Japan and land rent

Short thoughts on Japan (Why Japan? The reason is long and boring, but news related.)

1. The Japanese economy was transformed by land rent in the nineteenth century - changing it from a medieval backwater into a modern economy. However, their version of land rent was flawed, and was soon overturned by land owners. It's a long story.

2. The recent economic troubles could have been prevented by land rent. Everyone agrees that a major cause was inflated speculative land prices. Land rent is designed (among other things) to reward work, not land hoarding.

3. The Japanese system of big companies and cradle-to-grave employment shows that businesses can be just as stable and look after you just as well as a government can.