An Elite Bureaucracy

Weber argued for the legal character of bureaucracy. His characterization fits Japan rather well. Whether in the Ministry of Labor or the Ministry of Finance, the top career bureaucrats tend to be law school graduates. Their life as officials is governed by regulations and ordinances, which they observe and obey. Their work consists of drafting laws, planning the projects that will be embodied in bills, and enforcing laws already passed.

But many other matters also affect how bureaucracy functions. One is the prestige that the official enjoys in his society and the way it helps or hinders recruitment. In the Tokugawa era (1600–1868) officials were ranking samurai, the elite within the military aristocracy. After the Restoration, government officials were, perhaps more than the army, the legitimate heirs of the samurai. For a time after the Restoration even local post-office officials wore swords. In 1876 one government leader wrote: "Carefully observing today's situation, the peasants, the merchants, the samurai, all under heaven are dissatisfied . . . only officials are pleased with their lot."^[2] There was ample reason for their satisfaction: they were

[1] The best scholarly work on Japanese bureaucracy is Tsuji Kiyoaki, Nihon kanryosei^[*] no kenkyu^[*] [A Study of the Japanese Bureaucratic System] (Tokyo, 1969). Representative works in the genre of exposé literature are Imai Kazuo, Kanryo^[*] , sono seitai to uchimaku [Bureaucracy, Its Mode of Life and Inner Workings] (Tokyo, 1953); Masuda Yoneji, Oyakunin [Honorable Official] (Tokyo, 1956); Mainichi shimbunsha, ed., Kanryo Nippon [Bureaucratic Japan] (Tokyo, 1956); Tokyo shimbunsha, ed., Kancho^[*] monogatari [A Tale of Government Offices] (Tokyo, 1962); and Hori Makoto, Oshoku [Corruption] (Tokyo, 1957). Of the latter works, the volume by Imai is by far the best. He exaggerates so that his book will sell, but he writes with insight, humor, and wit.

[2] Kido Koin^[*] nikki [The Kido Koin Diaries] (Tokyo, 1933), III, 433.

the officials of the emperor and partook of his glory. Higher officials, from a slightly later period, had fancy uniforms with shiny buttons, braids, and swords to wear on ceremonial occasions. Their pay was high. Even a lower official (hanninkan ), Ukai Nobushige has stated, could afford to visit geisha.^[3] It was not until the 1920s that the salaries of company managers pulled ahead of those of government officials at the same educational level.

After World War II the pay of bureaucrats declined relative to other sectors of society. They were redefined in the 1947 constitution as "servants of the people" (kokumin no koboku^[*] ). They were stripped of their symbolic perquisites. Decorations, for example, were abolished for a time. And, reflecting the decline in their livelihood and morale, incidents of corruption or bribery, exceedingly rare before the war, began to be reported. Yet many of the best graduates of the Law Faculty of Tokyo University continued to enter the bureaucracy. Perhaps only in France and Germany did officials have a comparable sense of themselves as an academic elite.

Imai Kazuo, a former bureau chief in the Ministry of Finance, recounts an occasion when a student, armed with a letter of introduction, called on a bureau chief in a central ministry in the hope of obtaining a job. He was asked about his university record and then dismissed with: "You haven't got a chance with only that number of As. I had seventeen. The famous Professor So-and-so at the university had only fifteen, a considerably poorer record than mine." The student left in chagrin. When first told of this conversation, Imai remarked on how true to life it was.^[4] The same consciousness is reflected in the more recent words of a ten-year MITI bureaucrat who asserted: "We [graduates] of the [Tokyo University] Law Faculty are the most Japanese of Japanese" since Japan is essentially an "examination society."^[5]

Within the bureaucracy there was and is a sharp cleavage between the elite of career officials, who have passed the special higher examination, and lower-level bureaucrats. Distinguishing between these two levels enables one to resolve many contradictory statements about Japanese bureaucracy. I arrive at a bimodal view: of exceedingly able men directing the work of the central ministries, but much less able men in the offices of local government; of graduates from the two or three best universities versus those from lesser schools and, at a lower level yet, high school graduates; of generalists versus specialists, technicians, and clerks; of relative freedom in creative work versus mechanical, rote tasks; of the satisfaction of power versus the frustrations of a narrow routine. Of course, the bimodality is not simply between the central ministries and local government. Those who will reach the highest appointive positions in the

[3] Ukai Nobushige, personal communication. Imai makes the same point, Kanryo^[*] , p. 25.

[4] Imai, Kanryo , pp. 47–48.

