It's depressing to read all the misguided commentary about Japan in western media. We're talking about one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, which currently has the longest life expectancy, and one of the lowest crime rates.
Japan will endure, as it has for thousands of years. I'm more worried about where America and Europe are headed. Prosperity is one thing. Greed, corruption, and exploitation are another.
Anyway, in my experience, Japan today is a pleasant place to live. The lack of boom times here has rendered Japan more humble and practical than in the recent past. Most people in Japan ultimately enjoy a middle-class existence that would be the envy of the average American family. There are plenty of people who are struggling here, but Japanese people have endured far worse.
Western commentators will tell us that huge bloc of elders are an impossible burden on Japanese society. I see it differently—those people are a treasure trove of hard-earned experience. We can learn from them, and they're currently doing an excellent job as stewards of this place. They've seen first-hand the folly of chasing America and Europe on their imperialist fancies.
I would rather live in a "poor" Japan than in a "rich" America any day of the week. You can't put a price on peace of mind and the general atmosphere of civility and willingness to come together for a common cause.
To be fair, the way America and Europe are represented in Japanese media is hardly accurate either. I think you should temper your depressed feelings with some bemusement at how cultures never quite understand each other. That's what I would expect a wise oji-san to do anyway.
I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I've lived in Japan and in Europe for a number of years, and I've always found that the respective media failed to describe the other place in a way that I felt was accurate. I've come to be rather amused by that, that's all.
For what it's worth I do agree with you, for all the doom and gloom about Japan post-recession in the western media, it is very good place to live. I do believe that the overwhelming majority of the residents agree, and are voting with their feet accordingly.
Yes! The media is a pernicious influence. We hear this so often, but it seems insurmountable and inevitable.
In Japan, the media is complicit in silence about many important issues, but it is also overwhelmingly positive in tone. Television in Japan is either hilarious, emotional, or informative. When I went to the US embassy in Osaka, they had CNN on in the waiting room and I wanted to weep for my countrymen.
It is like a poison gas in the air——you can know it's there and that it's not good for you, but that won't alter the effect that it has.
Well, it was intended as an "aside" comment, but it's still interesting, if controversial. I believe that there is an unbroken thread from the arrival of American ships in Tokyo bay in 1853 to the current day. If you look at the official US history of that event (it's here: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/opening-to-ja...), it is characterized as a great opening of Japan to the world. In fact, it was in the pursuit of an arrogant imperialist notion of "Manifest Destiny" that Commodore Perry humiliated the Japanese and scared them into thinking that they needed to get into the expansion and conquest game in order to survive. It was a clear message from the Americans: we're coming in whether you like it or not.
Some call it a wake up call; others call it a provocation. Reasonable men and women can disagree about it. There's no doubt that it directly led to the lowest and highest points of Japanese civilization in the 20th century, though.
I think if people looked into the context of events with more curiosity, we would ultimately all benefit from the inquiry.
(And yes, I do believe that America and much of Europe are still pursuing an imperialist agenda. Call me crazy, if you want.)
Following this line of thought I would assume America is chasing Europe on their imperialist fancy, Europe (modern) those of the British, the British chasing Romes fancies, Rome those of the Greeks, the Greeks those of the Egyptians (and Persians?) and the Egyptians those of Sumer. This probably goes on though noone left writings before the Sumerians (but my knowledge is fague here).
I would also assume the invasions e.g. of Korea by Japanese before 1853 where not imperialist by intention.
Great point about Toyotomi Hideyoshi's attempt to conquer Korean and China! I guess the legacy of the Edo period was a kind of reset on that ambition, because the country was closed and not looking for a fight. I would say it was actually the failure of the shogunate to stand up to Commodore Perry that ended Edo and kicked off the outward-looking Meiji.
I'm no expert in this area, but I enjoy learning about it.
(Again my views only.) I think it was a direct reaction to the aggression of 1853. It was preceded by posturing/maneuvering in the South Pacific if I'm not mistaken. To be clear, I don't think it was justified or proportionate, but I do think those events were closely linked in that Japan saw Americans as encroaching on their sovereignty and an imminent threat from the "East".
In the cases of America and the British, and Rome and the Greeks, this was explicitly true.
As for Europe, it's not a country and doesn't move as a unit. Different European countries were pioneers in imperialism, others were latecomers, others were mostly shut out and ended up doing more desperate, brutal invasions in less appealing places.
There were so many peaks and valleys of European empires, it's easy to lump them into one. You're right, though——it's not fair to conflate Rome with Byzantium, Hapsburghs, Belgium, Netherlands, France, etc.
Although this may be true for a wide swathe of Japanese citizens, the ruling party of Japan has a long history of whitewashing Japan's imperialist past, making this argument tenuous at best. Abe Shinzo's government has been actively dismantling press freedoms to quell anything resembling dissent on this front as well, while his colleagues openly reference the Nazi's rise to power as an exemplar.
It's an interesting problem. I don't like Abe very much, but I respect him. I wonder if most people understand what a powerful coalition he has in the current government? He is one of the most powerful leaders in the history of Japan by that measure. What makes him different is his emphasis on action. He says that he endured many years when the ruling party was hesitant to take action, and he was determined to move the nation in his time. Whether you agree with his direction or not, you have to respect his ability to push the bureaucrats. You can be sure it isn't easy to get them to do anything, and it probably looks a lot like House of Cards, but with 2000 years of subtle, nuanced culture to boot.
Anyway, Abe does nothing more effectively than towing the line for America. In terms of global stability, it's the right play.
As for apologizing, I think it's a stupid issue. Everyone who was involved in Japan's imperialist past is dead now. If every country was required to apologize on a regular schedule for its transgressions, we would never get anything done. Will Obama apologize when he visits Hiroshima this year? I don't expect him to, and I don't care if he does.
