Great Figures of the World Series | Episode 40: Kakuei Tanaka, 64th and 65th Prime Minister, The Man Who Managed the Japanese Archipelago

In this world,

there are people who have grown companies.
There are people who have built factories.
There are people who have built global brands.

However,

there are few people

who have moved the country itself.

Building roads.
Laying railways.
Developing airports.
Delivering electricity.
Changing the flow of people and money.

Even corporate management is difficult.
It is even more so when the counterpart is a nation of over 100 million people.
However, the man who moved that massive project

was not a graduate of the University of Tokyo.
He was not a bureaucrat.
He was not the son of a prestigious politician.

He was a young man born in a snow-covered farming village in Niigata,
who could not even receive a satisfactory higher education.

Kakuei Tanaka.

He is not a man who became Prime Minister.
He is the man who managed the Japanese archipelago.

Kakuei Tanaka
64th and 65th Prime Minister of Japan.
A national architect during the period of high economic growth.
The man who proposed the Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago and fundamentally changed Japan's infrastructure structure.
1918–1993 | Politician, businessman, and national manager.

[The Boy from the Snow Country]

1918, Kariwa District, Niigata Prefecture.

When winter comes, snow piles up.
Roads are buried.
Logistics stop.

What takes a few hours in the city takes days.
It was not a wealthy region.
Tanaka had been watching since he was a child.

Why is there work in Tokyo?
Why is there none in the provinces?

Why do people gather in Tokyo,
and why do people leave the provinces?

This question
would later lead to the Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago.

Tanaka would later change Japan.
But the starting point for that
was the inconvenience of the snow country.

[No Academic Background]

Tanaka received almost no higher education.
He did not graduate from the University of Tokyo.
He did not take the civil service examination.

The political world at that time

was dominated by elites such as
University of Tokyo graduates,
bureaucrats,

and prestigious family lineages.
Tanaka was outside of that.

However, he had another weapon.
It was his ability to take action.
And it was his extraordinary effort.

He worked many times harder than others.
He remembered many times more than others.
He met many times more people than others.

If you cannot win with academic background,
win with execution ability.

That was Tanaka.

[The Reality Learned in the Construction Industry]

In his youth, Tanaka entered the construction industry.
And he started his own company.
Here he learned something important.

The world does not move on ideals alone.
Without roads, factories will not come.
Without electricity, industries will not grow.
Without the flow of people and money, regions will not develop.

In other words,

economic development required infrastructure.
This experience became his later political philosophy.

[Why Did He Become a Politician?]

The business was going well.
There was a path to success as a company manager.

But Tanaka was not satisfied.
He remembered his hometown.

Snow country,
depopulation,
poverty,
the outflow of young people.

He realized.
Even if one company succeeds,
the region will not change.

Politics is necessary to build a single road.
Politics is also necessary to build a dam.
Politics is also necessary to lay a railway.

In other words,
to truly save the provinces,
one must move the country.
That is why he became a politician.

It was not for advancement.
It was not for medals.
It was to change the provinces.

[The Genius of Elections]

From here, Tanaka's legend begins.
Tanaka's election campaigns were extraordinary.

He did not just give speeches.
He did not just distribute policy pamphlets.

He walked.
He walked tirelessly.
He went around to houses.
He took off his shoes.
He went up to the tatami room.
He listened to stories.

Stories about mothers.
Stories about children.
Stories about crops.
Stories about illnesses.
Stories about debts.

He would listen for hours.
And then he would leave.

But what was surprising was what happened next.

When he met them next, he remembered everything.

"How is your mother doing?"
"Did your eldest son find a job?"
"What happened with your daughter's marriage?"

The other person would be surprised.
This person remembers.

In other words, he is looking at me.
This was Tanaka's election campaign.
Before policies,

he looked at people.
That is why he was strong.

[The Monster Who Remembers People]

Tanaka's memory became legendary.

The names of Diet members.
The names of secretaries.
The names of local supporters.

That was not all.

