To begin with, the person chosen should be a female, because women outnumber men in Japan; sixty- five million women and sixty- two million men live in the Japanese archipelago. With regard to occupation, she would definitely not be employed in a large corporation but would work in a small enterprise, since only one in eight workers is employed in a company with three hundred or more employees. Nor would she be guaranteed lifetime employment, since those who work under this arrangement are concentrated in large companies. She would not belong to a labor union, because less than one in five Japanese workers is unionized. She would not be university educated. Less than one in five Japanese have a university degree, even though today nearly half of the younger generation gains admission to a university for a four- year degree.
1 The Japan Phenomenon and the Social Sciences
To begin with, the person chosen should be a female, because women outnumber men in Japan; sixty- five million women and sixty- two million men live in the Japanese archipelago. With regard to occupation, she would definitely not be employed in a large corporation but would work in a small enterprise, since only one in eight workers is employed in a company with three hundred or more employees. Nor would she be guaranteed lifetime employment, since those who work under this arrangement are concentrated in large companies. She would not belong to a labor union, because less than one in five Japanese workers is unionized. She would not be university educated. Less than one in five Japanese have a university degree, even though today nearly half of the younger generation gains admission to a university for a four- year degree.
When outsiders visualize the Japanese, however, they tend to think of men rather than women, career employees in large companies rather than non- permanent workers in small firms, and university graduates rather than high school leavers, for these are the images presented on television and in newspaper and magazine articles.
Moreover, because a particular cluster of individuals who occupy high positions in a large company have greater access to mass media and publicity, the lifestyles and value orientations of those in that cluster have acquired a disproportionately high level of visibility in the analysis of Japanese society at the expense of the wider cross- section of its population.
The list of publications that aim to define Japanese society with a single key word is seemingly endless, and, although the specific appellation invariably differs, the reductive impulse is unchanged.
In rural Japan, a significant number of farmers marry women from other Asian countries in order to help with farm and domestic work because of a shortage of Japanese women willing to share a rural lifestyle. Women from neighboring Asian countries also form indispensable support staff in medical institutions, nursing care centers, and welfare facilities. International marriages peaked in 2006, with some 6 percent of all marriages in Japan being between Japanese and non- Japanese nationals. 16 The ratio is nearly 10 percent in Tokyo.
These issues tend to be obfuscated, blurred, and even made invisible in Japan, partly because the principal minority groups do not differ in skin color and other biological characteristics from the majority of Japanese.
Japan has a wide variety of dialects. A Japanese from Aomori Prefecture, the northernmost area of Honshū Island, and one from Kagoshima, the southernmost district in Kyūshū Island, can scarcely comprehend each other’s dialects. Different districts have different festivals, folk songs, and local dances. Customs governing birth, marriage, and death differ so much regionally that books explaining the differences are quite popular. 27 The exact degree of domestic regional variation is difficult to assess in quantitative terms and by internationally comparative standards, but there is no evidence to suggest that it is lower in Japan than elsewhere.
Even to casual observers, the stratification of Japanese society is discernible in a variety of areas. Those who own or expect to inherit land and other assets have a considerable advantage over those who do not, and asset differentials are so wide that it could be argued that Japan is a class society based upon land ownership. 29 In the area of consumer behavior, those who possess or expect to inherit properties such as houses and land spend lavishly on high- class, fashionable, and expensive goods, while those without such property assets are restricted to more mundane purchases designed to make ends meet, a pattern that has continued for more than two decades.
Moreover, although approximately half of high- school leavers advance to universities for four- year degrees, 34 entry into many universities is non- competitive, with a considerable number accepting applicants without formal entrance examinations and, overall, nine out of ten university applicants gaining admission. Thus, most Japanese students have little to do with the widely publicized ’examination hell'.
Furthermore, most subcultural units are rank- ordered in terms of access to various resources, including economic privilege, political power, social prestige, information, and knowledge. In this sense, Japan as a multicultural society is multi- stratified as well as multi- ethnic.
Core subcultures have ideological capital to define the normative framework of society. Even though the lifetime employment and the company- first dogma associated with the subculture of the large corporation apply to less than a quarter of the workforce, that part of the population has provided a model which all workers are expected to emulate, putting their companies ahead of their individual interests. The language of residents in uptown Tokyo is regarded as standard Japanese not because of its linguistic superiority but because of those residents’ social proximity to the national power center.
And although the liberalization of the domestic agricultural market affects many consumers positively, producer groups that have vested interests in maintaining the status quo and are connected with the country’s leadership have often succeeded in presenting their interests as those of the entire nation.
