector is being badly saturated with attorneys…

From 2004 through 2008, the field grew less than 1% per year on average, going from 735,000 people making a living as attorneys to just 760,000, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics postulating that the field will grow at the same rate through 2016… the number of new positions is likely to be fewer than 30,000 per year. That is far fewer than what’s needed to accommodate the 45,000 juris doctors graduating from U.S. law schools each year.

Such debt would be manageable if a world of lucrative jobs awaited the newly minted attorneys, but this is not the case. A recent working paper by Herwig Schlunk of Vanderbilt Law School contends that with the exception of some of those at the best schools, going for a law degree is a bad investment and that most students will be “unlikely ever to dig themselves out from” under their debt. This problem is exacerbated by the existing law school system.

Despite the tough job market, new schools continue to sprout like weeds. Today there are 200 ABA-accredited law schools in the U.S., with more on the way, as many have been awarded provisional accreditation. In California alone, there are 21 law schools that are either accredited or provisionally accredited, including the new one at UC Irvine.

The ABA has also refused to create and oversee an independent method of reporting graduate data. Postgraduate employment information generally provides the most useful facts for prospective students to study in deciding whether to go to law school.

In many cases, the data that schools now furnish are based on self-reported information, skewing the results because unemployed and low-paying grads are less likely to report back. Law schools do this because they want the rosiest picture possible for the influential rankings given by U.S. News & World Report. Despite its ample resources, the ABA has rebuffed calls to monitor the schools to get more accurate data, calling the existing framework an effective “honor system.”

Based on what happened with the accreditation task force, the ABA is not likely to force change; it is too intertwined with the law schools. ABA groups—such as the task force, which was chaired by a former dean—are stacked with school officials who have no incentive to change the status quo. This is why the ABA should get out of the accreditation business completely.

Unlike other professional fields such as medicine and public health, whose preeminent professional organizations do not have control over the accreditation of schools and programs, the ABA exercises unfettered power over the accreditation of law schools.

The U.S. Department of Education should strip the ABA of its accreditor status and give the authority to an organization that is free of conflicts of interest, such as the Assn. of American Law Schools or a new group… The legal profession must be saved from itself.

Welcome to part 2 of the Jake Adelstein Interview. For those of you who missed it, here’s part 1. Don’t forget to check out his book. Remember, by spreading his story around you are helping to keep him alive.

I enjoyed your article on yakuza fan magazines. Actually, I met a publisher of one of those once. He mentioned an interesting ritual—if an editor ever printed something wrong about the group or otherwise needed to apologize, he would go to the office with a special set of two sake bottles that were bound together. The bindings, he explained, symbolized a reaffirmation of the relationship and would be drank together after the apology. Ever heard of this?

I’ve heard of carrying big expensive bottles of sake to the offices with a set of two sake cups—probably symbolizing the same thing.  I’ve never heard of the two sake bottles being bound together but it sounds plausible.

This is the publisher of ***, by the way. Does this mean that he’s got a connection to a particular group? I find this idea surprising, as the guy is known in the mahjong world mainly for being very defensive (and cowardly, depending on who you ask). He also has a licensing deal with a video game company, which would probably drop the deal if they thought their own product was tainted.

Every yakuza magazine tends to lean a little towards one organized crime group over another. *** was once said to be really tight with the Yamaguchi-gumi, if memory serves me right.

By the way, did I mention that my specialty is mahjong? Ever see any mahjong games at the press club in the police building? I’ve heard the games there used to be pretty popular, but this is hard to verify.

When I was in the Saitama Police Department Headquarters press club—there were still reporters who would gather together, regardless of newspaper/television affiliation and play Mah Jong. But never for money. At least not in the Police Headquarters.

How can you be sure they didn’t play for money? Were there no records kept?

Nobody would be that stupid I assume. You don’t want to taunt the police. (Ed—I know people this stupid)

You mentioned in your book that you discussed Mahjong with police detectives. Did you play the game much and did you ever play with them?

