The ruling Liberal Democratic Party scored a resounding victory in the Lower House election last December by successfully pursuing its strategy of taking the Democratic Party of Japan, the top opposition party, to task for failing to implement effective economic policies while in power for three years and three months from September 2009 to December 2012.

It may not be fair to blame the DPJ for causing protracted deflation because the Japanese economy plunged into downward price spirals in the late 1990s — about 10 years before the party assumed the reins of government. Still it is an undeniable fact that the DPJ manifesto was devoid of a policy to end the deflationary trend.

If the DPJ is a party of liberalism as it says, it should have pursued such programs as elevating irregular workers to the status of full-time employees, taking positive measures to improve the social security system, and making all phases of education free of charge. In order to finance those schemes, the party should have made income tax rates more progressive, raised the rates of taxes imposed on inheritance and assets, and taken other aggressive steps to help the economically weak and to redress the disparity between the rich and the poor.