〔論説〕

Nurturing Strength of Extended Family:
Toward longtermism as good ancestors1

Yosuke Takeda2
November 1, 2022

１．Introduction
Every 5 years there has been a reunion meeting for worldwide Uchinanchu at Naha,
Okinawa at October 30th called‘World Uchinanchu Day.’The day is consideredas quite significant in that Uchinanchu looks back at one’s past for the future. For
immigrants and their descendants on one hand, it is a day when they imagine theOkinawan future, in view point of‘good ancestors3.’On the other hand, the day iswhen the Okinawans track back the past experience of their precedents as immigrants,connecting the past and their present. On this occasion, the Uchinanchu confirms
strength of nurturing ties with each other, through activities organized by WUB(Worldwide Uchinanchu Business Network) contributing to forming an‘extended
This is an English transcript of my keynote speech delivered at the 25th year anniversary meeting ofWUB (Worldwide Uchinanchu Business Network) held on November 1st, 2022 at Naha, Okinawa,
Japan. I am so honoured to join such a celebrated reunion for Uchinanchu community gatheringfrom worldwide regions. I am also amazed with seeing Mr. Nolan Higa as a participant here, a son ofMr. Thomas Taro Higa who was a hero in a real story“Pigs from the Sea”mentioned below. I own
ﬁnancial support to the Science Research Promotion Fund, Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation
for Private Schools of Japan.
2 Department of Economics, Sophia University, Japan. y-takeda@sophia.ac.jp
3 The term‘good ancestor’is quoted from Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor-How to Think Long
Term in a Short-Term World. Ebury Publishing, 2020.

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family.’I would like to celebrate WUB for the 25th year anniversary meeting today.

２．Take a Long-Term View!
Today, I present a keynote with the bottom line“take a long-term view!”at bottomline. As a science aiming toward long-term socio-economic prosperity, economics
has analysed some‘role models’of long-term prosperity, concerning those aspects
of institutions including property rights or democracy; social norms which attaincooperation with sanctions against free-riders; and organizations which efficientlyfunction with social or corporate identities. Those role models have been thoroughly
analysed in economics.
Among what economics achieved, I would emphasize what Frank Ramsey did, aBritish economist known as the pioneer of economic growth theory. He considered arole of‘discounting’in economic growth, saying“it is assumed that we do not discount later enjoyments in comparison withearlier ones, a practice which is ethically indefensible and arises merely fromthe weakness of the imagination” (“A Mathematical Theory of Saving,” The
Economic Journal, 38(152), pp. 543-559, 1928).
In recent years, the behavioural economics has developed to incorporate someinsights from psychology or cognitive sciences 4, different from a premise of theconventional economics that we are rational‘homo economicus.’Our humans have atendency to behave themselves in some irrational fashions. The most typical case of the4

A representative manifestation of the behavioural economics is Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fastand Slow. Penguin, 2012.

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irrationality is subject to‘present bias,’which means we have not only‘acorn brain’
requiring our self-command, but also‘marshmallow brain’leading to presentism. Oneof the critical examples of marshmallow brain is the phenomenon of global warming
which results from both excessive emissions of carbon dioxides from fossil fuel anddeforestation in myopic and mass production uses.
We live our lives in the critical era when we search for the new capitalism insteadof the mass production and consumption taken for granted since the 18th century
Industrial Revolution 5. The older version of capitalism which has increased suchsocial complexities as the global warming, is now going to be replaced with the newone which will require a long-term view immune to present bias, a clue of the change
which is currently visible, for instance in a popularity of ESG (environmental, socialand governance) investing in the ﬁnancial markets.

３．Culture Does Matter for Longtermism
How can we transform our society into the new capitalism? Will the transformationeven if possible, leave any problems associated with intra- and inter-generational
conflicts or violence in societies? How could be the violence avoided toward
cooperation among social members?
My answer is a role of culture in the new capitalism where the longtermism could
lead to socio-economic prosperity in societies as a whole. Opposite to‘algorithm,’culture is a‘heuristic’in the economics literature6, meaning a collection of wisdoms
In this sense, I agree with Rebecca Henderson, Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire. Public
Affairs, 2020.
6 I draw on Nathan Nunn,“On the Causes and Consequences of Cross-Cultural Differences: An
Economic Perspective,”in Gelfand M, Chiu C-Yue, Hong Y-Yi eds. Advances in Culture and5

─149─acquired from gradual try-and-error changes for better states in a similar way togenealogical evolutionary processes. Culture is also intergenerational inheritance for asafeguard against such cognitive biases as present bias. A biological representation ofculture is visible in‘narratives’as human s niche construction7.
Such an interpretation of culture reminds us of a role of tacit knowledge inorganizational development, a concept of philosopher Michael Polanyi8. For instance,
in a case of business succession, a reason for long-term business operations is anintergenerational transmission of tacit knowledge called‘dinner table human capital9’in some cases. Imitating unwritten principles even without scientific knowledge,
another economic agent like entrepreneurs than concerned ones can also achieve
better outcomes than otherwise, ultimately leading to social contagion of beneﬁciary
outcomes.
In reality, however we observe unfortunate clashes from cultural diversities inethnicity or religion. The history of violence has been the case with our humanity
instead of continuing cooperation. How can we overcome the lapse of time in cultural
clashes?