More generally, the slanted views of Japan’s totality tend to proliferate because writers, readers, and editors of publications on the general characteristics of Japanese society belong to the core subcultural sphere. Sharing their subcultural base, they conceptualize and hypothesize in a similar way, confirm their portrayal of Japan among themselves, and rarely seek outside confirmation. In many Nihonjinron writings, most examples and illustrations are drawn from the elite sector, including male employees in managerial tracks of large corporations and high- ranking officials of the national bureaucracy. 40
At popular levels, the Japanese self- images have been fairly consistent over time, as a time- series study spanning half a century demonstrates. The Institute of Statistical Mathematics survey results shown in Table 1.7 suggest that the Japanese regard themselves, and have done so more or less unchangingly over the past five decades, as industrious, well mannered, generous, and patient, while being uncreative and cheerless. Regardless of whether these self- portrayals reflect social realities or not, such images have taken hold and have fixed in the minds of many Japanese, forming the bedrock of Nihonjinron culture. These self- perceptions are not derived from systematic comparative analysis, though the characterization of any society would have to be based upon its comparison with other societies. To that extent, the Japanese self- images represented here are popular stereotypes.
In a similar vein, Wolferen addresses The Enigma of Japanese Power53 and maintains that the Japanese system, in which leaders lack accountability, makes each citizen unhappy. Against the background of Japan’s economic superpower status, the intensification of trade friction between Japan and the West, and the rise of Japan- bashing, the revisionist writings point to the strategies with which Western societies may be able to contain the influence of Japan and make its social system more compatible with theirs. The revisionist analysis attaches importance to the institutional peculiarities of Japanese society and their consequences both domestically and overseas.
These partial historical episodes are used to advance the notion of the continuous superiority of Japan’s national culture despite their tenuous linkage with the current propagation of Japanese manga.
To be accepted in the United States, Japan’s animation entrepreneurs have been willing to cut or change some scenes and even story lines. The success of Japanimation owes much to considerable ‘de- Japanization’ and partial ‘Americanization’.
Large bureaucratic corporations in Japan tend to give priority to such paternalistic arrangements as company housing, company leisure facilities, and company excursions. At the level of interpersonal interaction, an elaborate system of particularistic arrangements enables superiors to maneuver their subordinates with great ease. In corporations, every supervisor spends an enormous amount of time paying personal attention to employees under his charge, beyond the call of his job specifications. He entertains his subordinates in pubs, bars, restaurants, and clubs after working hours, serves as a formal go- between in their wedding ceremonies, listens to personal problems of their families, and even attends the funerals of their grandparents. None of these activities is formally required, yet no manager in a Japanese firm could retain his position without them; the expectation is that his subordinates, in return, are willing to devote their time to work and to commit themselves to it beyond the call of their job specifications. This inordinate exchange of expressive resources between superiors and subordinates characterizes Japan’s bureaucratic organizations.
Honne designates true feelings and desires which cannot be openly expressed because of the strength of tatemae. If tatemae corresponds to ‘political correctness’, honne points to hidden, camouflaged, and authentic sentiment. Thus, an employee who expresses dedication to his company boss in accordance with the corporate tatemae of loyalty and harmony may do so because of his honne ambition for promotion and other personal gains. Or an advocate of the tatemae principle of the unique place of Japanese rice in Japanese culture may be a farmer whose honne lies in the promotion of his agricultural interests.
In the ura side of business transactions, for example, Japanese companies use the category of shito hitoku kin (expenses unaccounted for) to conceal the identity of the recipient of the expenditure. They can do this as long as they declare those expenses to be subject to taxation. The corporate world uses this method extensively to hide secret pay- offs, kick- backs, and political donations. About half the expenditures unaccounted for in the construction industry are thought to be undisclosed political donations of this nature.
This is why some observers called them ‘Japan’s invisible race’ (De Vos and Wagatsuma 1966).
2 Class and Stratification: An Overview
Interestingly, despite the claim of the emergence of kakusa shakai, an overwhelming majority of Japanese continue to regard themselves as belonging to the ‘middle class’, a pattern that has persisted for decades, as Table 2.1 shows. Moreover, as Table 2.2 shows, comparative studies of class affiliation in a number of nations found that 80- 90 percent of people identify themselves as ‘middle class’, which suggests that this phenomenon is far from unique to Japan.
There is an abundance of data on class in Japan. A group of Japan’s class analysts have conducted a Social Stratification and Mobility (SSM) Survey every ten years since 1955, the most recent being in 2005, and have thereby amassed systematic time- series data over five decades.
The capitalist class consists of corporate executives and managers. They have high incomes, considerable assets, and many durable consumer goods. Their political orientation is conservative and, by and large, they regard the status quo as impartial and fair.
In both small and large enterprises, the culture of blue- collar workers differs significantly from that of office employees. Generally, blue- collar workers view their work as a means of livelihood and not as a source of gratification and fulfillment. They see themselves as holding ignominious and inglorious positions on low rungs of the social ladder. On the whole, blue- collar workers begin each working day early and prefer to leave their working environment as early as possible. 13 They find more satisfaction at home and in community life than do white- collar employees. Generally, they value family life and take an active part in community affairs. In community baseball teams, after- hours children’s soccer teams, and other sports clubs, blue- collar workers are prominent. They pursue these leisure activities to compensate for their honne sense of cynicism, alienation, and dissatisfaction with their workplace. 14
The model figure in Japan’s new middle class is (in the Japanese English phrase) a ‘salaryman’, a white- collar, male company employee in the private sector. He embodies all the stereotypical images associated with the Japanese corporate employee: loyalty to his company, subservience to the hierarchical order of his enterprise, devotion to his work, a long and industrious working life, and job security in his career. The new middle class, which salarymen typify, constitutes less than a quarter of the labor force but is an ideological reference group for the working population.