I think it's nice that he will visit, and that the leaders of the world will convene near Ise shrine, which is one of the most exceptional treasures that mankind has used its considerable skills to accomplish and preserve.
Action in and of itself is not a virtue, especially when many of his iniatives take square aim at dismantling democratic freedoms. This is akin to the fetishization of "speed" by Italian futurists that paved the way for fascism's rise in Italy. And his coalition has long-standing ties to the yakuza and the CIA, so I guess it is "powerful" to the extent that it's aligned itself with malevolent actors whom his opponents would rather not consort with out of baseline morality. Again, I see nothing worthy of respect here or with the other corrupt regimes backed up with similar means.
Everyone involved with Japan's imperialist past may be dead, but some of its victims are not - for example surviving comfort women in Korea. Abe has on many occasions pandered to the extreme right by denying that anything was perpetrated against these people. I can't imagine being a victim of state-sponsored rape and having your experience further denied everytime a prime minister needs to curry favor. But I guess if "stuff needs to get done," that's just the cost of doing business.
I'd see it more as a comment on the here and now. History is one thing. The wanton destruction of other nation states at the present time, another thing entirely.
While I want to agree with this sentiment, the problem I see is that Japanese government has largely functioned as a client state of the American empire you're contrasting it with. There was a brief moment of true democratic impulses in the post-occupation period, but this was arguably quashed by the passing of ANPO and the rise to power of the CIA-backed LDP.¹ The peace and stability you prize seems premised on cowing to American interests that undermine it as they see fit(TTP and constitutional revisionism come to mind), or America being all in (and successful) at checking the imperial ambitions of China.
I couldn't agree more. It is a strategy of appeasement that is as effective as it is unsustainable. My guess is that Japan will outlast America on the scale of history, but that's pure speculation, and national identities are as fluid as everything else in this world anyway.
The Japanese public debt exceeded one quadrillion yen (US$10.46 trillion) in 2013, more than twice the annual gross domestic product of Japan [1].
>general atmosphere of civility and willingness to come together for a common cause.
Yes, the US could use a bit more civility.
But in Japan, the "willingness to come together" comes at a price - of culturally suppressed individual expression.
I have this thought that I want to express to you but I fear that it will prompt disagreement or come across as confrontational or dismissive when I really mean it in the spirit of compassion. I will do my best:
The words you wrote reflect a state of mind that seeks a negative outcome. I'm sure you don't intend it, but you adopt a half-empty perspective. It's the same tone that the mainstream news media uses when it turns its attention to Japan.
I wish I could convey to you how much that mindset is a symptom of a sickness in your environment. I don't mean to sound condescending, but it was an important revelation for me to learn that my tendency to express unhelpful skepticism and pessimism is, in fact, not inherent to myself but rather is a feature of the condition around me.
I'm sorry if it is too abstract or rude, but I encourage you to seek a more hopeful outlook. We could trade evidence of ruination of east and west all day (night for me), but what would we have accomplished? I'd prefer if we (perhaps naively) focus on those things each side is doing well. That can really move the world forward!
I've been to Japan a few times and I like many aspects of life there (I love Japanese art/sense of aesthetics, for example). I certainly wish the best to all humans, the Japanese people included.
But we are discussing economics, and "hope" does not work in economics. Numbers do, and they do not add up.
Japanese culture does not like confrontation and therefore it tends to hide/gloss over problems, be they economic (the last 20 years of not making bold decisions to get out of the stagnation) or managerial (see the Fukushima disaster initial cover up).
I am just providing a reality-based counterpoint to your over-romanticized, in my opinion, view on Japan. Every country/culture has their pluses/minuses.
> "hope" does not work in economics. Numbers do, and they do not add up.
Economics is not about math, precise and inevitable. Economics is about people and their social interactions.
Economists try to model social interactions with numbers, but don't mistake the map for the territory.
What does it mean in human terms that Japan has high debt?
Is your argument that Japan will inevitably default? Sophisticated traders are willing to lend more money for 30 years at less than half a percent interest [1], so smart people must judge default risk to be very low.
Is your argument that somehow Japan is doomed because of this debt? Even if they default, what does that really mean on a human level? Would millions starve? Would society collapse?
Maybe Japan's history, customs, language and social cohesion are worth more than you think.
And, just for the record, Western stereotypes of Japan as a collectivist society are no longer true [2].
Not sure about "doomed", but you can't spend money you don't have forever, you are taking the money from the future. Also, aging demographics is a big issue, because there will be fewer and fewer people to pay for retirees.
There are well-known hedge funds (check out Kyle Bass) betting against Japan.
There will be painful decisions to make, not just for Japan, but for other indebted countries (most of the developed world, unfortunately).
Nothing lasts forever, so let's talk about your model of how the economy works within your decision horizon.
The BoJ has been printing yen for decades, and the counter-intuitive result is that yen is strong and 30-year interest rates are less than one half of one percent.
Your model predicts imminent catastrophe, yet there is zero evidence that this cannot continue for the foreseeable future.
> you are taking the money from the future
No, we are borrowing from each other in the present. And those lending to Japan apparently think there is an extraordinarily low risk of default over the next 30 years.
> There are well-known hedge funds (check out Kyle Bass) betting against Japan.
And yet the yen is strong and interest rates are low.
When the facts on the ground contradict your mental model of how the world works, maybe it's time to change your model.
This is going off-topic, so I will try to keep it brief:
My "model" is based on common sense.
You can't create prosperity through financial engineering - but you can hide worsening prosperity for years (if you are a central bank). I don't know how long it will take to blow up, but blow up it will.
When actual results differ from what our intuition tells us, we call it "counter-intuitive".
When this happens, it could mean that our intuition is right and reality will eventually conform to how we think things should work.
But more often, it means that there is more going on than we understand, so we should calibrate our thinking to correspond with what is actually happening.
