The Japanese Economy and Economic Issues since 1945 by Edward R. Beauchamp

Author:Edward R. Beauchamp [Beauchamp, Edward R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135648978
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

CONCLUSION

The Japanese have begun an experiment in the use of a noncoercive, voluntaristic approach to law as an instrument of social change. It is an experiment that Americans rarely attempt. It is useful for us to consider whether we might learn something from this approach. Possible areas of application might be civil rights or gender discrimination. If one is willing to grant that true and lasting social change can come only through value change, the issue becomes whether force or voluntarism and gradualism is more effective in forming the social consensus necessary to create the change.

The Japanese experience will be most informative if we can use it to identify the characteristics of a situation in which the noncoercive use of law might be more effective than a coercive approach.

Several factors might indicate a situation in which a noncoercive approach could bear fruit. Some of these are as follows: First, the majority of the citizens who will be affected are not prepared to recognize and accept the need for the social change in question. Second, the bulk of the actual content of the change must take place in a private arena in which constant government monitoring is not possible and in which the goals of any law can be easily sabotaged by creating mechanisms that comport with the strict provisions of the law, but subvert its intent. Such a situation could arise, for example, where the content of the attitudinal changes required to bring about the desired social change lie largely in the interpersonal area—fairness, impartiality, concern for human growth, willingness to encourage, etc.—an area inherently not amenable to government monitoring or intervention. Third, other significant social goals are present that are in direct conflict with the goals of the proposed program of social change. Fourth, the utilization of force to effect the social change could result in specific harm to the intended beneficiaries of the change. Fifth, the overall cost of a forceful imposition of sanctions, including the backlash of bitterness and resentment likely to result, threaten to be greater than the anticipated benefits from the successful achievement of the change.

Other characteristics of a situation that has not yet reached the critical turning point at which force becomes an effective mechanism in inducing social change can doubtless be adduced from the Japanese experiment. The task of further enumerating and refining such a list belongs to future research. Continued monitoring of the results of Japan’s experiment in achieving equal employment for women without the use of force will provide an opportunity to refine and evaluate the several factors and to apply them to identify areas of American law in which a noncoercive approach might prove effective.

In the final analysis, real human change can come only through persuasion and education—never through force. Change cannot be forced upon a society when the bulk of its citizens are simply unprepared to accept it. No law can be imposed when the majority of a nation’s citizens are not willing to obey. The voluntary, gradualistic approach

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