[5] Kawamoto Taro^[*] , "Sore demo Todai^[*] hogakubu^[*] wa Nihon o ugokasu" [Even Then, It is the Law Faculty of Tokyo University that Moves Japan], Bungei shunju^[*] , September 1972, p. 179.

central government will spend some time in prefectural-level offices. There are planning and executive posts at the prefectural level that are highly demanding, and many of the sections of the central ministries are filled with clerks, assistants, researchers, and temporary employees performing the most routine kind of work.

The elite bureaucrats move frequently from post to post and often occupy certain positions which are, as it were, on a special track, reserved for the most promising careerists. In the late Meiji period, a Tokyo University graduate might enter the Home Ministry, then become the assistant chief of police in a small city, move back to a different bureau in the ministry, then to a prefectural government post, and so on. Today, a Finance Ministry official may have a similar career pattern—moving from the ministry to a brief appointment in a prefectural tax office, then back to the ministry, then again to a prefectural office, and then back again to the ministry. Even after the Occupation separation—along American lines—of central and prefectural government, this type of transfer of officials from the central to the state level still continues.

The special aura of power that still surrounds the elite administrators can be explained partially in terms of their postcareer pattern. There is an unwritten rule in the bureaucracy that university graduates who entered in any given year cannot serve under men who entered at the same time or later. Since bureaucracy is pyramidal—the number of posts at each higher rank decreases—this rule means that those of each class passed over for promotion must be retired. This resembles the system in the armed forces of the United States. Some of those sloughed off in this fashion are kept in service for a while longer by postings to high positions in prefectural governments. But even the few who become bureau chiefs or vice-ministers, the highest posts in the system, are usually retired in their early or middle fifties. These men, the elite of the elite, often receive their rewards for loyal service after retirement. Some become the directors of corporations, receiving fees considerably greater than their former salaries. Some are appointed as members of semi-official advisory commissions (shingikai ). A few begin a political career and make it to the Diet, and a handful achieve the eminence of a cabinet post. Because such postretirement careers are the pattern in Japan (some ministries are better situated for this than others), even the junior bureaucrat who has passed the higher examination is viewed as a possible future member of the select company that defines Japan's national goals.^[6] This contributes to his status,

[6] In the Kancho^[*] monogatari , the commissions and other gaikaku dantai are compared to Ubasuteyama, the folktale mountain where the old were abandoned when they could no longer contribute to the life of the community. See Kancho monogatari , p. 45. Sometimes the financial power of the ministry is employed to assure a good reception for its retirees. In one instance the Education Faculty at a Japanese national university was asked by the Ministry of Education to take on as a professor an official of a certain rank who had been passed over for promotion in the ministry. The faculty council argued about the matter for some time. Eventually they accepted the official and gave him the appointment. As a trade-off theyreceived a large, handsome new building. Imai writes of another instance in which a post as section head opened up in a prefecture. A man, able, experienced, and first in line in the prefectural officialdom, was chosen for the job. But when permission was asked of the ministry concerned, the man was rejected. (The officials who handle the prefectural affairs of the central ministries are appointed only with the approval of the ministry concerned.) The governor took the unusual step of going to Tokyo and asking the ministry to let him have the man he wanted. He was, however, turned down and had to accept a man sent out from the ministry. The man from the ministry was older, less able, and less experienced. Imai writes that for the ministry to send this official who was old, lacking in ability, but without glaring failures in his record, to an honorable post in the countryside was a way of getting rid of deadwood (funzumari o dakai suru ) in the ministry. When he arrived to take up the post of section head in the prefecture, he was not well received. The new appointee, however, was exultant at having attained the post of section head, and immediately ordered his underlings to procure a car for his personal use. There was no car in the budget, and his juniors reported back that it was impossible. The new section head berated them as incompetents and said he himself would get it from the ministry. His juniors felt that at a time of budgetary cuts the frugal ministry would not waste money on such a sad figure of a section chief (chinpira kacho^[*] ). But he surprised them by coming back with an allocation, which he used to buy the car. This established his reputation in the prefectural bureaucracy as a real somebody. Even though it was a complete waste of money, having forced the prefecture to accept the man, the ministry had to pay this price to get him established. Imai, Kanryo^[*] , pp. 188–190.

even though his salary may be less than his opposite number in Mitsubishi.