The names of wives.
The names of children.
Family structures.
Birthdays.

It is said he remembered even that much.
One day, Tanaka said to a supporter he hadn't seen in a long time,

"How is your mother doing?"

The person is surprised.
He continues further.

"Did your eldest son graduate from university?"
"What happened with your daughter's marriage?"

Why did he remember?
It was not because he had a good memory.
It was because he was interested in people.

Tanaka looks at people.
Not at titles.
Not at academic backgrounds.

He looks at what kind of life that person is living.
That is why he does not forget.

And people think,
this person is looking at me.

It was an era where politicians collected votes.
But Tanaka was different.

He did not collect votes.
He collected people.

[The Man Who Collects Information]

Tanaka's day starts early.

He reads national newspapers from the morning.
He also reads industry newspapers.
He also reads local newspapers.
He also looks through a large amount of materials.

And at night.
Paper and pen by his pillow.
If he thinks of something, he writes it down.
When morning comes, he gives instructions.

He does not let information accumulate.
He does not stop making decisions.
He does not stop politics.

He is not a politician who works in an organization.
He himself was an information processing system.

[The Monster of Fieldwork]

Tanaka has a famous saying.

"Look at the site."

You cannot understand just from documents.
You cannot decide at a desk.

That is why you go to the site.
You see with your own eyes.
You listen with your ears.

Expressways,
dams,
Shinkansen,
airports,

it was all like that.
If it were now, he would be a project manager.

But Tanaka
did that on a national scale.

[The Man Who Did Not Stop Tokyo Tower]

When he was involved in construction administration,
the construction of Tokyo Tower had the issue of coordination with legal regulations.

333 meters high.
It was unprecedented at the time.
Consistency with the Building Standards Act was also complex.

So Tanaka
thought about "how to make it possible."

Not the reason to stop it.
He looked for ways to move it forward.
He did not break the law.
He realized reality within the law.

This was Tanaka.

For him, politics was,
explaining problems was not the job.
Solving problems was the job.

[Becoming Prime Minister]

1972, age 54.
He becomes the youngest Prime Minister in the postwar era.

And what he proposed was,
The Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago.

Do not develop only Tokyo.
Invest in the regions as well.
Create jobs in the regions as well.
Keep people in the regions as well.

Expressways.
Shinkansen.
Ports.
Airports.
Communication networks.

The infrastructure development that supports modern Japan
accelerated all at once during this era.

Tanaka was looking at the future.

20 years later.
30 years later.
That Japan.

[The Essence of Humanistic Politics]

Countless anecdotes remain about Tanaka.

He would invite reporters waiting in the cold air inside.
He would show appreciation to the police officers guarding him.
He would care for his subordinates' families.

He would not abandon people in trouble.
Each of these things is small.
But they add up.

That is why people gather.
That is why people stay.
That is why he was strong.

Tanaka knew.
People are not moved by logic.
People are moved by emotion.

That is why he valued human beings.

[I Will Take Responsibility]

Tanaka's organization was fast.
The reason is simple.
It is because the leader took responsibility.

He would tell his subordinates,

"Do it."

And then he would continue,
"I will take responsibility."

That is why the organization moves.
That is why decisions are fast.
That is why projects progress.

Even in modern companies,
there are few leaders who can shoulder responsibility to this extent.

[The Lockheed Scandal]

However, the peak is not eternal.
1976, the Lockheed scandal.

One of the largest political scandals in the postwar era.
Tanaka is arrested.

The arrest of a former Prime Minister.
Shockwaves ran through Japan.
Newspapers reported it daily.
Television stations produced special features.

Everyone thought,
Kakuei Tanaka is finished.

His political life ends here.
The Tanaka era ends here.

That is what was thought.
But, was that really the case?

[Why Did People Not Leave Him?]

A mysterious phenomenon occurs.

He lost power.
He is not Prime Minister.
He is not a cabinet minister.

Even so, people come.
Politicians come.
Business leaders come.
Local supporters come.

