Japan: Pleasing the Ancestors

Like chewing gum, rock 'n' roll and girls in slacks, people's capitalism was unthinkable in prewar Japan. Today, an estimated 6,000,000 Japanese—many of them housewives, factory workers and shopkeepers—own stocks. An average trading day on the Tokyo Exchange sees no fewer than 100 million shares of stock change hands. The trail blazer in this phenomenal growth of stock ownership is a jovial, pipe-chewing kabuya (securities broker) named Tsunao Okumura, who has fought public apathy, occupation forces, and the power of Kabutocho, Japan's Wall Street, to educate the Japanese public in the...