Reexamination of Yuichi Shionoya’s Economic Ethics: The Combination of Plebiscitary Leadership Democracy and Deliberative Democracy

Abstract

  This paper poses the question of whether a society based on liberal perfectionism, which was drawn by Yuichi Shionoya as an ideal, could be derived by his method of institutional reform.

  In Shionoya’s economic ethics, through Schumpeter’s research, he explains that a society based on liberal perfectionism can be achieved when an elite, seeking his own excellence, leads the masses. However, his theory of institutional reform is problematic. Through his interpretation of Schumpeter, he advocates a democracy led by a referendum elected leader, in which institutional reform is promoted by the adaptation of the majority of average people and the creative destruction of a few elites. However, the majority may not accept the elite’s proposals for extraordinariness in an equality-seeking society. As a solution, Shionoya presented the possibility of deliberative democracy and civic virtue, but it did not fully answer the question. As a response to that problem, this paper presents the concept of political leadership; while it is extraordinary, in the sense that it destroys existing values and presents a new common good, it has the commonality that can disseminate the elite’s proposals to the majority.