By Keiichi Inai
On January 24, Takafumi Horie, the former president of Livedoor, was arrested. He started his company with only 6 million yen and increased its market value to about 1 trillion yen in only ten years. He was often in the spotlight when trying to buy a professional baseball team, fighting against Fuji Television Network over control of the Nippon Broadcasting System stock, and running for the general election last year. He was called "a hero of the times" because of his skillful management, and he affected many people as a new kind of manager. Therefore, his arrest has caused a great shock throughout Japan.
In his book, The Profit-taker is The Winner, he says, "The pyramid structure where every person can be promoted to manager level does not exist." With this original management view, he skillfully utilized the recent spread of the Internet and rose quickly to become a winner. His management style changed the way of thinking of salaried workers striving to win promotion to eventually become president, and he brought focus on young entrepreneurs as models for success. Like Horie, young men who earned hundreds of millions of yen in several years using the Internet began to appear one after another. Furthermore, with the appearance of blogs, anyone can disseminate information all over the world now without the knowledge of how to make a homepage. The day will not be too distant when those who have noticed the new opportunities of the Internet suddenly come into wealth as the next Horie and attract the attention of many people.
However, Horie seems to worship only money. He said, "A Person's mind can be moved with money. Men change suddenly in front of lots of cash. It is a stone fact without thinking good or bad. If men with a lot of money are the strongest, you ought to become rich. Money moves men." Such comments were enthusiastically taken up by the mass media after his arrest, and in the twinkling of eye he lost his glowing status. He reached the extreme heights of management and had become an ideal model businessman for young men. However, it is undeniably true that he violated the law.
Thousands of comments both supporting and chastising Horie, reached the blog that Horie ran. A large majority of people was opposed to his sense of values over money, and they wrote, "People's minds cannot be moved by money." The thought of moving people's minds with money is dangerous. This is because the standard to judge people will be by how much property they own. A great number of people are doing their best to contribute to social welfare rather than making individual profit. There must not be any pre-conceived notions that set a price on people's worth only by how much money they have.
Horie's sense of values about money and of his management style have been criticized and evaluated by the media and the public. However, the way that Horie was doing business is not unnatural in a capitalistic economy. Therefore, eventually, another person like Horie will appear. It is hoped that he will be a person of thoughtfulness and one that contributes to social well-being. However, in present-day Japan, only those who make money in the capitalistic system are praised for their pursuit of profits in order to become rich. Consequently, Horie looked for too much profit, violated the law, and has been caught. We need to keep an eye on whether the next Horie is working only for profits, and we need to re-evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of present-day capitalism and why it seems to disregard social welfare.