Japan: The Model Society

[Samurai_Jerk]

Should We Be Turning Japanese?

Walking among the open air cafés in Tokyo during an unseasonably warm November last year—just after the Paris terror attacks—I realized that something was different. Japanese almost never think twice about going into public places. Their streets are not filled with combat troops on wary patrol. Parents don’t fear when their children congregate at a concert or in the park. Japanese are the first to highlight their country’s problems, but when I talk with a group of young men and women at a tiny, crowded bar, their greatest fear for the future is growing old alone, not that they might not grow old at all.

Japan does face a demographic crisis—its population is actually shrinking—but there is another big positive dimension to life in modern Japan. The Japanese are not arguing (all that much, anyway) about social and economic inequality. Nor are the shops dark and the restaurants empty, at least not in Tokyo and other major cities. There is no Japanese Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders drawing on and stoking the anger of a disenfranchised middle class.

Japan has found a separate reality—a separate peace if you will—from the globalization paradigm that has dominated the West since World War II. The country’s experience over the past quarter-century raises the question: How open does a modern nation need to be in order to be “successful”? That should prompt us to ask, in turn, whether we in the West have been overstating the benefits of openness and globalization, and underestimating the virtues of social cohesion and stability.

All this warrants a fresh look at the long-tainted “Japan model.” At least as viewed by the West, Japan has spent the past quarter-century under a cloud. After the Japanese asset price bubble popped in 1989, the once-and-future “Pacific Superpower” (recall all those headlines from the 1980s, declaring things like “Your Next Boss May be Japanese”) no longer interested investors, pundits and the media. “Japanese” traits such as lifetime employment, so recently lauded, were quickly reinterpreted as rigidity, risk averseness, and a general inability to deal with a new era of innovation that valued the individual over the group. In particular, it became an article of faith in the West to decry Japan’s insularity, whether economic or socio-cultural. Japanese society, ethnically monolithic and anti-immigration, was derided as fatally parochial in the new, modern borderless world.

[matsuki]

Japanese are the first to highlight their country’s problems

There is no Japanese Donald Trump

Japan has found a separate reality

[Coligny]

In Japan, by contrast, modernity has always been restrained by a tradition of social stability that goes back to the centuries of a feudal system headed by shoguns and emperors. Thus the Japanese have always viewed modernity more warily

yet they allow wiminz to drive and go out without a male family member...

But yea... let's keep shit feudal... at least the trains run on time...

[Yokohammer]

Reading through the entire piece, I'd have to say that the guy has a point or two. He's not saying that Japan IS a model society. I question his assessment of economic and social stability, which looks more superficial and precarious to me, but there is some truth to what he's saying.


~ Tapatalking ~

[Samurai_Jerk]

Reading through the entire piece, I'd have to say that the guy has a point or two. He's not saying that Japan IS a model society. I question his assessment of economic and social stability, which looks more superficial and precarious to me, but there is some truth to what he's saying.

That was my take on it. I got the feeling he was softly pushing a right-wing agenda so I google him and ...

Michael Robert Auslin ... is now a Resident Scholar and Director of Japanese Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC.

kurogane will like this.

He lived and worked in Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher on the JET Programme.

[matsuki]

Yoko...possibly, in his overall sentiment...but in regards to Japan, I think he's pretty fooled as to what the reality is...

to level the playing field for those who value hard work and want the chance to become part of the ownership society. Crony capitalism and the close political-financial alliance protected by Democrats and Republicans alike need to be uprooted in favor of policies that help Main Street and provide meaningful cushions for workers and families trying to be part of the economy.

Pretty much the opposite of what Japan is...you'd think Mr. Jet would know this...

[Taro Toporific]

:keyboardcoffee:

Japan has found a separate reality

The only Truth in the entire piece.

[yanpa]

Is it me or do the people in the stock banner photo at the top look like Chinese tourists?

[Coligny]

Reading through the entire piece, I'd have to say that the guy has a point or two. He's not saying that Japan IS a model society. I question his assessment of economic and social stability, which looks more superficial and precarious to me, but there is some truth to what he's saying.


~ Tapatalking ~

Hitler was not always wrong either...

(ya'll thank me later...)

