[lbo-talk] Koizumi's victory

[Max Sawicky]

Last time I looked public works/construction in Japan was 5-6 percent of
GDP.  Huge.  Along the lines of 'welfare state,' some observers refer to
this as the "Construction State."  Doubtless some of it went to
low-value projects, pork, etc., and some to useful things.  Japan's
infrastructure may be overbuilt -- I wouldn't know.  On my little junket
there a few years ago, we saw communities of homeless living under huge
tarps along the river.  The city didn't look especially bright and
shiny.

I'm not sure what they're doing with the postal savings banks.  Aside
from how the savings were spent, this institution compares favorably
with the lack of service to the poor in the U.S., who have to resort to
check-cashing places and similar rip-offs.

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
[mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 2:46 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: [lbo-talk] Koizumi's victory


> So it looks like Koizumi kicked ass in the Japanese election. If,  
> as John Mage wrote <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ 
> mage140805.html> a month ago, "his noxious blend of neoliberalism  
> and nationalist jingoism will be put to a test," the noxious blend  
> has passed with flying colors. What happened?
>
> Doug

The shortest answer is that what halted postal privatization in  
August was not grassroots opposition to it but a faction fight --  
between the Koizumi-led neoliberal faction and the old guard of Doken  
Kokka ("The size of California, Japan uses as much concrete each year  
as the United States. Some 6 million Japanese work in construction,  
12 times higher as a percentage of the work force than in the United  
States, said Jeff Kingston, a historian at Temple University Japan  
who's studied links between politicians and construction firms" [Tim  
Johnson, "In Japan, Postal Service Debate Sparks Rival Visions of  
Nation's Future," Knight Ridder Newspapers, <http:// 
www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/world/12573888.htm>, 6  
Sep 05]) -- inside the Liberal Democratic Party, therefore it was  
merely a temporary respite.

Minshuto (the Democratic Party), the main "opposition" party, is more  
neoliberal than the LDP old guard, so it represented no alternative  
to the Koizumi faction: "The Liberal Democratic Party and Minshuto  
(Democratic Party of Japan) are focusing on different election  
issues, but their respective manifestoes show they are at least in  
agreement on downsizing government. 'Small government' is how the LDP  
puts it, while Minshuto's version is 'efficient government'" ("Small  
government: Parties Should Debate the Future Shape of Society,"  
<http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200509100142.html>, 10  
Sep 05).

With the LDP old guard, the Last Keynesians of the Free World,  
defeated, a full-blown neoliberalism may finally arrive in Japan.


> But look at Japan's "crisis" of the 1990s - it wasn't much fun, but  
> it wasn't the 1930s either.
>
> Doug

What prevented Japan's crisis from becoming a reprise of the 1930s?  
The LDP old guard's concrete Keynesian policy (pun intended) and huge  
postal savings that have been the source of low-interest government  
debt without which public works projects that mitigated deflation's  
impacts could not have been financed.

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>
* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud- 
ahmadinejads-face.html>;  <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez- 
congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/ 
2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>

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