Re: Japan\ recent decisions

[Robert Peter Burns <rburns@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

What I find interesting about the Japanese case is the way that
a crisis whose origins lie in a madcap orgy of real estate speculation
by greedy bankers, is now being used by many commentators in the West as
a "vindication" of Anglo-American capitalism and a justification
of calls for the wholesale deregulation of the Japanese economy to
make it more like the former.  <I am _not_ saying that deregulation
is never justified>.  What I'd like to know is if and how this
blind ideological hegemony can be effectively challenged.  How
do we shift the terms of elite discourse?  Or should we admit to
ourselves that the elites cannot be moved by attempts at rational
persuasion?

Peter Burns SJ
rburns@xxxxxxxxxxx