I haven’t played in years. There was one cop in the Organized Crime Control Division who was a Mah Jong fanatic who taught me how to play and sometimes we’d play with another cop pal of his. They were nice enough not to play for money too often because I would have gone broke.  I never got the knack of it. I did have one night where I kicked both their asses but it was a total fluke.  I remember supplementing my lessons on Mah Jong by reading a comic book introduction to the game.

Ever hear anything about yakuza connections to Mahjong? One Japan Society Paper on Pachinko claims that mahjong is a billion dollar industry. I’ve heard from other sources that the yakuza are involved, but sources within the industry laugh at this, saying that there isn’t nearly enough money going through a parlor to attract yakuza attention.
It does seem that Mah Jong is an older person’s sport and while occasionally it comes back into fashion or is considered trendy again, my impression is that it’s not worth the time of the modern yakuza. But I don’t know. Do you remember the great Kabukicho fire on September 1st, 2001 (right before 911)?  One of the bars that had a lot of deaths was a mah jong parlor where gambling was done and it had a yakuza backer. However, it wasn’t being run by the mob, the owners were just paying large amounts of protection money. Nationwide, perhaps it really is big money.

Popular rumor has it that the legally grey Pachinko industry is heavily influenced by North Korean owners, who launder and repatriate the money, and the yakuza, who are involved with the cash-exchange shops. What your take on this? I’ve heard that both of these claims are exaggerated and the real winner is the NPA and its amakudari.

The yakuza have cleared out of the pachinko industry to a great degree. It is true that there are many pachinko parlors with North Korean ties, mostly familial and some business. What’s interesting about the pachinko industry is that while the customers are declining in number, the amount each remaining customers plugs into the machines seems to be increasing.  Bigger investment, bigger pay-off seems to be the lure.  I don’t think anyone doubts that the NPA wants to keep pachinko around because the industry does provide such nice retirement opportunities for themselves.  Now, in Kansai, you probably still have yakuza groups collecting money from the pachinko parlor owners but in Kanto the police have done a very thorough job of driving the yakuza out of the industry.  Even the North Korean connections are becoming weaker. Here’s how it used to work if you were a North Korean business owner in Japan.  If you stopped making regular contributions to the motherland, a representative of the Chosen Soren would show up at your doorstep with a note from your relatives in North Korea saying something like “Why don’t you support our country? We have eaten nothing but grass for weeks” or something to that effect—and most people would fork over cash.  The North Korean government is one giant criminal enterprise and they hold the relatives of Korean-Japanese as perpetual hostages to extort money from them. In many cases, once the relative in North Korea who they were indirectly feeding passes away, the man or woman contributing funds to North Korea will cut ties.

Thanks for talking with us, Jake!

The NYT just published an article on “BNE,” the man responsible for pasting the stickers bearing his moniker  all over Tokyo. It’s apparently his first interview with a reporter.

Interestingly, the reason BNE has granted this rare interview appears to be because he is in the middle of a promotional campaign for his work. That’s right, promotional campaign. A graffiti artist who you’re only familiar with because he obnoxiously plasters adhesives all over the mailboxes and utility posts of Tokyo has teamed up with an advertising agency to promote his “brand.”

“This weekend, B.N.E. was not spray-painting surreptitiously, but creating a sanctioned mural on a concrete wall in a temporarily vacant building at 595 11th Avenue, near 44th Street. It is part of an exhibition of his work that opens Thursday, sponsored by Mother, a Manhattan advertising agency.

“B.N.E. has single-handedly created a globally recognized and valued brand in the new social economy,” Mother officials said in a news release. “His presence in Flickr photo galleries and YouTube pages dwarfs that of many multinationals.””

Valued brand? Excuse me? That must be why the mayor of San Francisco issued a warrant for his arrest and put $2,500 on his head. I’m generally one to find viral/guerrilla marketing campaigns innovative and funny (even the ones which create a public nuisance) but this development is ridiculous. Municipalities spend money cleaning up after BNE vandalism, he shouldn’t be able to profit off of it.