You're free to wait for the territory to change to match your map. As for myself, I find it's more profitable to update my map to match the territory.
But can't we agree that the numbers don't tell the whole story here? Whether it's because of consumer demand or diplomatic pressure, Japan doesn't have the freedom to manage its economy solely on the basis of what's best for Japan.
Also, you're entirely correct about weak management. The quality of Japanese society depends heavily on good stewardship due to the willingness to fall in line. It is basically a feudal arrangement played out in the business realm instead of political.
Take for example, the area where I live, Nagoya. It is home to Toyota, which is mostly a success story in this respect. Mitsubishi, too. When you read about the emissions scandal this week, remember that Mitsubishi also rolled out the X2 stealth fighter this month, and is gearing up for the MRJ regional jet program. These companies operate on a scale that is similar to nation states.
Meanwhile, the local universities are winning the Nobel Prize for little innovations like blue LEDs.
Everywhere I look, I see people living a higher quality of life than I see in America. My Japanese friends range from people who work very hard for very little money to people whose family sits on epic fortunes. When I go to the grocery store, the prices are less than half what they would be in any coastal American city, and the products are vastly higher quality. I bought my car (which gets 80PMG) for about US$10K...new, and it came with an in-dash TV/GPS, four cameras, autonomous stop radar, and regenerative brakes. US$10K off the lot. I never visited the car dealership...they sent a dealer to my house and I count him as a trusted friend now. He comes and picks up the car from time to time to have the fluids changed. Insurance for the car is a few hundred dollars a month, and fuel is about $26 per month for light city commuting. Most of the time, I ride my bike or ride the subway.
I own an apartment in New York City that is worth millions of dollars, but I choose to live here. I understand that there is an article in Bloomberg that shows a picture of a homeless person in Tokyo, but it's just simply not consistent with the reality of my life. You can (fairly) tell me that I'm insulated and willfully ignorant and that I lack data, but I'm still going to represent my perspective because it is at the end of the day more "real" than whatever Bloomberg is saying.
I just want to say one more thing about this, because I'm genuinely enjoying this conversation. Japan is a data-obsessesed society, but it is also superstitious. It's also largely Buddhist, which is a religion that orients toward the "middle way"—i.e., adopts the idea that every thing needs its opposite. It's important to reconcile the paradoxes of life in order to make real progress toward solutions.
Thinking of WWII, Japan's culture was not always on the right track...
Coming from Germany, I also wonder how much of the economic success stories of Japan and Germany is really because of cultural aspects, and how much is due to protectionism for example from the US. I think Germany was supported by the US a lot, as a shield against communism. Maybe a similar reasoning was at work in Japan.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys". Japan and Germany both pursued an agenda that were each ultimately misguided for a variety of different reasons. If you look for it, you will find similarly awful (and sometimes far worse) encroachments on the rights of human beings perpetrated by all kinds of people against all kinds of people.
The important point is that the people who did those things are dead now. It's up to you and I to understand how they got to that point, and make decisions to avoid it happening again. Unfortunately, the history we're taught in school is very simplistic and does little to illuminate the causes for such an effect.
In the end, the fact that Japan and Germany made a run for world domination is a signal that there is great strength and power in those civilizations. We should be looking for all the ways to harness that power to good ends.
Or simply that they were enamored with the colonial example of the west and had a tradition of extreme militarism and more fortunate historical circumstances that allowed them to project this sadistic fantasy on to their neighbors. I think you should be cautious in positing "world domination," premised on mass-genocide and slavery, as a sign of strength. It was a massive regression of humanity that was thankfully checked.
In some realpolitik sense, of course. But never would I argue that the grotesque excesses of American history were signals of strength or potential in line with some greater ideality. They were unchecked manifestations of baser instincts which their societies failed to counter. Strength was to be found in those that, faced with these circumstances, stood against them.
You are correct in your intuition. The US used Japan as a forward operating post for both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and built up their infrastructure to support this. Quite callously, they also exerted pressure on both Korea and Taiwan (former Japanese colonies) to modernize themselves with goods and technology manufactured in Japan.
your comment is data free. The article is specifically about growing poverty, which can be quantified. It is not about how Japan is a terrible or a great place to live.
From that report, Japan's rank for household financial wealth: 3 / 36. Anyway, the OECD report is highly suspect, IMO. It certainly doesn't tell the story that I've lived.
Well, I've made a lot of money in America and been afforded all of the privileges, but every North American city I've ever lived in had a miserable, destitute area and plenty of visibly neglected people, not to mention the background noise of violent crime and sleazy people who will take any advantage they can get. I wish it wasn't true, but it simply is. I've lived on the west coast, east coast, south and Canada. We really need to change our outlook if we hope to clean up our house. It starts with positive thinking.
You have lived a very privileged life in Japan, my friend.
I have travelled to Japan and have a fiancee who is Zainichi North Korean.
I urge you to stop interpreting Japanese culture with such extreme rose-coloured glasses and tone down your extreme positivity because it is blinding you from having the "balanced view" you say you have of Japan. Furthermore, it is insulting to minorities in Japan, which has a racist, insular, homogenous culture that so rigidly controls what is "true" and what is "false". The difference is that racism in Japan manifests itself in less violent and direct ways, as the culture of honne and tatemae is so prevalent. So it's difficult for foreigners to distinguish these things at face value.
If you compare types of crimes and the types of "bad things" in the US to Japan, you will see Japan has very little of the "bad" things the US has. That is not the point, however.
For example, I read an article that car accidents are up there as the leading causes of most deaths in the US. The Japanophile will remark how great Japan is because cars are not the leading deaths in Japan. But what the Japanophile will not tell you is that Japan has a high suicide rate, Hokkaido residents have the highest rate of heart disease in the world due to their consumption of sodium, and other issues that are probably specific to Japan.
