JAPANESE culture places great stress on distinguishing the honne, one’s genuine feelings, from the tatemae, what one must say publicly. Just before Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, returned to power last year, Hiromasa Yonekura, the head of the Keidanren, the country’s big-business lobby, made a grave error by revealing his honne about Abenomics, Mr Abe’s bold strategy to revive the economy. He said its call for a radical loosening of monetary policy was “reckless”. Mr Yonekura backtracked, but has been cold-shouldered by the government. Since then, bosses have been sticking to the tatemae, bland statements of support for Abenomics. Privately, many are less keen.

Big firms were overjoyed when Mr Abe’s business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) returned to power. In the previous three years, the more left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan had rattled them with talk of tough new labour and environmental rules. The early stages of Abenomics have benefited large enterprises. A lower yen has turbocharged exporters’ profits. Its second “arrow”, a {Yen}10.3 trillion ($105 billion) fiscal stimulus, has boosted construction firms and heavy industry. The third arrow, a bunch of structural reforms currently being legislated, should also help businesses grow; and a long-sought lowering of Japan’s relatively high corporate tax rate is now in the works. Surveys show company bosses at their most hopeful in years.

With the comeback of the LDP, businesspeople were expecting a return to a cosy status quo in which, for most of the post-war period, the party ruled in an “iron triangle” with its backers in big business and in the bureaucracy. But bosses are beginning to realise that the next stage of Abenomics depends on concerted action by them—including things they would rather not do.

For a start, the government is pressing them to lift basic pay, to boost consumption. Workers’ pay has been slipping since 1997. If that continues, as the Bank of Japan’s monetary easing gradually replaces deflation with mild inflation, households’ spending-power will shrink, bringing the recovery to a halt. Other than two convenience-store chains, few companies have acted. Most have gone no further than raising bonuses, an easily reversible step.

The Keidanren is now recommending that its members offer pay rises in next spring’s annual talks with unions, and some say they will consider doing so. But that is just the tatemae. In private, bosses insist that temporary rises are all that can be offered, even if the government dangles tax cuts as a bribe for basic-pay increases. “We are not communists!” harrumphs an executive at one of the largest carmakers. He hopes the government is simply indulging in some tatemae of its own. After all, it is politically wise for Mr Abe to be seen bullying companies into lifting wages.

But that is not the end of Mr Abe’s radical agenda for business. He has in effect appointed himself chief executive of Japan, as the Nikkei business newspaper puts it; and this is making the real bosses uneasy. Mr Abe is hectoring them to raise their game and boost their firms’ performance. To that end, the third arrow of Abenomics calls for stricter corporate governance and closer oversight by the Japanese institutions that own shares. Another unwelcome demand Mr Abe is making of big firms is that they put more women into senior management and on their boards.

Japan’s more regressive companies shudder at all this. According to Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, the chief executive of Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings and an adviser to Mr Abe, “around a third of presidents of large companies don’t want to alter things, they simply want to serve out their turn in top management.” Behind the scenes, the Keidanren is fighting tooth and nail against improvements to corporate governance. So far it has successfully resisted a proposal to require firms to have at least one independent board director. Insiders suggest that it may be only a tiny handful of influential companies that are blocking progress. But such recalcitrance matters, because it complicates the Keidanren’s efforts to persuade the government to pass other reforms which its members do want, such as making it easier to fire employees.

Fortunately, the prime minister’s reform drive is getting genuine support from two other business groups, Keizai Doyukai (a club for CEOs, of which Mr Kobayashi is a senior member) and the Japan Association of the New Economy, which is headed by Hiroshi Mikitani, the founder of Rakuten, a giant internet firm. The other two-thirds of company presidents, insists Mr Kobayashi, do yearn for change. This week Mr Mikitani, very much revealing his honne, lashed out at Mr Abe for foot-dragging on deregulation, after a decision to allow drugs to be sold online appeared to have been reversed.

The elephant in Japan’s boardrooms, says Kazuo Hirai, the boss of Sony, is the country’s ageing and shrinking population. This will discourage firms from obeying yet another of Mr Abe’s demands on businesses, which is to invest more at home. With growth prospects limited by demography, many prefer to spend money overseas or not at all. Mr Abe’s attempt to ease the problem by bringing more women into the workforce is a good step, says Mr Hirai, but as important is a more liberal immigration policy. That piece of honne, however, may still be too controversial.

Honest to Abe

For now, Mr Abe draws much support from the most old-fashioned of Japanese tycoons, as much because of the conservative political beliefs they share as for anything to do with business. The Keidanren continues to be a generous donor to the LDP. But a shake-up of the way in which corporate Japan fights for its interests is sorely needed. Younger, more internationally minded businesspeople should be encouraged to speak up alongside the old guard. Honest criticism from them would benefit Abenomics more than insincere praise.

Economist.com/blogs/schumpeter