I think I’d feel differently if his work was a little bit more innovative. He pastes the same damn sticker (or slight variation) everywhere he goes—that’s it. C’mon, even the Andre the Giant sticker has more quality than that!

Plus, the letters in BNE can be rearranged into my nickname, something all my friends never let me forget.

On Tuesday, December 8th, Temple University’s International Center of Japan Studies is hosting a talk by Hamish McDonald, an Australian journalist, who is writing a book on the life of Charles Bavier. Who was this fellow? I found the summary of the event to be fascinating.

Sometimes the most vivid insights into momentous events can come not from the great and famous people involved,but the participants in the retinues. Few individuals can have been involved in so many important episodes of Japan’s road to war and defeat mid-last century as Charles Bavier (1888-1977).

Swiss-born but left by his Yokohama merchant father to be raised by a Japanese mistress, Bavier grew to adulthood as Japan went to war with Russia, then joined the Japanese “China Ronin” fighting with Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionaries in 1911-12. After war service at Gallipoli with the Australian army, he returned to Japan in 1920 and stayed until forced out by rising militarism in 1936. He went to work for British intelligence in Singapore. Before it fell, he was withdrawn to Australia to devise Allied propaganda directed at Japan. He saw one son enlisted by the Kempetai in Singapore, and another fight with the Australians against Japan in New Guinea.

The venue is TUJ’s Mita Hall, Room 502. If anyone gets a chance to attend I’d love to hear about it.

The Japan subsidiary of Acer, a Taiwanese computer manufacturer, has become the first computer manufacturer licensed to produce a laptop incorporated the Ferrari design.

It goes on sale on November 27th, and comes with a 340gb HD, 4gb of RAM, and an 11.6 inch widescreen, among other standard features. On startup, it launches into the Ferrari engine roar.

Spotted in Aoyama Reien on Friday:

The New York Times blog has a Q&A series on the health care systems of the world, and their latest post concerns the health care regime in Japan. The supposed expert is Dr. John Creighton Campbell, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Michigan, apparently presently in Tokyo, and author of a book on Japan’s health care system.

Cards on the table: I have generally had pretty good health care coverage while living in the United States, although I have been burned with enormous bills at times, and generally support some government alternative that covers the uninsured. I have had some nightmarish experiences with Japan’s medical system with incompetent doctors, meaningless medicines, and endless hospital visits—and am infuriated when it is brought up as a wonderful alternative to the American system. In a nutshell, here are the inherent systematic flaws in Japan’s medical system that are in dire need of repair:

• The average US doctor sees 1,600 patients a year or so, while the average Japanese doctor sees 6,000 patients a year. That’s because there’s a maximum fee doctors can charge patients/the system per visit, so the incentive for doctors is to get you to come back as frequently as possible. My US doctor gives me 10 days of antibiotics and tells me to get back to him if I still feel ill; the Japanese doctor gives me 48 hours worth of a cocktail of multiple medicines and tells me to come back as soon as possible.

• There are hordes of incompetent doctors out there and few legal remedies to medical malpractices. I’ve had my own problems with poor care, such as one problem that was in danger of becoming chronic after three doctors incorrectly diagnosed the problem (the fourth got it right and solved it almost immediately; my family doctor in the US diagnosed it correctly over the phone with a mere description after the second doctor was giving me problems and I called overseas). AndI have numerous friends who have been permanently crippled by shoddy surgery—incorrectly setting broken bones, wrong setting of pins in knee surgery, botched eye surgery, all with no effective or meaningful legal remedy. Medical negligence is a serious problem that is only recently starting to be addressed. Basic rule: if you can afford to get a major medical procedure done in the US, do it.

• There is ancient and inferior technology, especially in smaller practices. I’ve been in medical clinics in Kyoto where doctors were wielding devices that looked like they belonged in museums. I shudder to think what the people out in Sadoshima or the wilds of Hokkaido have to face.