First, Table 2.5 reveals that blue- collar employees in small enterprises have grown to become the largest group for both males and females. The self- employed remain a stable and durable group, while the agricultural population has declined sharply over time. Males are represented more than females in the relatively high- ranking white- collar group in large corporations. It is also obvious that a sizeable professional female group has emerged and expanded.
It is argued that the overall affluence of the nation has offered an ample breeding ground to ‘class transcendentalists’, people who give a high priority to values other than class betterment. Gratified by their current level of consumption, they now seek satisfaction in less material aspects of life. Some individuals increase their quality of life through the pursuit of hobbies, creative expression, or spiritual fulfillment, while others engage in volunteer work, environmental protection, and forms of socially meaningful or relationship- oriented activities that earn them respect and esteem in their family. According to some surveys, 15 one- third of Japanese people are oriented to this expressive, ‘relational’ form of status, with the remaining two- thirds continuing to focus on the attainment of instrumental, ‘achieved’ status within the class structure. One may suggest that most Japanese lead a schizophrenic existence. On the one hand, they are forced to deal with the market economy, yet on the other, they yearn for a more satisfying and fulfilling mode of life.
Class D is the largest class in Japan today, constituting more than half of the working population, and is status inconsistent in the sense that its member income exceeds the subsistence level (namely, the relative poverty line), while their educational background and occupational status are on the lower side of the scale. More than two- thirds of this class are either blue- collar or agricultural workers and are employed by or own small businesses. With some three- quarters of this group having completed high- school education only, their positions are neither managerial nor professional, while the proportion of self- employed people is relatively large. The house ownership rate of this class is the second highest among the five, but their cultural and leisure activities are quite limited. An overwhelming majority of the members of this class regard themselves as belonging either to the lower middle class or the upper lower class, a perception that perhaps correctly reflects their position in the nation’s stratification structure.
Given that educational credentials are the most significant cultural resource for upward social mobility, one should not lose sight of the fact that the majority of high school students do not advance to four- year university and have little choice but to establish themselves through the acquisition of economic resources, abandoning cultural prestige.
Cell D represents the underclass, which lacks both economic and cultural capital. Most blue- collar workers, female workers in the external labor market, minority workers, and immigrant foreign workers fall into this category. This group is numerically quite large and will be the focus of analysis in subsequent chapters.
How are economic and cultural resources transmitted from one generation to another? Occupation and education are the most visible factors that perpetuate inequality inter- generationally across social classes.
The remaining majority, whose livelihoods are constrained by housing mortgages and bank loans, must carefully calculate their expenditure and cannot assume such profligate lifestyles. 26 However, there is very little difference between the asset ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in their purchasing of more ordinary commodities, including cars, bicycles, medical services, musical instruments, sports goods, audio equipment, and education.
She also looks at the types of cultural activities of individuals in their adulthood and classifies them into ‘orthodox’ culture and ‘mass’ culture. ‘Orthodox’ cultural activities include writing poems, visiting art galleries, museums, and exhibitions, and appreciating classical music, while ‘mass’ cultural activities include going to concerts of popular music, rock- and- roll, and jazz, singing karaoke songs, and playing pachinko pinball.
In contrast, fathers with less education place more emphasis on the honesty of their children than do university- educated fathers. Compared with children from wealthy families, those from poor backgrounds are taught to refrain from being dishonest, and daughters of worse- off families are instructed not to break their promises. Parents with only compulsory education try to educate their daughters to avoid disgracing family members and to attend to family chores.
Relatively independent of occupational background, the educational environment appears to influence the choice of marriage partners. The popular perception, then, that Japan is a society based on educational credentialism seems correct - at least as it relates to the marriage market. At the top end of the highest class, a complex web of elite- school old- boy networks, hereditary successions, marriage connections, and uxorial nepotism stretches among political, bureaucratic, business, and media elites, who are interconnected to form a ‘class of privilege’. In most elections, approximately one- quarter of the members of the House of Representatives have inherited their constituencies from their parents or relatives, with the current and four recent prime ministers all falling into this category. 32 In late 2013, some 40 percent of Cabinet ministers, senior vice- ministers, parliamentary secretaries, and prime ministerial aides inherited the constituencies of their parents or relatives. 33 So did 26 percent of the parliamentarians who are the members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The second proviso bears upon the optical illusion that appears to have persisted during the high economic era. There is no doubt that the high- growth economy of postwar Japan led to changes in the occupational composition of the population and shifted large numbers from agriculture to manufacturing, from blue- collar to white- collar, from manual to non- manual, and from low- level to high- level education. 39 However, this transfiguration left a false impression - that industrialization was conducive to a high measure of upward social mobility. In reality, the relative positions of various strata in the hierarchy remained unaltered. For example, the educational system which produced an increasing number of university graduates cheapened the relative value of degrees and qualifications.
