Toyota, a Japanese motor company, has been
functioning for the last thirty years without a single
day ever having been wasted, and without its
production ever once having slackened. This is only
one of the many examples which explain the fast
development of industry in Japan. General Motors
and the Ford Motor Company of the U.S.A. are the
biggest motor manufacturing companies in the
world. The annual production of these motor
companies is, on an average, 11 cars per employee,
while the Toyota Motor Company annually
produces 33 cars per worker.
Considering the non-existence or at least paucity of
all the major raw materials of industry in Japan—
coal, iron, petroleum, etc.,—Japan still manages to
surpass all other countries in industrial progress.
One might well ask why. A Hindustan Times
commentator (25 August, 1981) attributes Japan’s
success to “A national spirit of compromise and
cooperation, and a willingness to endure
short-term setbacks for the long-term good of the
nation, company or family.”
It is temperament then which plays the most crucial
role in the making of a nation. It is important in
nation-building in the way that bricks are important
in any kind of construction work. A house made of
unfired bricks is unsafe, because any calamity, even
a minor one, can bring it tumbling down. A
building, on the other hand, which is made of kiln-
fired bricks can be trusted to withstand the
onslaught of tempests and floods.
A character so tempered that it can be depended
upon through thick and thin—like the kiln-fired
brick—is what in the long run builds a nation, for it
is only such a temperament which can remain
attuned to the more and more complex procedures
of industrialization and remain steadfastly geared
to national progress
Ref - The Moral Vision