４．Nurturing Social CapitalSocial science has considered the problem of cooperation in human society for aPsychology. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
The description is quoted from Paul Collier,“The Cultural Foundations of Economic Failure: A
Conceptual Toolkit.”Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2016, 126, pp. 5-24.
8 Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension. the book title in italics Peter Smith, 1966.
9 Hvide, H K and P Oyer (2018), "Dinner Table Human Capital and Entrepreneurship", NBER
Working Paper 24198.

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long period. Sociology as the forerunner, addressed trust as social capital which isdeﬁned as a mechanism of reducing social complexity (Niklas Luhmann, Trust andPower. Wiley, Chichester, 1979). In economics as another strand of social science, aconcept of empathy, a role of which Adam Smith emphasized in a well-functioning ofmarket mechanism in 1759 The Theory of Moral Sentiment, has been reinterpreted associal capital which has conﬂicts with incentives.
Let me mention in brief two examples of the conﬂicts between empathy (intrinsicmotivation) vs. incentives. One is an example in Israel where a problem of delays inparents’picking up children were once raised at day-care centres10. The authorities
were then concerned about teachers’complaints about their extra hours for meetingcoming parents. A decision of ﬁne was made up to incentivize parents against a delayin their picking up the children. After the fine scheme was implemented, the daycare centres turned out to observe more frequent delays than before, since the finescheme resulted in legitimating a right‘price’for parents to come back late. The otherexample is concerning NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) problems11. Two repositories tostore nuclear waste would be planned to locate at a region in Swiss. The government
asked residents to agree on whether they hold a brieﬁng for explanation. Residents who
understood social significance of nuclear waste repository first agreed. However, inface with pecuniary negotiations after the brieﬁng, most of residents turned down theirempathy in favour of social signiﬁcance of the energy source, against their economic
incentives for pecuniary compensations.
Those examples of the conflicts between empathy and incentives imply that we
10 Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini,“A Fine is a Price.”The Journal of Legal Studies, 29(1), 2000,pp. 1-17.
11 Bruno S. Frey and Felix Oberholzer-Gee,“The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis ofMotivation Crowding-Out.”American Economic Review, 87(4), 1997, pp. 746-755.

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should face with a problem of where social prosperity lies between markets for selfhelp and government interventions for public help. However, we have an alternativeto the polar institutions: markets vs. government, that is civil society for mutualassistance. As a sociologist Mark Granovetter showed in a case of job searching inunemployment12, the strength of‘weak ties’would contribute to mutual assistance in acivil society where‘fairness’must be put more emphasis on than on efﬁciency.

５．Remembering a Narrative“Pigs from the Sea”
Before closing this keynote speech, a narrative“Pigs from the Sea”on pastexperience of the Okinawans is mentioned for learning‘longtermism’I have addressed
for nurturing strength of social prosperity in Okinawan future. The narratives are a real
story on pigs imported from former immigrants in Hawaii, US to Okinawa just after
the end of the WWII13. Hawaii was where numerous former-Okinawan immigrants
engaged a pork raising industry, while Okinawa was then heavily ruined by the US
military force in a food crisis for the Okinawans who held pigs with the heads 120,000
in the pre-war period but merely 2,000 heads in the post-war period.
Guided by voice of an Uchinan journalist Thomas Taro Higa, 7 Hawaiian immigrants
managed to send 550 pigs delivered from the US, taking into account pedigree
information based on their own pig farming. They raised a fund of $47,196 during
a half year with an aid of the Hawaii United Okinawan Association. The pedigree
was not Okinawan indigenous Agu pigs, but Chester White which was full of fatty
Mark S. Granovetter,“The Strength of Weak Ties.”American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1973,
pp. 1360-1380.
13 The source of the narrative is Noriko Shimada,“The Emergence of Okinawan Ethnic Identity inHawai’i: Wartime and Postwar Experiences.”The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 23(2012).

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ingredient that the Okinawan then ran short of. They purchased 550 pigs at Portland,US, sent them on board Vessel Robert Owen, and remaining 536 pigs arrived at White
Beach at Uruma, Okinawa on shore September 27, 1948. The day is now the Pigsfrom-the-Sea Day at Uruma City, Okinawa.
The imported pigs were equitably apportioned to regions per capita. The use wasneither speciﬁed for direct food nor breeding. The number of pig heads in Okinawa
was more than 100,000 in 1950, and 140,000 in 1956.
What a great success the gift was in nurturing longtermism in Okinawa! I would liketo visit any monuments and concerned ﬁgures in Hawaii soon.

６．Concluding Remark
Learning how the Uchinanchu has embodied longtermism on a basis of the culturaltradition, we are able to construct a narrative on the new capitalism, where a long-term
prosperous society could be achieved with rationality as a safeguard against human’s
cognitive biases.
Thank you for inviting me and listening to my presentation.

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