The Easter Island Effect

The son of a blogster I frequently quote, The Diplomad, has written an interesting and thought-provoking article on the economic malaise that is currently eating at Japan. His name is Yonathan Amselem and he is at the Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank in Alabama .. see How Central Planners Crippled Japan's Economy. This man has obviously studied this Japanese issue thoroughly and is much more versed on its pluses and minuses than I. But he has provoked a thought in me ... suggested by his reference to the Japanese demographics which brought to mind Easter Island and what I will call the Easter Island Effect.

He points out that more adult diapers are sold in Japan than baby diapers. This is a clear indication that the population there is aging and in decline ... losing its youthful vigor.

Japan is a densely populated island with few natural resources which early-on resulted in its foray into brutal colonialism and even greater territorial ambitions in the mid twentieth century ... which was eventually slapped back by Harry Truman's A-bomb. As a release, after rebuilding its war-ravaged infrastructure, this nation's industrious population embraced the management and quality-control teachings of W. Edwards Deming (see: Wikipedia Entry) and went on a manufacturing and trading blitzcreig that lasted for forty years ... until the meddlesome government as described by Mr. Amselem started botching things up.

Back to the Easter Island Effect. Easter Island once had a very industrious population which created huge stone statues to its gods called moais. However, at Easter Island, being extremely remote and unable to expand geographically, demographics eventually took over and its civilization collapsed ... see: Wikipedia Entry. An analogy can be drawn between Easter Island and Japan in that demographics may be the bigger culprit in Japan's economic malaise than its meddlesome government.

Just a provoked thought ...