Saturday, February 10, 2007

Why are you working so hard?

When I am Hungry,
I drink when I am dry;
If a tree don't fall on me,
I'll live 'till I die.
--Mother Goose

少々女の子っぽい趣味かもしれないが,『マザーグース』が好きだ.日本人にはいまいちピンと来ないものもあるが,上のように哲学的なものもある.何度も音読してみたりするのもいいのかもしれない.ただ,英米の子供のように言葉遊びができないのが悲しい.アメリカの幼稚園か小学校の先生などを経験した人が個人的に教えてくれないかとときどき思う.若くてきれいな人なら結婚してもいいかな,なんて考えたりもする.

森永卓郎氏の『年収300万円時代を生き抜く経済学』は市場原理の否定と解釈する人もいるようだが,それは違う.ヨーロッパ人は自分が労働者階級とわかっていれば,意味のない残業をしたりしない,与えられた時間働くだけである.これはいい加減なようで実は優れた思想だと解る日本人がどれだけいるだろうか,なんて書くと怒られるだろうか.

Mr. Morinaga criticizes Japan from world values, but his work isn't appriciated that much. Is it 'cuz he doesn't look smart, or 'cuz the Japanese aren't enough smart?

I like Mother Goose because it often tells me some philosophy. Sadly, I can't read the poems as fluently as American kids. If you are a beatiful girl who is good at reading-out and who happens to have taught at a kindergarten or an elementary schoool, I may want to go out with you. Drop me a line!

Takuro Morinaga's best-selling, "Economics for Surviving in an Age of Annual Incomes of 3 million yen" often seems to be interpreted as his defending the Japanese economic model over the Western model. However, this is not right. He suggests that Japanese workers (or/and Japanese middle class) stop working too hard in vain and enjoy their lives out of their work places. This is European-style life, not Japanese traditional one.

A book review by Janet Ashby from the Japan Times (Dec. 4, 2003):


...Now, however, Morinaga claims, Japan is moving to an American-style system of winners and losers in which at most 10 percent will be winners with high incomes while the remaining 90 percent will see their salaries roughly halved to the global standard of 3 million yen to 4 million yen, or even have to make do with part-time or contract work for 1 million yen a year. The income differential between company president and ordinary white collar workers will rise from 4-to-1 to up to 100-to-1.

...Rather than joining the American rat race, he advocates the European model of enjoying life -- working hard but putting one's family and private life first. He notes in passing that this, in a sense, would be a return to Edo Period values, when commoners couldn't aspire to becoming samurai but fully enjoyed everyday life.

...In Morinaga's view, one of the major problems is excessive fear of a lower income and lessened job security. With a change in expectations -- perhaps a cheaper car or forgoing an overseas trip, for example -- one can live a decent life on 3 million yen a year, he says. Morinaga notes that few Argentines have committed suicide despite being in a much worse economic crisis, and even draws up a "Latin index" for different areas of Japan, based on rates of unemployment and suicide.

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