What Will Next Century Bring Japan, as Tide of Economic History Turns? |
By Akihiro Okada
8:00 JST, January 3, 2026
The world entered 2026 amid intense upheaval and uncertainty.
The year that just ended, 2025, saw the international economic order that had sustained 80 years of postwar prosperity undergo a significant shift. There is no new international economic roadmap. The year now beginning will likely be an essential step as nations search for a starting point for creating new rules. The power of two major countries, the United States and China, has grown even stronger. Japan is in a unique position between that pair. Japan must leverage its distinct characteristics to build its own strategy.
Let us consider our current position from a 100-year perspective.
John Maynard Keynes’ essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” written in 1930 during the Great Depression, remains a favorite among economists and others to this day.
Keynes made these two predictions:
One hundred years later, technological innovation and capital accumulation would raise living standards by up to eightfold.
Moreover, three hours of work per day would be sufficient to obtain the necessities of life.
That 100-year mark, 2030, is now approaching.
In a 2024 column, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva marveled, “His forecast proved to be remarkably accurate: even as the global population has quadrupled over the past century, per capita global income has risen eightfold.”
Georgieva praised global economic progress, noting: “In addition to the massive leap in living standards, the world saw unprecedented poverty reduction. Over the past three decades alone, 1.5 billion people lifted themselves out of poverty, and hundreds of millions entered the middle class. Consider also the dramatic improvements in life expectancy, infant mortality rates, literacy rates, and education levels — especially for girls — that have taken place.”
But every advance also casts a shadow.
After Keynes’ essay, World War II broke out, beginning a chain of events that ultimately led the world to develop under an interlinked order of the rule of law, democracy and free trade.
How would Keynes view the world today?
Today, history is shifting its........