The BBC's Matt Frei reports on the destitute face of Japan

Like most outsiders I have always thought of Japan as a citadel of high tech efficiency, a society of whizzing bullet trains, where the human being has been replaced more rapidly than elsewhere by machines.

Why is it then that it took me 15 minutes to change US$100 at Osaka's futuristic Kansai airport? And why is it that this meagre transaction involved five people?

Japan's restaurants stand empty

A woman in uniform next to the exchange booth, who bowed deeply and showed me to the customers' queuing area, one whole yard to my left; a man behind thick glass who took my dollars; another man who counted them (not difficult since there was a single note); a fourth man behind another thick glass wall who put the note into a machine and stamped a piece of paper three times; and person number five - who handed me the Japanese money - with a bow.

Not even supermarkets in the communist Russia of old were this over-staffed.

And nor was this an isolated example: Tokyo department stores pay scores of women to do nothing but bow professionally. In Nagano there are factories that continue to employ thousands of surplus workers even though they are losing millions.

In Osaka my hotel room was cleaned by three people, one of whom seemed to be involved exclusively with putting the little soaps and lotion bottles onto a shelf.

The Jamanichi school with just one pupil

In the rural prefecture of Jamanichi we filmed a whole village school with five classrooms, two teachers, a large playground and a brand new tannoy system for public announcements when it would have been easier for the headmaster to shout out of the window.

This school cost £100,000 of taxpayers money to refurbish and another £100,000 in salaries at a time of deep recession - but it had just one pupil - seven year old Daiki.

The BBC's Matt Frei reports on state-funded inefficiency at a Jamanichi school

Believe me, Japan is one of the most inefficient countries I have ever seen. But its inefficiency is not the result of corruption or laziness. Japan's inefficiency is spawned by the best intentions.

When I asked Mr Mishibayashi, the head of the Jamanichi education authority why on earth he had approved a budget of £200,000 for one child when little Daiki could have taken a 20 minute journey by school bus to the nearest town, he looked at me as if I was advocating cruelty to children.

Daiki enjoys the attention of two teachers

"The father," he answered politely but sternly, "wanted the child to be close to home. And we feel that the sound of a school bell will enliven the ageing community of Ichinose where Daiki is after all the only child." Poor Daiki, I thought ... and poor taxpayer.

The decision not to sack workers in industries that are technically bust is inspired by the same principled inefficiency.

"Japan," Professor Kagami a wise economist with an American accent told me, "is obsessed with the need for consensus. No-one must be excluded, no-one disadvantaged. Otherwise society will disintegrate.

"You see Japan is the most successful socialist economy in the world."

The point is that, until now, it could afford to be. Or should I say, until about ten years ago - which is when the bubble burst and the gradual sclerosis of Japan's economy started.

The homeless of Osaka now number 10,000

With 400 companies going bust every week, and an increasing number of city and rural and councils declaring bankruptcy, the salad days are over.

Japan knows this - but the United States breathing down its neck and telling it to become more efficient doesn't help.

America and capitalism may have won the Cold War and the most important idealogical debate of the 20th Century but most countries, Japan included, shy away from a very Anglo-Saxon view of society in which citizens are individuals that either sink or swim, that become either winners or losers.

Yes, Japan is paralysed by its principles. It can no longer afford to nanny its citizens and keep everyone in jobs that are not needed. But does America, with its wretched underclass, or Europe, with its permamently unemployed, have the answers?