The Japanese equivalents of class and stratum, kaikyū and kaisō, are both terms translated from English.
3 Geographical and Generational Variations
Japan as a Conglomerate of Sub- nations
But being mountainous, with only about one- third of its land habitable, 1 Japan is more densely populated than any of those countries. 2 Not surprisingly, the strain of population density affects the lifestyles of the Japanese.
Prefectures were first established in 1871, corresponding to several dozen regional units called kuni (nations) which had existed for more than ten centuries. Throughout Japanese history, these sub- nations were sources of regional identity and local distinctiveness. Even today in major cities there exist kenjin- kai (prefectural associations) organized by emigrants from each prefecture who wish to maintain social ties among themselves.
Although Japan is often described as an internally homogeneous island nation, it has never been a stable territorial unit with consistent cultural uniformity. In reality, Japan has had fluctuating national boundaries and changing constituent regions.
The independent Ryūkyū kingdom endured in Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan today, for about four centuries during Japan’s feudal period, until the central government formally absorbed it as a prefecture in 1879. Before its full incorporation into Japan, Ryūkyū enjoyed close trade relationships with China and South- east Asia, maintained its own autonomous culture, and identified only to a limited extent with main- island Japan. After the end of the Allied occupation of Japan, which followed its defeat in World War II, Okinawa remained under the occupation of the United States to serve as the American bulwark against communist nations and was not part of Japan until 1972 when the United States returned it to Japan. This is why about three- quarters of American military bases in Japan are in Okinawa, a situation which Okinawans regard as unfair and which, the national government admits, must be rectified. As a geographical unit, Japan should thus be seen as a variable, not as a constant.
Furthermore, throughout Japanese history, many people living in the area which is now known as Japan did not have the consciousness that they were Nihonjin (Japanese). Even in Honshū this consciousness has fluctuated. At the time of the establishment of the Japanese state in the late seventh century, the term Nihon (Japan) emerged as a description. Yet the concept then covered mainly the Kinki region, as evidenced by the fact that nobles and officials sent outside it regarded their assignment as a posting to a foreign area or a land of foreigners. 6 At the time, ordinary people dwelling outside the Kinki region hardly conceived of themselves as belonging to the nation of Japan.
Table 3.1 Relative characteristics of village structures in eastern and western Japan
Kyoto, the capital of the nation for more than ten centuries until 1868, represents the culture of western Japan in an acute way: the interpersonal relationships of Kyotoites are based upon the principles of non- intervention, partial commitment, and mutual freedom, rather than those of total loyalty and obligation. 12 In this sense, Kyoto has developed a more refined and ‘modern’ style of group dynamics than those in Tokyo and eastern Japan.
Many new businesses were first established in Osaka. For example, a variety of distribution franchises originated from that city and spread across the nation. They include department stores attached to private railway terminals, public and private retail markets, consumers’ cooperatives, and supermarkets. Some major media organizations also began in the Kansai area. Three of the five national dailies, Asahi, Mainichi, and Sankei, originated in Osaka. The first commercial radio station, Shin- Nippon Hōsō, commenced its broadcasting in 1951 in Osaka.
The process of population concentration was expedited by the national bureaucracy, which sought to make Tokyo the center of centers. Under ministerial instructions, each industrial sector established its national headquarters in the capital. Numerous industrial associations mushroomed in Tokyo, ranging from the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association to the Japan Iron and Steel Federation. Other professional groups, such as the Japan Medical Association and the Japan Writers Association, also operate in the capital. High- ranking officials of the national bureaucracy are given executive positions in these industrial and professional federations after their careers in the public sector.
Admittedly, the per capita kenmin- shotoku (prefectural income) indicates that Tokyo, Osaka, Kanagawa, and Aichi, the central regions of the nation, top the list, while peripheral areas score lower. 20 However, on statistical happiness measures, such rural prefectures as Fukui, Toyama, Ishikawa, Tottori, and Saga rank highly, and Osaka, Hyōgo, and Kyoto prefectures (major urban centers in western Japan) are graded at or near the bottom of the ladder. 21
Although the Japanese language is divided broadly into the eastern type and the western type with regard to both accent and vocabulary, such a complex variety of dialects exists that a person from Iwate prefecture (one of the northernmost areas of Honshū Island) would not be able to communicate with someone from Okinawa prefecture (the southernmost district of the nation) if they spoke in their respective dialects. Since the vocabulary, pronunciation, and accent of radio and television announcers reflect those of middle- class Tokyoites, those who live outside the Tokyo metropolitan area hear the so- called standard Japanese form, but they speak their own dialects among themselves. Those raised outside the Tokyo region are thus bilingual, being competent in two types of Japanese. Most Japanese lead a dual life with regard to language.
