Conclusion: The Two Meanings of the Russel Wright Plan

Needless to say, the year 1960 when the Wright plan was implemented was a year of significant turnarounds in Japan's postwar politics. It was the year of the revision to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and the opposition movement to it. The Japanese government, in order to rise above these political issues thus had to further emphasize 100 years of U.S.-Japan friendship. We can probably look at the awarding of the holding of the World Design Conference in the same context. At the very least, it was likely that these reasons played a part in the strong assistance by the industrial sector for these operations. Likewise, it is clear that the aim of this Russel Wright plan developed based on assistance from the Japan Productivity Center and JETRO was to not simply export expansion policy, but it also sought to achieve political stability from further economic growth by using stronger ties to the U.S. market for realizing actual trade expansion. In addition, it was important that practical issues were raised so that Japanese designers would make not only cheap products but would also find out what was needed to truly bring their products to the international stage. As the Japanese economy continued its substantial growth and achieved success, the major obvious design issues that were raised would later recede into the background. And now, after the collapse of the bubble economy and post-modern discourse, it is time to generate long-absent discussion in these issues.

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