pre-Keynesian

Lawrence lawrence at krubner.com
Thu Aug 30 19:49:04 PDT 2001



> Japan had full employment by certain rather generous definitions. A
> core of the workforce, maybe a third, enjoyed "lifetime" employment -
> but these were mainly in big firms, and most were expected to find
> other employment in a small or mid-sized business, at around age 55.
> The rest of the workforce was hardly so lucky - especially women.
> (Almost all the "permanent" workers were men.) Many female office
> workers, who were valued more for their appearance than their
> productive contribution, were expected to leave the labor force by
> the time they were 25. Others were employed and disemployed as the
> business cycle warranted. Lots of workers in small or family-owned
> businesses were barely employed at all in bad times, and they didn't
> show up in the stats.
> Doug

Are you saying that everything that's ever been written about Japan's "Miracle" economy is a lie? There never was a period of true full employment? Some of your comparisons seem a little weak, though I admit that I don't know the American numbers. Still, we are talking about, in part, the 1960s and you say that most Japanese women didn't work. Wouldn't it also be true that as late as 1970 America had fairly low rates of female participation in the workforce?

It seems to me you are saying that Japan kept visible, reported unemployment down by setting up a culture in which much of the population was not supposed to work, especially married women and men over 55. Except for the sexism aimed at women, are these bad things? Don't people on the left often complain that Americans are overworked? I've read that America recently had the highest labor participation rate ever, ie, the percent of the population that was working was greater than duing WWII.. Is this necessary? We are not at war with anyone. What if 30 million Americans decidd they no longer wanted to work? Would the left be against that? Suppose middle age people began demanding the right to retire at age 55? Would the left stand against them or for them?



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