There are very few robberies in Japan, but sexual harassment and sexual assaults are so common that there are specially designated areas and classes for women only. The sexual predators known as "chikan" have targeted foreigners, as well. It is so widespread that there are public service announcements advising women to be cautious. Does this happen in the US? Yes, but not to the degree that it happens in Japan.
I'm sure you don't know what it feels like to be eating at a sushi restaurant with your family and an old Japanese "steward" interrogating you about why you don't pay taxes and still leach off the government like Zainichi North Koreans have felt. These stewards' reasons are unfounded, of course, and an explanation of this would be too lengthy to write in this box.
Japan has many wonderful things, but what I have learnt is that Japan has specific problems related closely to their unique culture. It's tempting to consider Japan as the better country simply because it lacks the bad that the US has. But I believe the wise thing to do is consider the opinions of those Japanese that want to leave their own country and their reasons for doing so. This way, you get a more balanced view. It is definitely a trade-off, and it is about your priorities.
1. There are less than 10K homeless in a nation of 150MM+.
2. This is a sexist culture, to be sure. Women wield a lot of power in the home, but endure a lot of nonsense from insecure men. It's an abstraction for me, though. I'm surrounded by strong women, and men who respect them. I'm sympathetic, but it doesn't have any impact on my daily life.
3. As for racism, this is a monoculture. Koreans are both revered and despised by different people here because they're different. The same is true for Chinese, Africans, Americans, Russians, etc. If I felt unwelcome here, I would not like this place, and I would leave it.
Let's be clear: I don't think everyone deserves to have everything that they want. I admit that I am in a privileged position relative to others, and the opposite is also true, in that others have advantages that I will never have. Life is unfair. You have to find the place where you fit, or make the place fit you. For me, I found a place that fits me.
I wonder why you would begrudge me that, just because it isn't your place too?
> If I felt unwelcome here, I would not like this place, and I would leave it.
> You have to find the place where you fit, or make the place fit you.
This is an extremely ignorant thing to say. I recommend having a read of the history of Koreans in Japan. They cannot just pick up their stuff and leave. Some Koreans like Japan, sure, but others do not because they do not want to change the way many Japanese people want them to.
I saw that you wrote that you have ancestors from Northern Europe in this thread. I assume you mean Scandinavia? If this is correct, by this I deduce that you are White. It's pretty obvious, but Whites have a vastly different experience in Japan. They have a very privileged experience. Most of us know the majority of Japanese (especially women) love White, blue-eyed, blonde foreigners. And even if you don't have these characteristics, you are still viewed as White to them as an American, as long as you are not black, and for that you receive extra special treatment and they offer you concessions because, in their eyes, you are not Japanese, will never be, and will never really understand their culture.
Let me be clear: everything you write comes from a place of comfort, privilege and where people go easy on you because you surround yourself with people who love White foreigners.
Why do I say this? Because I am White and I have been to Japan. Every single person was extremely nice to me, and so I thought these people could never be mean to anyone else. However, I spoke with a family of minorities, some people who are now part of my family circle that I love, and other Japanese friends to understand how the same people that treated me so well treated others so poorly.
And absolutely: Japan will never be my place, even though they treat me with such love and attention. I believe in treating everyone genuinely and equally, though.
I don't necessarily begrudge your lifestyle. I take issue with foreigners in Japan painting Japanese people in such a one-sided way. I can list the many things of Japan that I like, but I feel I need to balance out what you're saying here.
And I'm going to call you out and say you sound exactly like the old Japanese "Baby Boomer" generation who nag the yutori generation (Gen Y-equivalent, if the HN crowd is following this discussion), when it was these baby boomers who have lived such a privileged life during great economic times in Japan. Congrats! You've assimilated wonderfully!
Yes, he really put me in my place! If you choose to focus on the negative, you'll get victimhood and negativity. It's simply a fact that Japan doesn't welcome foreign Asian people. That's why almost everyone here is Japanese. Should I be concerned that everyone isn't welcome here? In my home country, everyone is welcome and there is an imperative to treat everyone as if they're equals——frankly, the result of that social experiment sent me running away to Japan.
Take for example a school project...if the group is graded based on everyone's contribution, but you've got one person who contributes nothing or actually makes it harder for the others to contribute. The person who drags everyone else down was given an equal opportunity, but they squandered it and actually interfered with the opportunities of others who would otherwise take advantage of it. If you're forced to tolerate that person who is a negative and pander to them as if there isn't a problem, you're held hostage by the weakest link, and the entire group wastes time on fundamental problems of getting any work done at all, while they should be moving up the ladder of solving higher and higher order problems. Eventually, the frustration of the negative actor begets apathy and a sense of insurmountable problems, and endless discussion about matters that should never need to be discussed while real work goes unfinished. This is the condition of America in 2016.
This is quite a good response. Even though I criticized you for depicting overly positive picture of Japan, I praise you to bring this point out. I am not an American but I like America and its open culture. But what you are saying is also important. An excessively open culture that also tolerates negative elements is headed towards trouble. And if it forces/preaches its "good" members to tolerate the intolerance of new/old "bad" members, then the "good" elements in that nation feel frustrated and the nation as a whole slides down the path to failure. I guess, the excessive "political correctness" might be forcing America the way you are suggesting.
> Western commentators will tell us that huge bloc of elders are an impossible burden on Japanese society.
It's only a certain type of ideological commentator, who also tend to insist on the contradiction that the burden of a growing number of elderly is unsustainable for the working age population, but that we are also all being automated out of our jobs.
What about that is a contradiction? Either through public services such as social security, or traditional family values (which are obviously strong in Japan), the elderly invariably become a burden on younger generations. On the most basic level, when the day comes that my father can no longer work for his food, he will pull from social resources and I will personally be responsible for his welfare. A healthy economic landscape is prepared to receive such a burden and cycle it indefinitely through the generations.
