----- Original Message ----- From: Eugene Vilensky To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 7:57 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] japan?
A thread on Prof. DeLong's blog piqued my interest: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000366.html#comments
How is the working class doing there?
Can a contraction of GDP occur without driving down living standards?
A while back, I saw a national geographic showing the rows of homeless in Tokyo, the overwhelming consumerism and concern for material status among kids. I believe firms aren't hiring entry level any more and are letting salarymen retire and attrition before they can move production without losing face.
Comments? Suggestions for reading? -- Eugene Vilensky evilensky at gmail.com ~~~~~~~~~
HighBeam found this piece, with some cites: <...> Returning once again to rural studies, two works published in 1978 convincingly document the trickle-down effects of urban industrialization and modernization on village life.
The books by Robert Smith on Kurusu village and Ronald Dore on Shinohata, expand Edward Norbeck's 1957 study on Takeshima in which he wrestles with the "westernization"/"tradition" dichotomy.
By 1976 however, Norbeck has changed the terminology (and Smith and Dore continue the discussion) to "modernization". Again, it is important to note that it is not merely an influx of western technology that grounds Japan's modern culture but it is, in Bellah's view, the culture which gives scope to this modernization (1965:195).
Virtually any ethnography of Japan written after 1970 devotes at least a chapter of discussion to the progression of modernization. Ezra Vogel's Japan's New Middle Class<...>
<...> http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/countries/japan/japancultndsociety.html ======
There are workers sleeping in train stations, and others go out in the morning like they *are* going to work, and hang out in the shops, ashamed to tell their families that they are unemployed...
More recently, a more disturbing trend. Young people committing group suicide, co-ordinated via chatrooms... The typical suicide in Japan used to be middle age male, now young people are starting to show an increasing tendancy... and in groups, a totally new occurence in a traditionally very private culture.
The media coverage has focused it's attention on the potential "evils" of chatroom culture and totally ignored the fact that japanese society is changing dramatically, and rapidly.
However, I have seen coverage of the social changes in Japan recently in a couple of major newspapers.
Here's one (Sydney Morning-Herald): [Graphic picture on page... Bodybags] http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/13/1097607302866.html?from=storylhs&oneclick=true
Type JAPAN UNEMPLOY into any available search engine.
L
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