Japan needs another fix

[christian a. gregory]

FT has been euphoric about the prospect of another recession for Japan (it's
not just lefties that believe in crisis as a form of redemption). Gillian
Tate has heralded the ongoing recession as an opportunity to dismantle the
keiretsu and bring Japan along into the family of *really* developed
nations. Likewise, the editors have been pretty happy with Carlos Ghosn's
promises to lay off thousands of workers to restructure Nissan. American
banks have started buying up Japan's bad debt at fire sale prices.

All of that is bad news for lots of lefties and "revisionsists" (Chalmers
Johnson, Robert Wade, Alice Amsden, etc.) A lot of quasi-utopian hopes have
been pinned on Japan (less so by the revisionists), since it is expected to
be--or is, depending on who you talk to--world economic hegemon, and at the
same time it offered an "alternative" to American-style capitalism. But it's
viability as an economic alternative was based on what Johnson called "soft
authoritarianism" (the U.S., after all, did write its postwar
constitution)--its labor unions are politically anemic, even by American
standards, for example. I have my doubts about what "socialism" there would
look like anything really grand, given this history.

So, recommending socialism for Japan is fine, though I'd prefer they had an
actually existing social democracy first (same is true for the United
States). In which case, it might not be the worst thing in the world that
U.S. banks are buying up Japanese bad debt--at least it might free the banks
up to invest in something more productive than U.S. and Japanese real
estate.

About the actually existing left in Japan, I don't really know.

All best
Christian

----- Original Message -----
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 1999 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: Japan needs another fix


> Doug sent us this:
> >Financial Times - December 7, 1999
> >
> >JAPAN'S JUNKIE ECONOMY IS IN NEED OF ANOTHER FIX
> >By Paul Abrahams in Tokyo
> >
> >Japan may be heading for another recession in spite of the efforts
> >made by the government to prop up the nation's economy.
> >
> >On Monday it emerged that the economy contracted 1 per cent in the
> >third quarter. Indicators suggest economic performance will be
> >similarly dismal in the fourth.
> >
> >The latest downturn, coming after only two quarters of growth, raises
> >the question of whether Japan is becoming something of an economic
> >junkie, increasingly dependent on injections of government spending.
> >Without regular fiscal fixes, it falls into recession.
>
> Does the above portend an exciting dawn of the new century, I wonder?
What
> do you think leftists in Japan should be doing now, Doug (or anyone else,
> for that matter)?  To me, it looks as though communism makes sense for
> Japan more than any other country.
>
> Yoshie
>
>