The concentration of the information industry in Tokyo lessens the visibility of the extensive regional diversity of Japanese society. In the world of electronic media, both the public broadcaster NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and commercial television networks televise an overwhelming majority of programs from Tokyo, transmitting them through local stations. Throughout Japan, most commercial television stations are associated with one of the five ‘key stations’ in Tokyo and relay the programs made in the capital. Very few locally produced programs have a chance of being broadcast nationally. In the print media, three major national dailies have a total circulation amounting to some twenty million, and most pages of national dailies are edited in Tokyo. Thus, the Japanese public is constantly fed views of the world and the nation that are constructed, interpreted, and edited in Tokyo. Outside the capital, local situations draw attention only as sensational news stories or as provincial items satisfying the ’exotic curiosity’ of the Tokyo media establishment.
When the tide of these movements subsided, however, most of the activists became company employees and public bureaucrats seeking to climb the occupational ladder, with some turning into ‘corporate soldiers’ devoted to the dictates of their firms. With regard to their internal value system, those of the postwar generation are skeptical of collective dedication to organizational norms and bureaucratic mandates. In their actual behavior, however, they have inherited the style of the wartime generation and work hard as ‘working ants’, ‘workaholics’, and ’economic animals’ who toil for their organizations at the cost of personal pursuits.
Two in five people failed to make contributions to the National Pension system in the 2010s, 40 either because they could not afford to or because they chose to manage personalized funds instead. No doubt, the increase of non- regular workers is a major contributing factor. This trend poses a challenge to the long- term viability of the national program.
4 Forms of Work in Cultural Capitalism
However, the uchi reality is that, although powerful and influential, large corporations constitute a very small minority of businesses in Japan, both in terms of the number of establishments and the size of their workforce. An overwhelming majority of Japanese enterprises are small or medium in size, and it is these that employ the bulk of the workforce. While small may or may not be beautiful, ‘it certainly is bountiful, and thereby deserving of its fair share of attention’. 1 Small- and medium- sized companies are the mainstay of the Japanese economy. 2
As Table 4.1 shows, nearly nine out of ten employees work in businesses with fewer than three hundred workers. Furthermore, more than half of private- sector establishments employ fewer than thirty workers. Large corporations with three hundred or more workers employ less than 15 percent of the labor force in the private sector.
The phenomena identified by both positions do exist in the world of Japanese small business. Its internal variation is partly determined by the extent to which small businesses are controlled by large companies at the top of the corporate hierarchy.
At the bottom rungs of the subcontract hierarchy are ultra- small enterprises called reisai kigyō, which employ fewer than ten workers. This type includes firms run by self- employed individuals with the assistance of family members. Vulnerable to the manipulations of large corporations, this group is the most deprived zone of Japan’s economy.
At the bottom of the chain of subcontractors are daily laborers, in such flophouse quarters as Sanya in Tokyo and Kamagasaki in Osaka, who mainly sustain the construction industry. They find jobs on a daily basis through recruiters, many of whom have gangster connections.
In recent years, special vocational schools for high- school graduates (see Chapter 5) have offered further education for those who aim at managing small businesses of their own. Many who seek to manage such small- scale establishments as barber shops, beauty parlors, and restaurants often go to these special vocational schools with a view to succeeding to the management of their parents’ independent businesses.
Unlike salary employees, who normally work in firms distant from their homes, these community- based independent shop owners, who live and work on the same premises, combine business with pleasure in promoting the social cohesion of their localities.
The top management of large companies is composed of long- serving successful ex- employees who have risen through the ranks; stockholders have little influence in the decision- making processes of their company, giving rise to a sharp distinction between corporate ownership and management.
In this sense, their behavior springs not from altruism but from calculations regarding the presentation of personality traits that might affect their chances of promotion and salary increases. Their tatemae has to be unqualified loyalty to corporate norms, but their honne lies in the maximization of their interests in the system.
Whether one calls such immersion complete commitment or total exploitation, this Japanese management technique focuses on moralistic indoctrination and introduces expressive symbols to accomplish instrumental processes.
It is telling that among males in their early thirties (thirty to thirty- four years of age) only 27 percent of non- regular workers are married– less than half the rate of regular workers (60 percent). 21
In short, cultural capitalism thrives with mass customization, the production of many different commodities tailored for specific focus groups, unlike industrial capitalism, which is built on the mass production of a small number of standardized goods.
However, paid overtime can constitute an important part of workers’ lives today. They tend to build overtime payments into their household budgets to cover housing loan repayments and education costs and thereby compel themselves to work beyond normal working hours.
Initially, karōshi occurred among such front- line workers as truck drivers, migrant workers from rural areas, and local government employees, but it became increasingly frequent among middle managers of small enterprises and more recently at top management level. Karōshi occurs in almost every industry, particularly in the manufacturing sector and in the service sector, where working hours remain extraordinarily long.
The Supreme Court and lower courts have ruled that tanshin funin is legal as long as it is arranged ‘because of corporate requirements’. 33 The judiciary takes the position that employees should endure the disadvantages caused by tanshin funin, which is ’not illegal even if it vitiates the stability of the family’.
