The homogeneity and insularity of the Japanese people have started to work to their advantage. The driving power of today's Japanese society is the wisdom and skill of the common people. The bureaucrat and scholars are nothing but froth on the surface, their role, says Dr. Umano scornfully, has always been merely to stand in the way of the people's creative powers. It is a seething pot full of abrasive social forces, and there is great resistance to horizontal flow of information.
Information tends to flow only from the top down.
Moreover, in American society, information tends to be distorted en route. Not only that. One third of the American people are virtually illiterate and are therefore outside the reach of any kind of information from the start. America is a militarized state, there is a core of information which is kept secret, and specialists residing within this secret core are isolated from the public, nongovernment information society. Umano regards Japan as the winner and the USSR, Western Europe, and America as losers.