A population of elders with a disproportionately small pool of working-aged adults throws this balance out, and is obviously a threat. If you combine that with the fact that those few who are capable of working to support the older generation are without question losing their jobs to automation, I don't see how the combined effect isn't an obvious and looming threat.
When you say that those two things are a contradiction, are you suggesting that the commentator is incorrectly pointing out that this is a contradiction when it isn't, or are you saying that the commentator is mentioning these two things, and you yourself think they are a contradiction?
> We're talking about one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations...
Somehow I keep hearing this when Japan is mentioned, and I have to wonder where this conception comes from. According to Wikipedia, the Kofun Period, the "earliest era of recorded history in Japan," starts around AD 250.
For comparison, Ramses II ruled 1279-1213 BC. Alexander the Great 336-323 BC, China's first emperor 220-210 BC.
> I would rather live in a "poor" Japan than in a "rich" America any day of the week. You can't put a price on peace of mind and the general atmosphere of civility and willingness to come together for a common cause.
It's not like you have only these two choices. You can live in fast developing countries as well, or even Europe can be a fine place to live depending on your location and you wages.
I love the north of Europe. My blood and family are there. It is the only other place in the world where rational minds combine with a long, distinguished history of building on success. I hope we will find a way to share between east and west the hard lessons of our past!
Is there reason to believe they are both significantly misreported in Japan, compared to the US and EU? Genuine question as I've never seen otherwise but would be interested in reading about it.
=====
I found this article about under reported crime, but couldn't find anything about the life expectancy being wrong.
There may be slight amount of misreporting. But that exists more or less everywhere, thus it evens out IMO. In my experience, both low crime rate and long life expectancy seems more or less true.
Well it's self-reported in the US and EU as well. Unless you can establish reasonable grounds to believe the statistics are significantly wrong, refusing to believe them just sounds nihilistic.
nihilistic? As in "rejecting all religious and moral principles in the belief that life is meaningless"?
In any case, what's to believe? We're comparing stats here, so we have to consider that maybe this isn't a legitimate exercise in the first place. Like comparing UK sexual-assault statistic in order to derive a ranking. Without a basis for error, our conclusions may be poor.
Look, yes, it may be the case that there is widespread corruption in the reporting of those statistics. But really, this is the same culture that produced the joke: no more that 1% failure rate in product, that ships 9900 perfect products and another box with 100 failures.
Yes, salarymen may not tell the whole truth, but pervasive corruption seems, well, unlikely
From my understanding, the government is extremely inefficient technologically (it wouldn't surprise me if most population records are still in paper form and faxed between government departments)
The citizen and resident registration system in Japan has already become electronic. The online system has little to do for the fraud, since you need human staff to check if the online record match the reality anyway (unless you implant chips in citizens and monitors them mechanically).
The government inefficiency comes not from the technology, but the complicated rules and ambiguous responsibility between sections.
Note also that the "missing" has different nuance in Japan and in US (I only lived these two countries, so I can only tell about them). In Japan, every resident must register his address to the city or county office; if someone doesn't live in the registered address, the person could be technically "missing" for the purpose of statistics or census (police investigation or other official matter uses more strict definition of "missing", off course.)
In any case, you want me to provide evidence? of what? Why? It's not my job.
My statements are perfectly true. If we take reported stats at face value, the UK has one of the highest rates of sexual assault in the world. In reality, they have the highest reported rate of sexual assault.
The most problematic of the stats you mention is the crime rate - Japan also has a fairly high "suicide" rate:
"The NPA has admitted that in Japan only 10 percent of suspicious deaths result in an autopsy. However, when a death initially appears to be due to suicide, only 5 percent are autopsied. The lack of a comprehensive use of autopsies was only brought to the public’s attention after several cases of “missed murders” came to light. The 45 known cases may just be “the edge of the graveyard” as some cops have put it."
This whole line of argument makes no sense. Why wouldn't every country overreport old people or underreport deaths, as the case may be? Just about every country has an incentive for pension fraud.
So...why Japan?
Incidentally, old people are in visibly high numbers here in Japan. I joke sometimes that it's like living in a zombie movie——it's not uncommon to be completely surrounded by only elderly people shuffling to and fro.
What line of argument? It feels like you're referring to an argument I haven't made - The one where I say stats must have their potential for error considered, but only wrt Japan.
Also, some of the links posted here show particular reasons to consider these Japanese stats suspect:
> Just about every country has an incentive for pension fraud.
Not all countries investigate pension fraud equally.
Wow, first time I've got a negative points score on a comment. And for a statement of fact supported by some of the replies to this post. What's going on?!?
You said that Japan was ahead in the reported statistics. And that statement is perfectly true. (What, we're going to use unreported statistics?) But it either says something very trivial, or else it implies that the reported statistics are unreliable and misleading. But it doesn't actually come out and say that. Still less does it supply any evidence for that.
A better, useful post would say, "That's only the reported statistics. But the official statistics are inaccurate, and more skewed in Japan than they are in other countries. Here's some evidence..."
Stats with more verification. A structured study as opposed to looking at police reports.
Again, reported sexual-assaults in the UK can not be compared to other countries unless you consider the difference in reporting rates.
It is not trivial to consider that before drawing conclusions from, or comparing, stats between countries, you need the context to properly interpret them.
The burden of proof is not on me, I am not making a claim. I did not use the stats to support a conclusion. As soon as you do, you need to justify that those figures can be interpreted the way you imply they should.
Basically there are two definitions of poverty with two crowds of followers.
1. People are poor if they can't afford (basic) things. People are very poor if they go hungry to bed.
2. People are poor if they earn less [1] than the average (not median) household. From the article "The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income."
When does the poverty rate rise in 1. and 2.?
