Political leaders can mitigate the country's record-high jobless rate and help solve other important national problems by generating citizens' power in the field of grassroots businesses, according to the president of the Japanese Workers' Cooperative Union.
Yuzo Nagato, 52, said grassroots businesses, such as nonprofit organizations that provide community-oriented nursing-care services, are crucial to revitalizing the economy and elevating social welfare standards.
Pointing to the government's failure to create jobs with so-called pump-priming expenditures for public works projects, he said, "The (conventional) system to dole out subsidies has collapsed. We should shift our focus (from public works projects) to grassroots business."