At the firm level, the enterprise union structure makes it difficult for workers of the same job classification to form an inter- company alliance. At the national level, labor has often acquiesced in management’s call for controlled wage increases and long working hours in the name of defending the international competitiveness of the Japanese economy. Behind these conciliatory styles of Japan’s labor lies a union structure in which only a tiny fraction of union leaders remain labor advocates throughout their careers. A significant proportion of union officials at the enterprise level assume their posts as a stepping- stone to managerial positions. Within the framework of enterprise unionism, union leaders, who know that their term of office is limited, often cultivate connections with high- level executives when dealing with management. This experience gives an advantage to ex- union officials who seek promotion within the company.
The Spring Offensive used to be accompanied by acute industrial action, but this is no longer the case. The overall level of serious strikes has declined so much that strikes have virtually been contained. Japan has become practically a strike- free society.
This pattern is not unique to the Japanese situation but universal across advanced capitalist economies. The observed reality contradicts the long- held view that the development of capitalism would annihilate small- scale enterprises to pave the way for monopolistic domination by large companies, although oligopolies do dominate and control small businesses.
The Japanese legal system selectively adopts these assumptions in favor of anthropomorphizing corporations as juridical persons. Like individual persons, they are allowed to make political donations and to engage in political activities. Japan’s criminal law does not subject enterprises to criminal charges, on the grounds that they are fictitious, impersonal entities.
The situation generated many popular expressions referring to the inability of company- first men to fit into the family environment. They have been sarcastically called huge garbage of no use to family life. Also, a popular saying has been in circulation in the mass media: ‘it is best for the husband to be healthy and not at home’.
5 Diversity and Unity in Education
One should bear in mind that about one- half of Japan’s youth do not advance to four- year universities, and most of the students outside the first track make no preparation for university entrance examinations. With clear vocational orientations, they are less achievement- driven and more practical. The well- publicized ’examination hell’ belongs to a minority of Japanese youth.
Education culture within the elite school setting has gradually come to reflect corporate culture within the enterprise environment. Just as ability- based salaries increasingly represent the human worth of each employee, so too are the numerically calculated hensachi marks treated as though they were the sole indicator of the total value of each student. At the core of the examination culture of Japanese schools is a ‘one- dimensional system of the rank ordering of abilities measured solely by hensachi scores’. 17
The hierarchical structure of Japanese academia resembles that of Japan’s business community in several respects. A system of keiretsu akin to the corporate world is widespread among institutions of higher education, with low- ranking universities being affiliated with established high- status universities. Professors of major prestigious universities have informal power to transfer their postgraduate students and junior staff for appointment to minor universities under their control, just as large companies relocate their employees from time to time to smaller enterprises under their command. In universities of repute, ‘inbreeding’ remains the governing norm, with alumni occupying the high tiers of faculties.
To meet the classroom demand, the government- initiated Japan Exchange and Teaching Program, in operation for nearly three decades, has increased the number of young teaching assistants recruited from English- speaking countries to help Japanese teachers in English sessions.
Though in comparative terms they are few, pupils who go through the so- called examination hell are over- represented in media stories and scholarly writings, partly because most journalists and academics themselves trod this elite path and tend to identify with those who follow it.
These figures also suggest that the so- called examination hell phenomenon in middle and high schools is limited to the privileged sector.
6 Gender Stratification and the Family System
Beneath Japan’s gender relations and family system lies an elaborate system of registration which penetrates into the life of every Japanese and controls it in a fundamental way. The koseki (family registration) system is the cornerstone of the scheme, representing the usually veiled ura aspect of Japanese family structure. The basic unit of koseki is not an individual, but a household.
The concept of family lineage is built into the koseki system. Technically, one can remove one’s name from the current register and establish an independent koseki at any time, but most people do this at the time of marriage. Up to two generations, typically a couple and their children, can be included in a koseki. A three- generation register is legally unacceptable;
Behind the twin institutions of the family registration system and the resident card system lies the ideology of ie, which literally means house, home, or family but signifies something much more than these English words imply. Ie represents a quasi- kinship unit with a patriarchal head and members tied to him through real or symbolic blood relationship.
The family registration system has been an important deterrent to divorce. The divorce rate in Japan has progressively increased since the 1960s, reaching a peak at the beginning of the twenty- first century. However, it has never matched the level recorded in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when couples freely chose to marry or divorce in conformity with their local customs.
The small number of de facto relationships occur mainly among professional women who relish economic independence and good career prospects, and among lower- class women who have little to lose from negative public perceptions. Thus, the understanding of gender relations in Japan requires an in- depth knowledge of the working of the family registration system, which affects all Japanese at every turn of their lives, functioning as an often invisible, but highly effective, way of maintaining patriarchal order.
Unlike most men, however, the majority of women who explore the possibility of entering the job market solve complex equations involving many variables. From a life- cycle perspective, women must generally make decisions at three different times: at marriage, following childbirth, and when their last child commences schooling.
