Scenarios for Japan's uncertain future.

• Position: Worldview

By the year 2025, Japan will be transformed by a combination of three driving forces, according to historian David J. Staley. "The key forces are the restructuring of the Japanese economy, the long-term effects of an aging population, and the coming of age of Japan's `new breed' generation; he informed the World Future Society, Bethesda, Md.

Staley posits four starkly different scenarios for the country's future:

Japan goes entrepreneurial, The system of lifetime employment weakens as individual initiative emerges in the workplace. Japan's corporations harness the creativity of its younger workers. Alternatively, members of the risk-taking "new breed" borrow from American culture and start their own companies, creating Japanese Bill Gateses by 2025.

Japan remains a runner-up, The country settles into a second-tier economic status. Like Great Britain and the Scandinavian nations, Japan delivers high levels of health, wealth, and literacy to its people, but is not a global economic leader.

Japan becomes an Inclusive society...