PWRI Web Magazine Editorial Staff
P.R. Managerial Meeting
<Tsukuba>
General Manager: Dr.Kazunori Wada, Representative managers: Mr.Tomio Akita, Mr. Harumi Moriki, Mr.Toshio Yarimizo, Mr.Masuo Kondo, Mr.Minoru Kikuchi, Mr.Makoto Kimura, Managers: Mr.Yoshiaki Sato, Mr.Shinsuke Setoshita, Mr.Akira Kamakura, Mr.Yoshinori Nonomura, Ms.Yuko Nagaya, Mr.Yuya Kato, Dr.Mamoru Suwa, Mr.Yuji Okayasu, Mr. Hitoshi Umino, Mr.Koji Ishida, Mr. Nobuharu Isago, Mr. Tomoyuki Noro, Mr. Yasushi Josen
<CERI>
Mr.Nobuhiko Komachiya, Mr.Tadayuki Wada, Representative managers: Mr. Osamu Hatayama, Mr. Masahiro Shibata, Managers: Mr.Hirofumi Kitsuta, Ms. Yuri Sakai, Ms.Maiko Kawanaka

Editor´s Note

At the outset of Free to Choose, a book intended for the general public, Milton Friedman, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, explained the power of the market by introducing the incredibly complicated processes that are involved in producing a very ordinary pencil. Numerous things are involved in those processes: for carrying the lumber, one needs trucks, ropes, engines, hemp, saws, iron ore, graphite, brass refining, coffee drunk by the workers, and more. The thousands of workers engaged in these processes have a variety of technologies and many different religions and languages. He has deduced that the reason why so many complex factors cooperate to manufacture pencils is autonomous transactions in pursuit of own interests as described in Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In addition, those workers may well be engaging in transaction without being aware that the products they manufacture will be used for pencils. Transactions will not complete without the mutual belief that transactions are not zero-sum games but are rather in their own self interest. Japanese author and educator Yukichi Fukuzawa says in his book An Encouragement of Learning something along the lines that a disparity in learning may lead to a disparity in wealth.
However, depending on economically-motivated market principles alone may cause problems such as pollution and deterioration of quality - conditions referred to as "market failure." While consideration to the maintenance of ecology in implementing works and inspection of the inside of concrete that cannot be seen from outside are required, they are less likely to be carried out if they are left to market principles.
In the Analects, Confucius says it should be ensured that the government needs food, weapons, and the trust of the people. When he is asked to name the first one that should be abandoned under unavoidable circumstance, he answered that arms should be abandoned first, followed by food, for nothing could be accomplished without the trust of the people. As one of the priority research projects to be conducted predominantly and intensively, PWRI is carrying out R&D required for the prevention and mitigation of damage due to disasters to realize a safe and secure society.

(Yoshiaki Sato)