Outside this small group of elite female employees is a larger category called ippan shoku (ordinary employees), who play less important roles in their workplace. They remain peripheral and subordinate workers with low wages, and management does not expect them to perform demanding functions or to follow a career path. Most women who prefer to give priority to family life opt for this category.
The Child- care Leave Law requires all companies to allow female or male employees to take parental leave without pay for up to one year to enable them to care for a newborn child. After the leave period, companies must allow the employee to resume work in the same job, or a position of equivalent standing. This law, like the Equal Opportunity Law, has no penalty clause, and companies that fail to comply with it do not face legal prosecution.
Women outside the primary labor markets are partially connected with the corporate world but certainly are not socialized into its values as fully as full- time male employees. For example, women opt for more flexible work arrangements than men, and in comparison with male workers, female workers give conspicuous priority to activities outside work. In this sense, women’s lifestyles appear to foreshadow the future work patterns of the Japanese labor force.
On the whole, women are at the periphery of capitalist production, and from this vantage point they can more critically examine and remodel the existing system. Some Japanese feminists argue that women should make men more ‘feminine’ in every sphere of life instead of attempting to ‘catch up’ with men. 27
More importantly, the Ministry had long taken a moralistic stance regarding the pill, contending that if it were legalized it would foster promiscuity and corrupt women’s morals. The implication was that, having freed women from the fear of unwanted pregnancy, the pill would encourage them to liberally engage in sexual activity and thereby undermine the ‘respectability’ of the Japanese family system. It is ironic, though perhaps not surprising, that while it took three decades for the contraceptive pill to be legalized, the pill for curing male impotence, Viagra, was authorized and freely marketed in 1999, after only half a year of deliberation and debate.
Violence at home takes many forms. In prewar Japan, a husband’s violence against his wife was accepted. The practice still persists, although it is more concealed, and in recent years the English term domesuchikku baiorensu (domestic violence) has often been used rather than the original Japanese phrase kateinai bōryoku (literally meaning intra- family violence).
Communication gaps between couples are accepted realities in Japan. In this context, those who regard conjugal love as the essence of married life are not an overwhelming majority. Marriages of convenience are widely condoned in order to maintain family stability. Approximately half of all women favor the proposition that ‘if one is dissatisfied with one’s marriage partner, one is free to divorce’, 56 with the largest proportion of those likely to agree with the statement being in their forties. Many Japanese women still tend to refrain from divorce out of consideration for their children and parents, and at the expense of their own connubial satisfaction.
7 ‘Japaneseness’, Ethnicity, and Minority Groups
Analysts of the social psychology of the Japanese suggest that the inferiority complex towards the Caucasian West and the superiority complex towards Asian neighbors have played a major role in Japanese perceptions of other nationalities.
The term ‘minority’ is deliberately used in a conventional fashion here in order to highlight the ura and uchi realities of contemporary Japanese society.
These minority groups bring to the fore the fundamental question of who the Nihonjin (Japanese) really are. One may consider at least seven aspects of Japaneseness - nationality, ethnic lineage, language competence, place of birth, current residence, subjective identity, and level of cultural literacy - as Table 7.3 indicates. While each dimension is in some respect problematic, 6 the main objective of the table is to show that there can be a number of measures of Japaneseness and multiple kinds of Japanese. In combining the presence or absence of their attributes, one can analytically classify the Japanese into numerous types.
As a means of combating prejudice against minority groups, activists have pressed hard for exclusion of biased words and phrases from print and electronic media. The Buraku Liberation League, in particular, has targeted newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations, and individual writers and journalists who have used expressions that it regarded as prejudicial. Under pressure of public accusation by the League, many have been compelled to offer public self- criticism and apologies. Other minority groups have followed suit and have effectively shaken the complacency of the Japanese majority. No doubt this tactic has contributed to the increasing community awareness of the deep- seated unconscious prejudice built into some expressions. 17 The physically handicapped, who also see themselves as a minority, are sensitive to the use of particular expressions and often publicly join the fray.
Housing discrimination against Koreans is widespread and often surreptitious. Some owners of flats and apartments openly require occupants to be Japanese nationals. Some real estate agents make it a condition for applicants to submit copies of their koseki papers and resident cards for identification purposes, a shrewd attempt to exclude non- Japanese because foreign residents do not have koseki and their resident cards show their nationality.
Over time, the Japanese authorities have taken a conciliatory position, with local governments in particular assuming generally sympathetic stands towards Korean communities. In response to Korean residents’ appeal, the Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that the Constitution does not prohibit permanent residents without Japanese citizenship from having voting rights in local elections. In 2002, Maibara City, Shiga Prefecture, became the first municipality to grant these rights to non- Japanese permanent residents. Reform- minded Japanese are vocal in their claim that Japan cannot be an internationalized society without cultivating genuine openness and tolerance towards the largest long- term ethnic minority in Japan.
In addition, the changing work ethic of Japanese youth has made it difficult for employers to recruit them for this type of work, which is described in terms of the three undesirable Ks (or Ds in English): kitanai (dirty), kitsui (difficult), and kiken (dangerous).