• Pharmacology is random and placebo-centric. Doctors give medicines in little paper bags with instructions on how to take them, but the type of medicine and amount is rarely included. Antibiotics are distributed in doses of only a few days, which runs the risk of doing more harm than good and spreading disease.

• Dental care is atrocious! I do not lie when I say that Lady Curzon goes to the same dentist as the Japanese Imperial Family. Her most recent trip earlier this year to repair a chipped tooth was, frankly, poorly done. During Golden Week, we spent a week in the US, and my hometown doctor in a small rural town, wielding technology that was cutting edge circa 2007, did a far superior job. We had US insurance covering our cost, but even if we didn’t, the total cost would have been roughly equivalent to the cost in Japan.

• Japan provides great care if you get typical Japanese old-age problem like cancer; you are in real trouble if you get a typical Westerner old-age problem like heart disease. According to the figures of the MacKenzie Consultants, which I don’t have in front of me now so these figures are only approximate, the survival rate for heart attacks in the US, UK and Germany is between at 60-80%; it’s 30% in Japan.

Which brings me to the article, with Curzon commentary embedded where the spirit moves me to agree with, or take issue with, Dr. Campbell’s assertions.

How does the Japanese system provide health care at lower cost than the American system?

Japan has about the lowest per capita health care costs among the advanced nations of the world, and its population is the healthiest. That is largely due to lifestyle factors, such as low rates of obesity and violence, but the widespread availability of high-quality health care is also important. Everyone in Japan is covered by insurance for medical and dental care and drugs. People pay premiums proportional to their income to join the insurance pool determined by their place of work or residence. Insurers do not compete, and they all cover the same services and drugs for the same price, so the paperwork is minimal. Patients freely choose their providers, and doctors freely choose the procedures, tests and medications for their patients.

[Basically correct. And yes, lifestyle is the most important factor.]

Reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals are negotiated and set every two years. The fees are quite low, often one-third to one-half of prices in the United States. Relatively speaking, primary care is more profitable than highly specialized care, so Japanese doctors face different incentives than U.S. doctors. As a result, the Japanese are three times more likely than Americans to go to the doctor, but they receive many fewer surgical operations.

What does the Japanese health system do particularly well?

First, Japan is egalitarian and medical bankruptcy is unknown. [Nonsense. At my previous firm, one attorney had as part of his personal practice handling individual bankruptcy, and many of his cases involved families filing for bankruptcy to cope with a spouses long-term care. This was often also accompanied by a legal divorce so that the spouse receiving care would qualify for extra benefits/cheaper care.] An individual’s income influences the quantity and quality of medical care probably less than in any other country. Premiums and out-of-pocket costs are minor concerns for most, and low-income people and the elderly receive subsidies to afford care.

Second, the Japanese system is quite good for chronic care, particularly because it has so many older people. Along with appropriate medical care, Japan also provides long-term care to all older people who need it through a public insurance system that started in 2000.

What is your biggest criticism of it?

Financial stringency and organizational rigidities have led to inadequate hospital services in some areas, particularly in emergency care, where patients in ambulances are sometimes turned away. [Yup, how many stories have we seen in the last year of people dying in ambulances after being turned away from a dozen or so hospitals?] There also are doctor shortages in some regions and specialties. [As noted, I shudder to think of the medical technology available in the sticks—where most of the old people live.] Consultation times can be too short for complicated diagnoses and for psychotherapy. Specialized training and certification for physicians should be better, and cutting-edge surgical techniques should be more available.

Many of the problems are largely due to underinvestment, and the severity of the cost control has become an issue in the current election campaign.

What is the most important lesson Americans should learn from the Japanese system?

In the 1980s, health care spending was increasing as quickly in Japan as in America, but the Japanese government learned how to influence medical care provision without rationing by manipulating how it paid for services. Annual spending growth has thus been quite low despite a rapidly aging population. Including everyone in a controllable system was a prerequisite. Japan is not a single-payer system, but like France and Germany, it has been able to control costs by tightly regulating multiple insurers.