People never stop coming to the Mejiro Palace.
Why?

It is not because he had power.
It is because the promises he made to people remained.

He pushed that road through for us.
He built that bridge for us.
He brought that Shinkansen line to us.
He developed that airport for us.

And above all,
he helped when we were in trouble.

People gather around power.
They leave when the power is gone.

But in Tanaka's case, it was different.
The reason people gathered
was because of the person named Kakuei Tanaka.

He lost in court.
He fell in politics.

But he did not lose in human relationships.
Herein lay the true strength of the man named Tanaka.

[The Greatest Success of His Life]

Tanaka did not build a conglomerate.
He did not found a global corporation.

Yet he remained in history.
Why?

Because he changed the Japanese archipelago.

Expressways.
Shinkansen.
Airports.
Power grids.
Communication networks.

They are still in use today.
In other words, his work is still alive.

[The Greatest Failure of His Life]

The Lockheed scandal cannot be avoided.
There is criticism.
Evaluations are divided.

But one thing is certain.
He was not a flawless hero.
That is precisely why he has humanity.

That is precisely why he is still talked about today.
That is precisely why he will not disappear from history.

[Implications for Modern Business Leaders]

There are three things Tanaka teaches.

Implementation ability over academic background.
Execution ability over theory.

And,
Human relationships are capital.

What moves people in the end
is not a system.
It is people.

Tanaka knew that.

[Who He Was Fighting Against]

Who Tanaka was fighting against was

not the opposition party.
Not the bureaucrats either.

What he was truly fighting against were

• Regional disparities
• The inconvenience of snowy regions
• Lack of transportation infrastructure
• Information gaps
• Over-concentration in Tokyo
• A society obsessed with academic credentials
• Poverty
• Sluggish administration
• Politics that ignores the front lines
• Organizations that do not take responsibility

He was not seeking power.
He was trying to move Japan.

[Was This a Strategy?]

If you look only at the results,
it is a success story of climbing to the position of Prime Minister.
But there is a consistent pattern there.

Born in a snowy region
↓
Learns of regional disparities
↓
Enters the construction industry
↓
Learns the importance of infrastructure
↓
Aspires to politics
↓
Walks to every single house
↓
Remembers people
↓
Is trusted by people
↓
Builds an organization
↓
Gathers information
↓
Makes immediate decisions
↓
Takes responsibility
↓
Becomes Prime Minister
↓
Proposes the Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago
↓
Redesigns Japan

Furthermore,

Looks at people
↓
Remembers people
↓
Helps people
↓
The organization moves
↓
The nation moves

In other words, Tanaka
was not doing politics.
He was managing the massive project called the nation.

[Summary]

Kakuei Tanaka was a politician.
He was a businessman.
He was a salesman.
And,

he was a national manager.
What he sought to build was not power.

It was roads.

It was railways.
It was airports.
It was the future of the regions.
It was the flow of people.
It was the flow of money.
It was Japan itself.
When many people talk about Tanaka, they talk about the Lockheed scandal.

But history is much longer than that.
Driving on expressways.

Riding the Shinkansen.

Using regional airports.
Logistics circulating throughout the country.
Within that landscape,
Kakuei Tanaka still exists today.

He had no academic background.
But he had the power of vision.

He had no titles.
But he had the power of action.

A boy born in a snow-covered farming village in Niigata
would eventually write the blueprint for the Japanese archipelago.

And he moved Japan.
He was not just a Prime Minister.
He was the person in charge of the massive project known as the Japanese archipelago.

The first chapter of the Great Figures of the World series comes to a close here.
There was something common to all forty great figures.

It was not talent.
It was not environment.
It was conviction.
And it was action.

Those who change the era
always possessed those two things.

In the seventh part starting tomorrow,
we will move the stage from Japan to the world.

What we will depict next
is a massive nation that has been talked about for over two thousand years.
The origin of all empires.

The Roman Empire.

Next Episode Preview

The Roman Empire, Episode 1

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