Because of the variety of career patterns, even among the higher officialdom, there is no unanimity about the merit of life in the bureaucracy. One official of the prewar Home Ministry privately compared the life of the official to "soaking in lukewarm water." It lacks the satisfaction of a good hot bath, yet "as long as one remains in it, one will not catch cold. But if one loses his patience and jumps out, he will invariably come down with a cold."^[7] On the other extreme the editorialist Akimoto Hideo once rode on the bullet train with a budget examiner, one of the most powerful officials of the Finance Ministry. The official suddenly told him to look out the window. "See that bridge over there? I built it." A few minutes later he pointed out: "See that road? The wide one. That's my work too." Then after a while he said again: "See that windbreak forest over there? That was one of my most difficult jobs." Akimoto noted the expression of consummate satisfaction on the face of the official.^[8] Between these two extremes are the observations of a young career official in the Foreign Ministry:

We climb the hierarchy with exactly the same speed. The question is which post one is assigned to. This is not an absolute indicator, as the Foreign Ministry has the policy of assigning career officers alternately between good (Europe and the United States) and not so desirable (Africa, some of the Asian countries, and South America) posts. As we climb with the same speed, there is no real competition, although almost all of us, having gone through a very competitive educational system, are competitive in a good sense. That is, everybody is a genuinely hard worker, disliking easy posts. Usually we are intelligent, but, surprisingly, some of us are not so intelligent. Because we are given reasonably responsible and important

[7] Imai, Kanryo , pp. 36–37.

[8] Kawamoto, "Todai^[*] hogakubu^[*] ," p. 171.

jobs while in junior grade, the stupid ones become conspicuous at once. They are not, however, punished, at least in salary or grade. This kind of promotion continues until we become counselors. From then on it is luck.

We share the same interests both in personal matters and professionally. Over dinner or cocktails we talk a lot about foreign affairs and are quite willing to be critical of the government, though we aren't to people who might quote us. The atmosphere of the office, either in Tokyo or abroad, depends a great deal on the personality of the men, particularly of the chief. Generally speaking, discussion is free. We are invited to dissent. The level of discussion is usually high. For example, I am in charge of such and such a matter and am expected to know the facts about it. Facts are important. Treaty clauses, technical details of strategic thinking, dates, figures, etc., are considered more important than sheer speculation, although speculation, too, is expected of us. We often say that if an officer is incapable of becoming an expert in six months concerning the subject matter of his assignment, he shouldn't be taken seriously. The majority of the officers accomplish this mark with ease.^[9]

When one talks with the higher officials of other ministries, the content of their work may vary, but the sense of competence and self-confidence they project is much the same. In this respect they are not unlike Japanese business leaders.

Is this elitist consciousness appropriate in a democratic polity? Many Japanese say that it is not, arguing that bureaucrats tend to look down on civilians from their position of superiority. This is summed up in the old maxim, "officials are honored and the people are despised" (kanson minpi ). It is not that the populace distrusts the bureaucracy—though some on the left do. Most recognize its competence and give it a measure of respect. It is not too much to say, in fact, that many in the opposition parties dislike it because of its competence. But all complain of the arrogance of officials. The resentment against this arrogance may be the most seriously dysfunctional aspect of the whole system.

Masuda Yoneji, a onetime official in the Ministry of Labor, wrote that after he became section chief, visitors to the ministry would bow deeply and speak to him in exaggeratedly polite language as if he were "a member of a different race." When he went to inspect a textile mill in Aichi, he was made to feel a degree of superiority and satisfaction as never before in his life. He was met on the train platform by the section chief, a ten-year official, and his two aides from the local government office. They treated him politely, bowed, carried his briefcase to the waiting car, and escorted him to the local inn. After he bathed, he was visited by the works manager and section head in charge of labor affairs of the factory he was to inspect. They called in geisha, plied him with drinks, and in general treated him with such a combination of respect and deference (English does not do justice to the expressions used) that for the first time in his life he felt the "indescribable pleasure" of embodying in himself "the power of

[9] Personal communication. I have been asked not to cite the interviewee by name.

the state."^[10] Imai, after describing instances of the same kind of obsequious behavior in even more loving detail, offers an analysis of it:

In the course of such experiences—like starting to smoke or taking up the habit of an evening drink—one at first feels a little ticklish, but before long it begins to feel good, and one feels that something is missing if he isn't treated in this way. Next one feels an inward dissatisfaction, and in the final stage, one advances to the symptom of indignation. It is exactly the same as addiction to a drug. . . . The more one is a petty, self-righteous type (ki no chiisai zennin gata ), the more likely he is to fall prey to this disease of "bureaucratic mentality" and the worse will be its ravages. . . . And almost no one is entirely immune.^[11]