1. When peoples (real) income decreases (e.g. they lose jobs) and they can't afford (basic) things they could afford 10 years before. Or prices are rising to the same effect. The margin between income and costs gets smaller.
2. When some people get a lot richer (e.g. the "1%") then the income average rises and the poverty rate rises, although "poor" people might also have higher income or can afford more things than 10 years before (because of cheaper food, clothes, phone costs, energy they have more "disposable income").
I wish we would label these two types of poverty differently to have better discussions.
> People are poor if they earn less than the average (not median) household. From the article "The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income."
And I thought the US move to define the poverty line as the 40th percentile of income (or something lower; I don't remember this too well) was absurd. The average household income is, by necessity, well above the 50th percentile everywhere. There is no one seriously advocating that over 50% of every country's population is living in poverty.
the poverty line as the 40th percentile
of income [...] was absurd.
It's best understood not as a honest attempt at understanding poverty, but as a political manoeuvre.
In the past (19th century and before), the socialist/communist tradition had a real point in that large swathes of the population were poor in an absolute sense (e.g. going hungry, cold, no adequate health-care, pension etc). The socialist/communist tradition was in some sense about abolishing absolute poverty (whether the proposed methods were helpful or not is another discussion). If you read e.g. the communist manifesto [1], that is clear. Most of socialist/communist politics centered around politicising and radicalising the absolute poor with a view towards taking them out of absolute poverty.
However, modern industrialised society has (simplifying a bit) abolished absolute poverty.
This leaves socialist/communist politics in a conundrum: how to continue to politicise/radicalise people to become followers. The concept of relative poverty is the answer: all the old political tools can be reused by changing what is meant by poverty.
It actually makes less sense than that. The poverty line in the US was calculated one year based on some percentage of the median wage. Don't remember what year that was. But since then they just keep adjusting it by the CPI.
Firstly the price of beans, CPUs and clothes may have fallen - but the price of education, healthcare, energy and especially housing have not fallen. They take up more and more of disposable income - and it's hard to argue that they are luxuries.
Second "when some people get a lot richer" this especially pushes up the cost of housing (arguably education too) a rationed good. The experience here in the UK is that more and more people are renting from those who have the money to corner the housing market. A vicious cycle of money being redistributed upwards.
> the price of beans, CPUs and clothes may have fallen - but the price of education, healthcare, energy and especially housing have not fallen
Over what time period do you mean? I'm pretty sure just about everything has a lower cost than it did 50 years ago, with the exception of real estate in neighborhoods where the population density has soared. If you don't insist on living in one of those neighborhoods, you can life that is better than what you'd have had in 1965 in every respect and spend less time working to support that lifestyle than you would have spent at that time for the inferior quality of life.
I'm curious as to why you think such a distinction would improve discussions. To me, it seems like an arbitrary distinction to make.
But, I suppose it begs a question of why we discuss poverty, at all? I presume it's because some of us don't like to see suffering or despair. Or, we don't like some people being left out of prosperity. Or, are there other reasons?
Japan has so many of these depressingly useless jobs - drive past any quiet street construction site at night and you'll see 3-5 people whose sole job it is to wave a light stick. The job isn't needed at all, the guy who does it makes peanuts, but that's what drives up labor force participation.
Not exactly true. You'll see a weird mechanical contraption shaped like a person waving the stick.
After living in a number of countries where construction works usually involve two or three people making loud mess for days I'm astonished how things work in Japan: a team of people shows up quietly, does the job efficiently and then disappears. You won't even notice them. There's a big-ish construction (they have heavy machines and dug up a big hole in the ground) going on nearby and I never heard any noise. And they're going with it really fast.
I saw both, men and machines waving glowing sticks. There is also usually a guy who makes sure that no pedestrians are endangered by construction driveways.
I'm not sure whether I'd call these jobs "useless" though. Sure, putting up warning signs would probably produce a similar safety level with lower costs, but somehow I feel better cared for if a human does the job.
Often construction entrances need a banksman to help delivery lorries reverse out safely & manage the traffice on the road to make space. That’s not something you can really automate at the moment & in the grand scheme of things not running over unfortunate pedestrians / reversing into things on the road is probably a net economic benefit :)
(Which is not to say that a lot of these jobs decribed up-thread aren’t make-work, but this particular one probably isn’t.)
There are a lot of safety personnel in larger London construction sites as well. I've seen men basically acting as barriers while their mate does work above a footpath.
Also there are always people directing traffic in and out of a site, washing down every truck that leaves so there is no mud on the road, etc.
I would assume it is more a case of construction in a large city is more difficult logistically as there are stricter standards for noise, mess and pollution.
It was always my assumption that these type of jobs were on a rota. It would be pretty bad to make someone work the "human barrier/traffic light" job 52 weeks a year.
(Edit: I replied to the wrong poster or some similar mistake.)
Disregard
How can you argue against the author's immeasureable words/phrases like "very high", "low", "laziness", or "idleness", especially considering that you are relying on anecdotal evidence yourself?
I have seen a bunch of tall trees Georgia, but my friend from California says they are small; which of us is correct?
Who cares when the answer yields no useful, quantifiable information...
> How can you argue against the author's immeasureable words/phrases like "very high", "low", "laziness", or "idleness"
That's not what's happening at all. Taneq is saying nothing about the relative nature of those words. They are arguing that the author is making an inference in the wrong direction.
> especially considering that you are relying on anecdotal evidence yourself
Talking about cultural roles is the opposite of an anecdote.
"The survey compared the incomes of the bottom 10 percent of households with children to the average income of 41 countries who are members of the OECD or the European Union.
The income gap in Japan was found to be 60.21 percent, meaning the household income of the nation’s most underprivileged families with children was less than 40 percent of the average."
I'm not sure how to read this. Income gap be damned, what is the minimum livable income? There's a difference between being poor relative to one's peers and being too poor to afford housing / food / education.
