Nicholas Kristof has an ignorant, error-packed article on the front page of today's New York Times, purportedly demonstrating that Japan's problem is that it is too egalitarian and "nice". In the process, he confuses the deep structural bias of Japan's political economy toward rural interests with democratic and egalitarian values and makes tendentious, unsupported claims that insufficient pay differentials lower the productivity of Japan's firms. He also tells us about what "economists" think regarding fiscal policy that represent, at best, only the right wing of this notoriously right wing profession. It seems as though no reportage is too shoddy if in the interest of a reactionary fairy tale.... Peter Dorman