Nor would it exaggerate to say that there are some who look forward to catching the disease. In 1972 a student who had passed the entrance examination for Tokyo University was interviewed on television and asked about his future. He replied, and his face was radiant as he spoke: "I've been accepted by the Law Faculty. In the future I'll pass the exam of the Ministry of Justice and become a judge. As a judge I'll be a god. I'll have the power of life and death over men. I'll be able to move society in any direction I please."^[12] In this response there is an element of brashness and an element of black humor, together with a large measure of overoptimistic anticipation. Yet it is not wholly off the mark. The entering freshman in the Law Faculty of Tokyo University, if he perseveres, stands a good chance of becoming a judge. Judges in Japan are officials of a kind. The path to becoming a judge is separate but not different from that into the Ministry of Justice. The kind of authority exercised by a judge and the unassailable character of his position is, like that of other officials, based on a legal monopoly of certain powers. The potential of those officials who fell prey to the "disease of bureaucratic mentality" to act arrogantly stemmed from a system that, until recently, had few political checks on the use of this power.

Since Japanese officialdom is characterized by bimodality, its relations to the clientele it serves are also of two kinds. Higher officials deal mainly with other officials and politicians, or with corporations and other large organizations. They rarely come into contact with the average citizen. The attitude of the higher officials toward, say, corporations is determined by a combination of law, custom, and politics. As in most countries, most laws are not strictly enforced most of the time; they function as guidelines or limits. Bureaucrats could throw the economy into chaos if they began to implement strictly all of the laws for which they are responsible, just as police can start a crime wave by enforcing all of the laws in the criminal code. Of course they do not. Yet because of the unused discretionary power of the bureaucracy, companies large and small take great pains to avoid

[10] Masuda, Oyakunin , pp. 35–36.

[11] Imai, Kanryo^[*] , pp. 52–53.

[12] Kawamoto, "Todai^[*] hogakubu^[*] ," p. 171.

falling into its bad graces. Businessmen employ a precautionary politeness in dealing with officials. They assume an inferior status and treat even low-ranking officials with an exaggerated deference—as if they were ministers of cabinet rank. This has been brought to a high art. It is the safe way of manipulating officials. It is seen as a low price to pay for getting along with a bureaucracy that is largely honest and supportive toward business. But it is resented nonetheless, for businessmen feel that it is they and not the bureaucracy that are the propulsive force in today's Japan.

The attitude of the local bureaucracy toward its civilian clientele is perhaps the more serious problem. Whether a Japanese is going to the district office for a copy of his birth registration certificate or to the local tax office, he goes in some degree as a supplicant. If he does not act as one, he can, depending on the circumstances, be made to wait or told to come back another day. The official is doing him a favor. The official tends to see the power of the office as his personal power. The resentment engendered by this kind of treatment is widespread and affects the Japanese view of government. This is far from being as uniquely Japanese as the Japanese imagine. In good measure it is the behavior of the petit fonctionnaire anywhere.^[13] It is especially characteristic of countries where democracy is recent and is predated by a bureaucratic tradition. Yet perhaps it is more visible in Japan where degrees of politeness can be precisely measured by the depth of bows and the incremental use of honorific language.

In Japanese society at present there are some trends that run counter to the tradition of bureaucratic arrogance. Local government in the early postwar years was predominantly in the hands of conservative politicians who, appealing to all of the voters, were not formally identified with a party. Recent local elections, however, especially those in the larger cities, have become politicized; the power of the conservatives has been challenged. To attract voters, many administrations have adopted a new service orientation toward the citizenry. "Progressive" politicians, such as the mayor of Kyoto, have established "citizen consultation offices" (shimin sodanshitsu^[*] ) to handle complaints about broken roads, garbage, or whatever. Conservative mayors have reacted by setting up similar offices. The mayor of Matsudo in Chiba Prefecture called his the "do-it-right-away section" (sugu yaru ka ). Through such small changes the attitudes of officials are being democratized little by little. The outbreak of "residents' movements" during the early seventies in protest against pollution is a parallel development. As these movements turn to the electoral process,

[13] Bureaucratic subordinates may suffer along with the public. Imai tells the story of an official who after thirty years became head of a small government office. He lined his staff up before New Year's and after lecturing them on the proper attitude toward their work said: "It is most regrettable that recently the number of officials who do not understand propriety have increased. At the end of last year there were even some who brought me year-end presents bought at a department store special sale." Imai, Kanryo^[*] , p. 61.

local government officials move further in the direction of accommodating public interests.