Bonus Quotation of the Day…

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… is from pages 107-108 of Samuel Gregg’s excellent and important 2022 book, The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World (footnote deleted):

By the beginning of the third millennium, some Japanese policymakers were willing to affirm on the record that industrial policy had not served their country well. In 2002, the Japanese Ministry of Finance’s Policy Research Institute stated: “The Japanese model was not the source of Japanese competitiveness but the cause of our failure.” Far from industrial policy positively contributing to Japan’ economic reemergence after World War II, it had created economic and political dysfunctionalities that were impeding necessary changes. Thirty years later similar patterns had become apparent with regard to the People’s Republic of China.

DBx: Yep. See also David Henderson on MITI.

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The quotation within the passage above from Gregg is from Issei Morita, “Japanese Explode the Myth of MITI,” which appeared in the June 27th, 2002, edition of the Financial Times. I’m unable to find an on-line version of this essay.