I live in Tokyo at the moment. My experience (as a single person without kids) is that if one wanted to live frugal but happy-go-lucky life it could be done quite cheaply.
"The income of the poorest fell from about ¥902,500 to ¥840,000 during the same period, according to data compiled by Abe of Tokyo Metropolitan University"
So there are some numbers, but what is the cost of living and where? Moving from Tokyo to Osaka would probably cut my living expenses by 50% or more. What about living in a smaller Japanese town?
The cost of living disparity between major urban areas and rest of Japan is probably gigantic.
¥900,000 is almost exactly what I spent on average over a 5 year period from 2007-2012 living in rural Japan (Shizuoka prefecture). A couple of caveats: I was single at the time. I had subsidized housing (worth about ¥250,000 yen a year). I didn't have a car. That was the money I spent, and I made considerably more than that so was able to save quite a lot. However, I was very comfortable with that level of expenditure and I can't think of anything basic that I lacked.
I think you would have to budget fairly tightly and it would be pretty easy to get into trouble. Especially in the north where you have to pay for heating it might be dicey. But it's not impossible to live relatively comfortably. I ate out a lot and drank expensive beer a lot. If I cooked more at home, ate more fish and drank shochu I could have saved more money. Getting rid of the TV (and thus the monthly NHK bill) would be fairly substantial.
I have a lot of single friends in the area who make ~¥2,000,000 a year and they are absolutely fine on that salary. It's a different lifestyle from what people in the west are used to, but I wouldn't say they are less happy.
Virtually every rural area in Japan has expat English teachers. In my immediate area there are probably 10 or 20 people who are native English speakers. I think that's typical. I tend hang out with Japanese people since I speak Japanese and my wife is Japanese, but it's not terribly difficult to get by without much Japanese language skill, especially if you are young.
I agree ¥900,000 is not much and it would be very hard to live on that money. They say though it's the income of the poorest. So I'd hope a typical family would do better.
I was teaching English at the time. I'm currently in the same area programming on contract. It is quite wonderful. To be honest I'm hoping to expand and hire people, but haven't got everything sorted out yet. It occurred to me that it might be possible to find good people who want to live in rural Japan :-). Probably won't get my act together for another year or so...
Things must've changed a bit since I spent a year in Fukoka in 97/98 while in secondary school, if people can live comfortably on 2M JPY/year. That means I should be able to easily save up enough to stay comfortably in (rural) Japan for the length of a tourist visa without any problem!
Please do send an email (see profile) if/when you're interested in expanding -- it would be great to be able to move to Japan! :-)
I'd be interested to chat anyway. Please send me a email to my userid @gmail.com. I'm especially interested in people who are already in Japan because part of my delay is that there is a capital requirement for sponsoring visas. I have work available for the right candidate(s). I'd be happy to provide more details privately.
From what I know, you can get a job as an English teacher pretty much everywhere in Japan if English is your mother tongue (I haven't done myself that but my wife is Japanese so I spent some time reading how foreigners can work in Japan).
Being poor relative to your peers sounds benign, but it's not a great feeling when you are much worse off than your parents were at the same age, and you realize that your kids will likely be worse off still.
There's a reason this study focused on households with kids. As a single person without kids asking what's the minimal liveable income is, is not the heartbreaking question it is when you have kids.
Moving is also a different beast if you have kids. (If you're divorced and have kids, God help you.)
Your calculation is a bit off, it's around INR500,000(USD $7500)/year.
No doubt it's still a lot of money for a lot of people in India, but after adjusted for prices, it's really very little. Even cheap takeaway food would cost at least ¥300 ish.
You mean 502,323 INR (as of now, using xe.com/ucc). Once you start factoring in living expenses (depending on location of course) the amount will seem really low.
First off. Economists define "poverty rate" in a slightly cheeky manner:
"The poverty rate is the ratio of the number of people who fall below the poverty line and the total population; the poverty line is here taken as half the median household income."
This means that if the middle class is 5% better off after one year and the lower class is only 2% better off, then the poverty rate will go up. Eventhough all households are doing better.
The same goes in reverse. If the middle class is 5% worse off after one year and the lower class is only 2% worse off, then the poverty rate will go down. Eventhough everyone is doing worse.
This does not mean that the number is meaningless; it just cannot stand on its own.
Secondly. Japan is much nicer with those bad things that hurt the lower classes in other societies:
Crime is much lower, relatively few people in prisons. And the public school system is of very high standard.
If I understand this correctly, basic income could eliminate poverty (by that specific definition). It would need to pay people half the median income, but tax the median income at a rate that means that exactly offsets the basic income payment (and, probably, tax higher incomes at higher rates).
One thing that will help is the planned raising of the minimum wage in Japan, from around 800 yen/hour now to 1000 yen/hour in 2020. [0] The minimum wage in Japan is below-average by most measures for OECD countries. [1]
Failure to compete in high-tech areas (when was the last time you got a mobile phone made in Japan)
Which is funny because Japan was very strong in the modern days of computing and videogames. What happened? My guess is that software got more complex and their vertical way of working is not productive for the complexity expected today
Japan has SERIOUS issues with NIH syndrome. They were on the cutting edge of technology when they led it. Not so much when it would require adoption from American and Chinese suppliers and service exporters.
There's a significant U.S.-Japan language gap as well, which tends to work to the disadvantage of whichever side is not currently ahead technologically. Very few American engineers read Japanese-language journals or trade press, and very few (though somewhat rising) Japanese engineers read English-language journals or trade press.
Most domestic companies are shielded from competition, and can employ many more people than they should. These companies are backed by the central bank (BoJ), which has been printing money left and right, and now owns more than half of the nation’s market for exchange-traded stock funds[1].