The third type consists of an increasing number of foreigners who reside outside Japan, have acquired fluency in the Japanese language and are ‘Japan literate’, being capable of understanding not only the omote side of Japanese society but the ura side as well. These people are ‘Japanese’ linguistically and intellectually, if not in terms of national citizenship (see the bottom row of the Table 7.3). Some readers of this book may regard themselves as belonging to this community of ‘cultural Japanese’.
8 Collusion and Competition in the Establishment
Japan’s establishment comprises three sectors - big business, parliament, and the national bureaucracy - which some commentators say are in a three- way deadlock. The economic sphere, overseen by the leaders of big corporations, is subordinate to the public bureaucracy, which controls the private sector through its power to license companies, regulate their activities, and decide upon the implementation of publicly funded projects. However, officials in the bureaucracy are subservient to legislators, especially those of the governing parties, who decide on the bills that bureaucrats prepare for the National Diet and whose ranks many officials join after they have climbed to a certain career level. Politicians, in turn, remain submissive to the leaders of the private sector, because they require pecuniary contributions to individual and party coffers to maintain their political machines.
Able, dedicated, and often arrogant, these bureaucrats are believed by many to be the real power- holders in the nation. The perception is consistent with some state practices relating to the private sector. Government ministries hold the power of licensing, permitting, authorizing, and approving a wide range of production, distribution, and sales activities, thereby regulating the private sector even in trivial details. Furthermore, without statutory grounding, public officials are empowered to provide relevant companies in the private sector with gyōsei shidō (administrative guidance) on levels of production, pricing, and quantities of imports and exports, in the name of national interests. Career bureaucrats often retire from officialdom in the late stages of their careers to take up executive positions in large corporations, a practice referred to as amakudari (landing from heaven).
Given that the financial sector provides employment for retired bureaucrats, it comes as no surprise that the Ministry of Finance often dithers about implementing a full investigation into financial scandals involving banking institutions in the private sector. This environment gives rise to a back- scratching alliance between the national bureaucracy and the business community.
In recent years, candidates for gubernatorial and mayoral elections have often been chosen by a group of major political parties after horse- trading among themselves. The interparty collusion tends to favor candidates who have high technocratic skills and no direct prior party affiliations, conditions which national elite bureaucrats tend to satisfy.
Although administrative guidance has the appearance of bureaucracy instructing the private sector, it is often the case that officials and business representatives have thrashed out the substance of guidelines before they are officially proposed. In these instances, the industrial world, as the object of ministerial guidance, is involved in its formulation and therefore becomes the source of guidance to itself.
Regulation, amakudari, and administrative guidance enable national bureaucratic elites to manage the state with enormous privilege and to run the economy with long- term planning of a bureaucratic nature. The webs of influence they weave are so extensive and entrenched that they are unwilling to abandon their vested interests even though politicians repeatedly attempt to implement administrative reform programs to downsize the bureaucracy. By definition, bureaucrats’ positions are hardly affected by election outcomes. A change in government does not result in changes in the occupants of bureaucratic posts, whose own rules and conventions govern their promotions, transfers, and retirements, with only a very limited number of cases of intervention by politicians. Neither subject to popular elections nor responsive to changes in parliamentary situations, national bureaucratic elites operate in an empire of their own, far from being ‘public servants’.
Although the rigidity and inflexibility of the developmental state is an issue, the free market system has been criticized for failing to provide safety nets to the weak and the marginalized and for justifying a survival- of- the- fittest mentality.
With frequent changes in government ministers and intensified competition between parliamentary parties, the national bureaucracy remains stable and consolidates its power over daily policy formulation.
In return for serving as spokespersons for particular interest groups and swaying the law- making process in their favor, these politicians secure enduring financial support bases in influential business communities. This mutual support structure has consolidated the vast foundations of the LDP’s hold on government power. Many recent prime ministers have acted as zoku politicians to rise though the LDP ranks and to expand their spheres of influence within the party hierarchy.
The object of resigning is to seek and obtain sympathetic indulgence. In most areas, pragmatic judgments override ethical considerations, and the electorate usually re- elects disgraced politicians. The re- elected parliamentarians then resort to Shintoist metaphors and claim that re- election implies the completion of the purification ceremony for their past blemish.
On the whole, these newspapers remain politically neutral so as to maintain their large readership and avoid antagonizing subscribers. The Asahi and the Mainichi tend to be critical of the government, and the Yomiuri and the Sankei are regarded as more pro- government, but none of them editorially supports any political party in elections.
Thus, journalists and members of the bureaucratic and business establishment in Japan have quite similar social backgrounds, with a majority of news writers being male graduates of high- ranking universities. Although they may be a countervailing force to Japan’s establishment, their sociological attributes are similar to those of the Japanese power elite and differ vastly from those of the majority of the population.
For a long time, the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Unions has delivered votes to the LDP, which in return refused to open the agricultural market to imports.