Economic Globalization and the Citizens' Welfare State: Sweden, Uk, Japan, Us by Hiroto Tsukada

Author:Hiroto Tsukada [Tsukada, Hiroto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Public Policy, Political Science, Economic Policy, General
ISBN: 9781351800747
Google: 8JU4DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 34567163
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

JAPAN

Recent Japanese political leaders have set the maintenance or reinforcing of economic competitiveness as the prominent goal for their society today, just like the UK or the US. The background motive for this argument in the 1970s, when it was first introduced, was the fear of ‘the sickness of the advanced nations’ observed in the UK or other European and American countries. The sickness was the stagnation of the economy and weaker competitiveness under large or pro-welfare governments. But since experiencing the 1990s’ depressive years and rapidly developing globalization movement in the world, the main cause has been changed into catching up with the globalization-friendly countries such as the UK or the US, whose new economic structures have been succeeding in attracting foreign capital and realizing higher economic growth in the recent years.

At the same time, as we shall see below, the goal of ‘real affluence with relaxed way of life’ has not been officially discarded. This goal was introduced after the 1980s in the transition period toward a ‘lower growth economy’. It was set by the Conservative government as the next goal after having caught up with European and American advanced nations. It was thought that productive capacities had been sufficiently accumulated, and the next goal was to utilize them for easing people’s lives, by higher consumption. Such an understanding was behind the ‘truly affluent society’ argument. But it was rather the competitive and anti-social welfare philosophy that actually came to dominate the following decades of the 1980s and 1990s.

After the booming 1980s and depressive 1990s, there is more anxiety and dissatisfaction in the people’s eyes than in the 1970s. This social atmosphere has even coined the phrase of ‘dead end society’ in the mid-1990s. Although the economy is low, the anxiety and dissatisfaction seems to be disproportionately high. Successive pathological social incidents even seem to warn of the breaking point of the society itself. Here again, together with the task of joining the worldwide globalization movement, the difficult question of balancing between competition and cohesion, or efficiency and equity and human fellowship, seems to loom large in society.

Just as in the UK, Sweden, or the US, Japan is also facing the competition challenge in a globalizing world, and is struggling to harmonize this goal with social cohesion as in the other countries. As was seen in the previous section, finding the best mix of economic growth and welfare distribution is the fundamental question. How Japanese political leaders are trying to meet this problem at present is vividly observed in the various discussions convened by the Prime Minister. The following three discussions show us the three views existing side by side in the government about the competitiveness path: doubt, admission and promotion. First we will see the discussion of the Prime Minister’s Commission on Japan’s Goals in the 21st Century (21st Century Commission) that was convened by the Prime Minister, Keizo Obuchi, in 1999 (based on the publication on the website).

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