Was Japan's economic miracle generated primarily by the Japanese state or by the nation's dynamic private sector? In addressing this question, this study offers a distinctive reinterpretation of Japanese government-business relations.

"[Calder] challenges [Chalmers] Johnson's depiction of Japan as a supremely successful government-command form of capitalism. Japan's private sector, he asserts, has been more independent and self-starting than the Johnson school would allow... Strategic Capitalism is magnificently researched."--Robert Neff, Business Week "Who ensured that loans flowed to Japan's winner industries, such as automobiles and consumer electronics? It wasn't brilliant bureaucrats, Mr. Calder argues with considerable force. The book marshals plenty of evidence of how passive and 'regulatory' the Japanese state frequently was, and how powerless its industrial strategists were against bureaucratic, business, and political foes."--Urban C. Lehner, The Wall Street Journal "Calder's book is well documented, lucid, and convincing--truly a landmark study."--Thomas McNaugher, The Key Reporter