Japanese author, economist Taichi Sakaiya dies at 83
Kazuo Miura
On March 14, we discussed Taichi Sakaiya-outstanding author and economist who passed away last month. He once served as a bureaucrat in MITI but after a while he left the ministry and became a fulltime writer. Among the books he wrote, the article picked up his work titled “Chika Kakumei” (The Knowledge-Value Revolution or a History of the Future) received high commendation as one of the world-wide spread since it was translated into eight foreign languages in 1985. Instead of analyzing his works and himself, we decided to discuss and try to understand what he formed his intent in the Book based on the summary of the chapter 4 and 5 that I compiled and distributed to the participants.
The book insists that the revolution has been created by IT and that North America and some other countries of Europe and Japan have already entered a new era of “The knowledge value” society–a society where the value of peoples’ knowledge is the primary source of economic growth and corporate earnings. It means that benefits of standardized mass-production ceased to exist and businesses now provide diverse lineup of services to fit with diversified public demand. Our industrialized society now heads for ending and a knowledge value society started likely, which resembles the past revolutionary change from the Middle Ages (Agriculture-Oriented Society) to the Modern Age (Industrial Society). Such phase of major change started to appear.
知価革命はとても難解な概念です。議論としてAIを含むIT革命は工業化社会が高度化したいわば高度工業社会ではあっても、現在もこれまでの延長上の社会であるという考え方が主流です。又IT技術が生産性の向上に占める割合は未だ圧倒的に高く、知価社会という社会があると認めても工業化社会と併存しており、その部分はまだ少なく革命に至ってはいない、乃至そういう社会ではないという意見であったと思います。同時に逆にすでに知価革命の社会であるという意見も出されました。最近の経済学者の主流は高度経済社会であるという認識です。それに反論する議論として脱工業化社会とか第三の波などがありますが、いずれも新たな社会の具体的な姿を述べておらず、その点で1985年の時点において現在現れている知価革命社会と現象を７項目にわたって構造的に具体的に述べている点は堺屋太一氏の格段に優れた洞察力の賜物と感じました。いずれにせよそうした時代変化を議論する事を通して様々な国内及び国際社会の来たるべき展望を感じ取ることができたセッションでした。
