Japan Press Weekly

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2020 September 30 - October 6 [JCP]

Koike and political scientist Kang exchange views on M. Weber

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira recently had a talk with Tokyo University Professor Emeritus Kang Sang-jung as part of a newspaper interview series in which the well-known political scientist talks with political leaders. Koike and Kang discussed various issues including political reform and the JCP’s vision for a future society.

The interview series is themed on German sociologist Max Weber’s “Politics as a Vocation”. It is produced by Kyodo News and distributed to local papers across the country.

Koike said that having reread the sociology classic recently, he reaffirmed his impression that it is full of insights, such as “Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective.”

Kang noted that some people naively understand Weber to be a critic of Karl Marx. In response, Koike pointed out that Weber studied Marx’s works in detail and praised “The Communist Manifesto” as a first-rate academic achievement. Explaining that the JCP endorses the theory of a “majority revolution” in which the parliament plays a vital role, Koike said, “If Weber could see what the JCP is today, he would view communism differently.”

Koike also said that as a result of the Abe government, Japan now faces a greater risk of the rise of far-right forces but on the other hand it sees growing joint efforts for a better society between concerned citizens and opposition parties including the JCP. “Which of these two directions to take is an important question Japan is facing amid the COVID-19 pandemic”, Koike stressed.

Koike pointed out that while Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was in office, a series of scandals surfaced in which bureaucrats doctored official documents allegedly under political pressure. Koike said that even Weber could not imagine such incidents occuring, and stressed, “Japan’s bureaucracy has been severely damaged by corrupt politicians.”