[Russell]

Reading through the entire piece, I'd have to say that the guy has a point or two. He's not saying that Japan IS a model society. I question his assessment of economic and social stability, which looks more superficial and precarious to me, but there is some truth to what he's saying.

Hitler was not always wrong either...

(ya'll thank me later...)

Yep, to quote Sarah Silverman, "he was a vegetarian; why do people keep mentioning the bad things?"

[wuchan]

shouldn't this be in the "noob reporter discovers Japan" thread?

[kurogane]

Is it me or do the people in the stock banner photo at the top look like Chinese tourists?

Chinkalicious. That's the Gate of Nine WTFs at Nanzenji.

kurogane will like this.

He lived and worked in Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher on the JET Programme.

ORrrrrrrrrrrr, you won't.
Utter JET level rubbish. All of it. Three truths, nine lies, twelve mysteries. F'in white people. Grrr. Time to call Havill. Writes ike a Jew, btw. All that organic polity crap..............barf

[Coligny]

ORrrrrrrrrrrr, you won't.
Utter JET level rubbish. All of it. Three truths, nine lies, twelve mysteries. F'in white people. Grrr. Time to call Havill. Writes ike a Jew, btw.

WORSE... I think it's a Spastic Gay Nigger Jewish Klansmen...

kkk.jpg

This thread is now haroum as fuck... starfoullah...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Is the world turning Japanese?

As the Group of Seven leaders meet in Japan this week to discuss stabilising global growth, one of the key concerns will be whether developed nations are facing an inevitable future of low or no growth.

It's called the "Japanese Disease". A cycle of low growth and low prices for more than two decades.

The Japanese government has tried everything to get growth rates and prices up again: negative interest rates, structural reforms and fiscal stimulus - but nothing appears to be working so far.

[...]

So what now? Japan has been trying to get out of this vicious cycle for 20 years now and has failed. Boosting economic growth has been the promise of successive governments and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has staked his credibility on turning Japan's economy around. Growth has inched up - but barely, and is likely to grow by just 0.2% next year, according to BNP Paribas' latest forecast.

And yet, most Japanese people will tell you, despite this low growth - things aren't so bad.

Here's why:

Japan enjoys a relatively high standard of living, with an enviable quality of life, as Martin Feldstein of Project Syndicate points out in this piece: Unemployment is low, public transport is efficient and reliable.

And although working hours can be pretty dire, Prime Minister Abe is trying to address that. GDP per capita - basically how much the country produces divided by the number of people in the country - was at $36,000 in 2011-15 in comparison with the US's $54,000.

Not too shabby.

So perhaps the lesson in all of this, as world leaders gather in Kashikojima, or the aptly named Island of Wisdom as Prime Minister Abe describes it in his latest op-ed in the WSJ is that IF developed countries are facing a future of low or no growth, and shrinking populations, then perhaps governments should focus on improving living standards and not simply chase high economic growth rates.

[inflames]

Japan's problem is that the government (including BoJ) sat on their asses about problems. Now the BoJ isn't sitting on its ass but the government isn't taking policy measures to increase growth.

In 2008 central bankers everywhere panicked and took action ASAP to avoid becoming Japan, although politicians in most major countries have still fucked up the policy aspect of it.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Japan's problem is that the government (including BoJ) sat on their asses about problems.

I've never seen action by a Japanese government that has looked even remotely likely of resolving a problem.

[Coligny]

Japan's problem is that the government (including BoJ) sat on their asses about problems.

I've never seen action by a Japanese government that has looked even remotely likely of resolving a problem.

Sometimes fucing up beyond all repair is the only way to move forward...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Japan's problem is that the government (including BoJ) sat on their asses about problems.

I've never seen action by a Japanese government that has looked even remotely likely of resolving a problem.

Sometimes fucing up beyond all repair is the only way to move forward...

Go Trump!!

[kurogane]

I think quite a few people that still have a sense of humour are warming to the idea of Clinton getting Trumped. It would be hilarious, if nothing else.

[wagyl]

hilarious

She spells her name with two l's.

[kurogane]

Very clever I'm still sitting on the fence, but it's Sophie's Choice anyways: she's dreadful; at least he's ridiculous.