Chalmers Johnson Passed: Wrote MITI and The Japanese Miracle

UC Berkeley Professor Chalmers Johnson passed away four days ago and reportedly of complications due to rheumatoid arthritis. Professor Johnson was one of this blogger's intellectual heros and a main reason why I applied to Cal's graduate school of city planning. Yes, City Planning.

Berkeley's graduate school is an intellectual smorgasbord where, beyond your first semester, you can mix classes from various departments, and design a program for your own interests.   Mine was cities and industrial policy.

At the time I was there in 1985, Chalmers was basking in the glow from the success of his then-still-hot book MITI and The Japanese Miracle. As Industrial Policy and its impact on urban economic development was my central focus, I'd not just read, but devoured MITI and The Japanese Miracle.

In it, Professor Johnson not only explained how Japanese Government, via MITI, or what is called The Ministry of International Trade and Industry, skillfully picked key industries to assist via subsidies, but focused on the culture of business in Japan.

His central contribution to the American Zeitgeist, aside from MITI and The Japanese Miracle, was the American use of the term "Keiretsu," or a quasi cartel of business and government organizations in Japan. This grouping made the sharing of production resources more efficient, and blurred the lines between business and government such that implementing an overall industrial strategy or policy was easier to do than in America.

With all of this, you'd think Chalmers Johnson was a raging conservative capitalist. Hell no! Professor Johnson was a ragging liberal who was massively fun to talk to at Friday meetups at Barrows Hall at UC Bekerley.

At the time, and presumably still today, Thursday and Friday beer busts between students and professors in various departments and by groups were common.  Then, Barrows Hall was the home of the UC Berkeley Business School and business classes, and that was before the construction of the lovely compound called The Haas Business School.

In this one case from my memory, Professor Johnson was at one held by the then-new Berkeley Roundtable On The International Economy (BRIE), and in conversation with me just hauled off on what a stupid idiot he thought President Reagan was. Chalmers had little good to say about Ronald Reagan as president, wishing the former actor had returned to Hollywood, where he felt Reagan belonged.   Professor Johnson was someone I always sought out at events because he was a terrific conversationalist who would leave you in stitches.

Professor Johnson was also a major help in providing direction for the completion of my thesis, a work I entitled A Theory Of Decline, The American Institution In The World Economy.

But Chalmers real legacy, one not appreciated today, when it should be reconsidered, is the idea that American government can have an impact on industrial growth in a coordinated fashion, what we call "Industrial Policy."   Liberals and progressives should buy a copy of "MITI" and really understand how Japan became "Japan Inc." and also how America can dig itself out its economic problems today.

Professor Chalmers Johnson: a great man who will be missed.  RIP.