As an avid reader of Neo-Confucian philosophy, I yesterday came across some sayings by the Ming Dynasty thinker, Wang Yangmin. Perhaps the most famous of his proverbs is a short four-character Chinese phrase that translates as “pull out the roots, block up the source”. Wang argues that if we are to maintain control over the world’s disorder, it is pointless dwelling on minutiae: One must pull out the roots of trouble and block up their source.

I was struck by how apt Wang Yangmin’s remarks were when applied to the present condition of the Pension System.

Japan is currently facing a shrinking and ageing population, and the country’s biggest problem is how to construct a society that can cope with it. Reform of the Pension System is a way to keep Public Services in tune with a changing social structure.

We, the DPJ, are currently arguing that if we are to switch the Pension System for a completely new structure and introduce a minimum Social Security Pension covered in its entirety by tax revenue, a reform of Japan’s system of taxation will be required. In order to introduce pensions that are relative to income, which all-regardless of profession-contribute to at a rate tied to earnings, it is vital we construct a system that is accurately tuned to the realities of income tax. If we can accomplish this, we can provide benefits to those who need them and increase efficiency by cutting back on wastage and unnecessary handouts.

To ensure both fairer collection and delivery of taxation, we will also abolish the Social Insurance Agency, creating a Revenue Agency which, unified with the National Taxation Agency, will collect tax and Social Insurance revenues.

However, ‘Pension Reform’ is not merely limited to a simple reform of the Pension System-our changes are much more ambitious in scope. It is in this way that we must go beyond merely pulling up the “roots” of the issue: We must get right to the bottom of the problem and “block up the source”.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe Shinzo, the new Prime Minister, is attempting to continue the Koizumi line. However, as displayed by the problems in the Social Insurance Agency, the efforts to combat each scandal as it comes do not reach to the heart of the issue; scandals are merely the symptoms of underlying structural decay. This is a concern I intend to raise in the forthcoming Diet Session.

(Translated by R.J.F. Villar)