Guy Sorman On Japan's Harmonious Stagnation

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]Korea Times: Road To Harmonious Decline
Forget what you have heard about the hard-working Japanese salaried workers: since the early 1990s, the Japanese have drastically slackened their work habits...Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi...understood all too well that Japan was losing ground in terms of productivity. [He] sought to counter the trend toward less work through privatization and deregulation. Japan's powerful bureaucrats...strongly opposed this bold, free-market solution...Moreover, public opinion never supported Koizumi's policy, which was alleged then, as it is now, to be a source of inequality. But that is a canard: real-estate speculation, not privatization, has been the real source of undeserved wealth in Japan. Nonetheless, the newly victorious Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has been able to make the accusation stick to free-market policies...Hatoyama makes no economic sense in declaring that growth is important but that happiness comes first. Nevertheless, this sentiment does reflect the mood of many Japanese...Are today's Japanese willing to work more in order to catch up with the United States and to lead Asia development? Stagnation is a tacit collective choice made by a country's majority. Have the Japanese people opted for it?...By contrast, a higher growth rate would require fewer golf breaks for salaried workers and significant immigration in a nation that is unaccustomed to foreign intrusion and different cultural habits. Are the Japanese really ready to accept such a cure? Most Japanese, mostly among the old generation, are satisfied with the kind of society they have built. They perceive Americans and Europeans as being obsessed with money and material ambition, and they seem ready to accept some stagnation as the price of remaining truly Japanese...Hatoyama's talk about a "new age," which sounds strange from a Western perspective, is in harmony with the Japanese way: this is a country where thousands of cult leaders offer myriad paths to Happiness, in particular a glib mishmash of New Age and Zen Buddhism...It may seem to most Japanese that their continuing economic power affords them the luxury of indulging such ingrained habits. Perhaps they should bear in mind Ernest Hemingway's description of how a man goes broke: "slowly, then all at once"...more...

[bolt_krank]

The Japanese idea of "hard work" means staying late.
A work who does nothing until dark is a harder worker than someone who finishes everything before 5.

[D chama]

-"They perceive Americans and Europeans as being obsessed with money and material ambition"

As i walked through the underground markets today i noticed a 20 something lady buying a 2000 yen bag of grapes, holding her overpriced LV bag, talking on the phone about "maybe" letting an oyaji actually do her to make more money tonight....yeah.

[BO-SENSEI]

Hard questions are not to be asked, and straightforward answers are considered too rude and crude to be given. Foreigners are welcome to make comments, but their advice will usually be ignored.

It is because they are not doing it right. They got to show up in black ships with lots of guns demanding stuff. It worked last time.

Seriously, how often has a country every changed its way of doing things because a foreigner says so, unless that foreigner has a bunch of friends with guns. (Hint, Hint, to those guys in Taiji)

It seems like things are only destined to get really bad before people will break from their tradition of doing nothing and be forced to do something in a new type of a Japanese miracle. So far these problems have not affected anyone's lives but sooner or later the Japanese people could be in a world of hurt, the question is are they going to do anything about it?

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

This guy seems to have really hit the nail on the head.
I'd say many Japanese -- and most of the important bureaucrats -- don't see the state of the country as a serious problem. Sure, there are social costs that are going to have to be paid in the mid-term future, but these costs will end up being borne by the individual (possible considering the masses of savings people have here), with the worst-cases given minimal government protection. Areas that will be hardest hit by things like aging and low birthrates are already doomed rustbelts as it is, so it's not like things are gonna get any worse, it'll be more like hastening of a natural progression. In fact, a few decades later, there'll be more space and greater opportunity for more efficient agriculture, so these could turn out to be good for the country in the long term.
Japan doesn't need to do too much. Large-scale immigration is not the answer and it will never be seriously considered here, anyway. I mean, look at the frenzy the media/authorities already build up over foreign crime when the actual numbers of insignificant. Japan in its current state is incapable of handling mass-scale immigration and it's highly unlikely it will ever have the inclination to do so in any of our lifetimes. It will be quite content to atrophy, provided there is comfort in the places where it is most sought (ie., big cities mostly).

[Coligny]

It is because they are not doing it right. They got to show up in black ships with lots of guns demanding stuff. It worked last time.

Last time I checked, Carlos Ghosn was not exactly big in the personnal firepower department...

But then again he got this huge nose that might scare the locals...

[BO-SENSEI]

Last time I checked, Carlos Ghosn was not exactly big in the personnal firepower department...

True, but when you got money you don't need guns.

[Mulboyne]

The Japan Times has just republished Sorman's piece. You can also see it in French on his blog.