🏛 When Did Bureaucrats Start Playing 'Elite'?

There was a time when the very sound of the word "bureaucrat" commanded respect.
It was a "fortress of intellect" that only those who passed through the main gate of the University of Tokyo and cleared the national civil service examination could reach.
The young people sitting there were called "the chosen ones," or in other words, the elite.

But what about now?
They are chased by long working hours, spend all night revising materials for parliamentary questions,
and are made to clean up after the gaffes of politicians.
Their salaries are less than half of those in foreign-affiliated companies, and they are mocked by the public as "tax thieves."
Even so, they maintain the facade of "supporting the nation,"
and before you know it, it has come to look like nothing more than "playing elite."

From the post-war period until the end of the Showa era, bureaucrats were certainly the elite.

• A sense of mission to build the nation

• A title that parents could boast about to their children

• High social trust and stability

The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—.
Every government office was a hub for designing the future of the nation.
"If you become a bureaucrat, you can move Japan."
Such an illusion drove many young people.

The collapse of the bubble economy and the "lost 30 years" changed everything.

• Criticized as "incompetent" due to failures in financial policy

• Seen as a "privileged class" due to the amakudari (descent from heaven) problem

• Calls for political leadership led to a reduction in bureaucratic discretion

They, who were once the "designers,"
have somehow become tied to the Diet as "odd-job clerks."
Social values have shifted toward "globally earning corporate employees" and "entrepreneurs,"
and the glory of the bureaucrat is being pushed into a dusty old frame.

Even so, they do not drop the face of "we are the elite who carry the nation."
Though not respected by those around them, they still consider themselves elite.
That is precisely why they are mocked for "playing elite."

Elite is a word that refers to the handful recognized by society.
The moment you claim it for yourself, it becomes nothing more than a fiction.
Bureaucrats have, at some point, ceased to be the "elite who move the country"
and have become "ghosts of those who were once called that."

Once upon a time, bureaucrats were indeed the elite.
But today, in the Reiwa era, perhaps only the lingering echoes of that "pretend game" remain.

• #Bureaucrat

• #EliteIllusion

• #SocialCriticism

• #WorkStyle

• #FutureOfJapan