think. Then I will give three comments on what I have heard in this session.
First, Dr. Nandy said globalization did not start just now.
There was colonialism in the old times. It is true but there may be big decisive difference between colonialism and present globalization. Power was the most important issue when we say colonialism and culture, or a colonial rule and culture. What is culture? For example, what language is the correct language? In what way should it be written, or pronounced? What language is not correct? It was power that decided all these things. So what mattered in colonialism and culture was how power should shape culture. However, at present, what matters in globalization or globalism that we are now talking about is not power. Rather it is the market that matters. For example, in the last paragraph of Dr. Nandy's paper, two lines from the top, I am reading the English version, you said one of the important things was "the empowerment of the non-Western cultures", thus you used the word, empowerment. Empowerment means to give power to culture, to non-western cultures, so you still think of power at least in terms of language. Is it really so? That is, the target is a colonial rule, where the concept of the word, empowerment is a very important key word when we think of culture. At present when the relations between the market and culture are very important, what does this empowerment mean? Does empowerment mean to make things that can be sold in the market? Is it what Dr. Nandy has in mind?
This is my question and also comment.
Secondly, on the issue of the society. As Dr. Lee said, the issue of the society is very important; the empowerment of the society in relation to the nation and that the society empowers the nation, which means, democratic justice is important. Without it any nation, any government will not be able to survive in the age of rapid globalization. I believe this is an important message. Here again, when we look at the relationship between the society and the market, not between the nation and the society, I think a new problem will emerge, like that of the kind of society we should build in the age of globalization. In this case "we" means the Japanese if we live in Japan and of course there are non-Japanese. So, if you live in Thailand, what kind of society you should build in Thailand. One example is, as Dr. Reid said a while ago, the concept Of a society Open to the intentional world has taken roots into Japan and that is why we have this kind of international conference in Osaka city. This has been, in fact, a very important meaning.
I will give you one example. Several years ago I studied organized crimes of America and Japan. I found a very interesting thing. In Japan there are members of Yakuza and in America there are various types of Mafia. When we say Mafia, we tend to think of Italian Mafia but in fact there are various Mafia groups such as black Mafia and Jewish Mafia. When we compare the percentage of Mafia population per 1,000 people, the population of Japanese Yakuza is one-fourth of that of American Mafia. That is, there are four times more Mafia members in America than Yakuza members in Japan according to the statistics. Why is that so? The reason is very simple. The American police system and the Japanese police system are different. The Japanese police let a large crime syndicate, a Yakuza organization, control themselves. If someone wants to enter a Yakuza organization, he has to go through a strict screening process before he is accepted as a member. Due to this minority mechanism, the number of group members do not increase so much. On the contrary, in America there is free competition. When a few large organizations are formed, the police go into them and destroy them. So there is always a state of free competition and new groups enter such organizations one after another. What I want to say is that easing of regulations is all right but you have to be careful of what regulations to ease. Otherwise we may create a society completely different from what we want. Although the relations between the society and the market are important, we must think of what kind of society we want to build.
The third point is the nation. As Dr. Lee explained very well, at present the nation's power is apparently declining in relation to the market. There is no doubt about it. For example in Japan, the government does not have good relations with the market. Not only that. Japan has not been a good sovereign nation in the aspect of security for the past 50 years. Japan has been a "semi sovereign nation" in English. I do not give any value judgment because people have likes and dislikes. But this is not necessarily bad, I am not sure whether it is good for Japan to return to a sovereign nation, a normal nation. What is important is when the nation's power is declining, if we try to build a society that we want, we have to think Of a mechanism to manage, like a horse, as Dr. Hara said this morning, or tame the market in whatever way. When we try to give an answer to the problem of regional order or how the nation will be transformed in the 2l st century, we first must think of how to tame the power
