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●日本の「経済的奇跡」は、「奇跡」ではない

So the first lesson that I wanted people to take away from this book, the first lesson was the so-called economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s, maybe it wasn't a miracle, but it is really the key to understanding the contemporary, not just contemporary Japan, but the contemporary global political and economic and financial order.

　私がこの本『日本　呪縛の構図』を通して知っていただきたかった最初のことは、1950年代から60年代にかけてのいわゆる「経済的奇跡」（戦後復興と高度成長）です。これはおそらく「奇跡」などではなかったのですが、現代の日本のみならず、グローバルな政治経済、そして金融の在り方を理解する上でも、この「奇跡」はキーになるものです。

The economic miracle so-called was rooted in the peculiar circumstances of the early 1950s and I am really hoping that scholars and other interested people will revisit those days and the early postwar world. There is a tendency now among a lot of analysts to pooh-pooh what happened. You know, they say, well Japan was really unique, West Germany was doing the same thing, METI was arrogantly picking winners, which turned in the long ― out in the long turn to be a bankrupt strategy.

　日本の「経済的奇跡」の発端は、1950年代初頭の特異な環境にありました。私は、研究者や日本に興味がある人々に、ぜひこの戦後の歴史を振り返ってもらいたいと思います。多くの経済アナリストが、この時代に起こったことを軽んじる傾向があります。彼らは言います。「日本は確かにすごかったが、西ドイツだって同じことをやった。通産省は傲慢にも、成功しそうな企業だけを援助したのだ」と。後になって、そのやり方には意味がないと分かったのですが。

But we really need to look back at the circumstances of those years. First of all, Japan was facing a harrowing balance of payments situation. Secondly, the U.S. was becoming increasingly impatient after drain of helping Japan. Thirdly, the obvious escape or the obvious solution to these problems, which were export sales to China were closed, because the U.S. would not ...