Japan had a system in which the companies had a paternal relationship with their employees. Once you were hired, they kept you on even if they didn't need you. Even if you'd become too old to be productive (madogiwa zoku, or "window seat tribe"). The welfare system, such as it was, consisted of companies taking care of their employees with government bureaucrats and public opinion punishing transgressors.
But that kind of system can only function when the economy is growing. When the recession started in 1989 Japanese companies found themselves in the position of either making people they didn't need redundant or going out of business. Since there isn't much of a social safety net for the unemployed, people who got laid off (and the growing ranks of part timers - "arubaito") didn't have anywhere to turn.
"[The corporate-welfare system] has declined in the years since the administration of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi ended a ban on the use of non-regular workers in manufacturing. But much of the shift to low-paid, insecure jobs has happened without major changes in policy. In particular, stringent government protections of regular workers have been kept in place."
Am I reading this wrong? So the author acknowledges that there is a shift from regular to irregular jobs - and then wonders how that could lead to poverty as, after all, the regular jobs are still protected...
This looks to me like seeing a conundrum where none actually is.
Can't see why this would not happen to the rest of us as well as time goes along. Sure there will be basic income, but that does not mean that you won't be living in poverty despite getting it.
Real estate, insurance, utilities, it all adds up. The living wage in many cities is at least 10/hr. Which means that just to pay for basics you need to get $1600 per month as a single individual. When they talk of basic income they never talk about money like that, usually around $700, just around poverty level.
Living wage in Mississippi is $9.95. It is the poorest state in the union, and a former home of mine. You still need plenty of money just to be ok in the US.
> The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income.
This is the relative definition of "poverty". Throws me every time until I remember that in western political talk, "poverty" almost always means "relative poverty", which "is a measure of income inequality." (Wikipedia)
Maybe we're looking at the rich country problem of the average household being overpaid. Sad they can't overpay every Japanese, but not exactly catastrophic either.
The author says: unemployment is low in Japan and poverty is growing.
A normal person would think automatically that wages are low or/and public spending in automatic stabilizers is low.
It seems a professional economist prefer more exotic explanations.
It's specially puzzling that Japan government prefer to buy financial assets that invest in their own people when, both, rates are very low and they are suffering deflation.
But, of course, that would be redistributive and, even worst, it could work and create a bad precedent.
i don't know if i maybe missed something, but it does not seem like the inequality argument has been contested by anything in the text. in fact, the author states that in Japan, like elsewhere, despite a struggling economy, the rich are still getting richer. if all the other possible explanations do not work, then Japan is perhaps the best example of what Piketty wrote about.
"How about free-market policies? Here the story is more ambiguous, but I still see this as a minor factor at most."
Because of such neoliberal policies, 40% of the work force is now on irregular lowest wage jobs with no job security whatsoever, no medical coverage/pension at all.
Neoliberal policies of the last 2 decades are destroying what boosted Japan prosperity and stability.
The author lives in a dream world where Japan has always been a country with low criminality, obedient citizen etc. But that is only the product of the after-war and the massive US investments to make Japan the first barrier against Asian communism. Now that the socialist block is dead, neo-liberals can destroy at will all the social policies that were created since the 40's.
This comment breaks the HN guidelines that ask you to be civil and not to call names in arguments. Some of your other comments have done this as well. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
I'm so glad we can take whatever you say at face value with no references whatsoever (not surprising, because most of the wining about neoliberalism does not hold water) and the author is stupid because doesn't agree with you
You should move to Venezuela, they're shunning neoliberalism (and also basic necessities like food and electricity)
And there are plenty of Japanese news papers with English editions so you have no excuse.
The author is stupid because he considers as "minor" what is the major cause of poverty in Japan: low wages and no social coverage whatsoever directly caused by Koizumi's lift on irregular jobs contracts, and a huge increase in such low paid jobs as a replacement for a normally paid and work force (I wrote 40%, that's the current figure).
The author is also stupid because he equates poverty to delinquency, but he does not check simple facts like: suicide rate, domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse and other social issues. Here again the rates have been on the increase for the last 2 decades.
And I've been in Japan for close to 20 years, I have three kids here and I happen to read the news in Japanese because I'm a translator.
The author does not know anything about Japan and had no idea what he is writing about.
> The author lives in a dream world where Japan has always been a country with low criminality, obedient citizen etc. But that is only the product of the after-war and the massive US investments to make Japan the first barrier against Asian communism.
The author is correct about this. Check out criminality in communist China and Vietnam. Check out criminality in American Japanese who left Japan prior to WWII.
Is correct about what ? You equate American Japanese to Japanese in Japan ? You never hear about the Yakuza, the bosozoku ? The revolts at the beginning of the 20th century ? The joke here is that they have such a low criminality because the cops don't have any incentive to arrest people. Indeed, the economics of policing in Japan put quite a burden on police departments who'd rather ask people to not do the same stupid thing again than arrest them for petty thing like is done in the US.
Oh, and comparing criminality rates in the US to any other country in the world is pretty stupid too.
Japan will endure, as it has for thousands of years. I'm more worried about where America and Europe are headed. Prosperity is one thing. Greed, corruption, and exploitation are another.
Anyway, in my experience, Japan today is a pleasant place to live. The lack of boom times here has rendered Japan more humble and practical than in the recent past. Most people in Japan ultimately enjoy a middle-class existence that would be the envy of the average American family. There are plenty of people who are struggling here, but Japanese people have endured far worse.
Western commentators will tell us that huge bloc of elders are an impossible burden on Japanese society. I see it differently—those people are a treasure trove of hard-earned experience. We can learn from them, and they're currently doing an excellent job as stewards of this place. They've seen first-hand the folly of chasing America and Europe on their imperialist fancies.
I would rather live in a "poor" Japan than in a "rich" America any day of the week. You can't put a price on peace of mind and the general atmosphere of civility and willingness to come together for a common cause.