29 ms·

Whatever happened to 'Japan'?

30 points by chrismealy 16y ago

kylelibra 16y ago
I spent a couple of weeks in Japan last summer and spent a lot of time thinking in the context of Japan being a lens through which we can divine insight towards where we are headed as a country in the future. There are two major issues facing the Japanese economy. Nepotism of the old (there is a much more succinct word for this, but it escapes me) and the incredibly long life expectancy of the population. The nepotism of the old (someone please tell me the name for this) is causing issues in a few different ways. The older government officials are notorious for taking private sector positions in the very industries they previously regulated. This happens so frequently there is actually a Japanese phrase to describe it (again I can't remember for the life of me what this phrase is). In America this happens, but isn't nearly as blatant or widespread. It Japan it is a near guarantee. The older population in Japan has a stranglehold on influencing public policy. They are a huge block of voters who actually turn out for elections. They consistently vote for, or force politicians to push for, unsustainable short-term solutions to problems. Japan has a pension crisis similar to our social security problem. Everyone knows it is unsustainable, yet the older people vote for it and push the burden onto the young. The young people entering the economy don't have the job availability they need. Old people aren't retiring as early as they once were and basically aren't getting out of the way for the young. People are living longer and need to work longer. As a result, young workers are forced to be underemployed and struggle to become part of the economy. There is also the issue of failure being viewed as shameful. There is very little entrepreneurial activity going on in the country so they don't have this potential of creating jobs for the economy. The long life expectancy is exacerbating all of the above issues. That said, Japan is a fascinating place, the projections towards the strain social security and medicare taking on our economy in the future are good proof that Japan may still offer insight towards our own future.
- jackfoxy 16y ago
  Gerontocracy.
  - kylelibra 16y ago
    Thanks, it was killing me that I couldn't come up with the term.
- wgren 16y ago
  Politicians taking on jobs in industries they regulated: amakudari, "descent from heaven".
  - kylelibra 16y ago
    Exactly the term I was trying to remember!
- xiaoma 16y ago
  >The young people entering the economy don't have the job availability they need. Old people aren't retiring as early as they once were and basically aren't getting out of the way for the young. People are living longer and need to work longer. As a result, young workers are forced to be underemployed and struggle to become part of the economy. I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding your argument or not, but it sounds like you're saying that the more old people work, the fewer young people can, i.e. there are a fixed number of jobs. If this were truly the way economics worked, then it would be easiest to find in places full of lazy and/or incapable people. This isn't the case though. As long as there exist services or makable things that people want enough to spend money on, there are always jobs to be done. Maybe the issue is in education, willingness to retrain, liquidity of job markets, or hurdles to starting businesses, but I don't believe that old people working means that young people can't. If 99% of Japanese companies truly did hire old people into upper management who weren't as capable as younger people at doing their work, the other 1% would eat them alive.
  - neutronicus 16y ago
    If 99% of Japanese companies truly did hire old people into upper management who weren't as capable as younger people at doing their work, the other 1% would eat them alive. "Doing one's work" in the modern world does not happen in a vacuum. If substantial segments of the market refuse to do business with you on the basis of your age, yeah, you're not going to be quite the stellar businessman. When performance is measured by how much money you extract from a few organizations (think government contracting, think enterprise sales, think manufacturing), institutional prejudice can become one of the primary factors determining success.
    - xiaoma 16y ago
      Yes, that's a reasonable scenario for heavily regulated industries, some B2B and most government work. It doesn't really address my point about "running out of jobs", though. Older people doing jobs of that sort in no way means that there's a shortage of work younger people could do... unless you're implying that Japanese people are both 1) unwilling to purchase goods and services outside of large industries that discriminate against young people and 2) incapable of creating goods or services non-Japanese would pay for
- r00fus 16y ago
  > The older government officials are notorious for taking private sector positions in the very industries they previously regulated. This happens so frequently there is actually a Japanese phrase to describe it (again I can't remember for the life of me what this phrase is). In America this happens, but isn't nearly as blatant or widespread. It Japan it is a near guarantee. This totally happens here, and there is a term for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) (Revolving Door) Almost everything you said about older people in Japan can be said about the USA as well.
  - eru 16y ago
    Yes, but the demographic outlook of the USA is more favourable.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
poutine 16y ago
"The future will now be produced by cheap and abundant labour, not by mysterious oriental tech-wizardry (NB I am trying to describe an imaginary, not a reality!). " This is an artefact of today, not the future. As has happened in the developed world the developing world will eventually see automation and robotics become cheaper than human labour. Possibly within the next decade or two. Once this point is reached and those countries haven't lifted themselves up they're screwed. They'll have a massive number of undereducated, illiterate and underemployed people. This is not China's century as many people are saying. Robotics will turn vast numbers of people in to a liability, not an asset.
- eru 16y ago
  > ... and underemployed people. Depends. If they can keep labour cheap enough, they won't be underemployed. I don't worry about future under-education in the now-developing countries. Education is all the rage in most places.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  On the flip side, if robotics are taking care of mass production with very little human input, 3d printing and other emergent home technologies will create an explosion in artisan production. We're about to see a shift in the material world similar to the way the open source world changed software.
  - Retric 16y ago
    I don't see how "open source" had all that big of an impact on software. IMO, "open source" software fills the same roll as government spending on infrastructure. Basically, contributing a small amount of energy for a share of a public good has a net positive result. But, little changes from the perspective of a user or a developer.
    - kingofspain 16y ago
      More or less the entire web?
russell 16y ago
The 80's were Japan's time in the sun. I remember shock waves in the Valley when HP announced that it was no longer going to use US-made memory chips because Japanese ones were so much better. And a picture in Forbes Magazine open on a Tokyo sidewalk, saying that the real estate taken up by the magazine was worth $500,000K or some such astronomical number. General Motors announced that its goal was to make a car as good as a Toyota. And for us technical types the big shock was the Fifth Generation Computer Project was going to make Silicon Valley a backwater. Well it didnt happen that way. US semiconductor manufacturers learned to make chips, companies learned just in time inventory control and QC, and the Fifth Gen computer was overtaken by the PC, Moore's law, and the internet. (OK we did loose Detroit.) Then the 90's came and the Japanese economy tanked from the real estate bubble, insane infrastructure protects, and fiscal mismanagement, and never recovered dominance.
- kiujhygtfhj 16y ago
  >US semiconductor manufacturers learned to make chips No they didn't - the chips are now made in Singapore or Malaysia with Japanese plant. When did you last see a US mask stepper? GM make a car as good as a Toyota? I think their current goal is to make a car as good as a Fiat.
  - ghc 16y ago
    That's odd, I seem to recall Intel, AMD and IBM having major chip fabs in the US, Germany and Israel. Or are you talking about something different (I don't know much about mask steppers)?
  - stonemetal 16y ago
    From the Wikipedia page on the Cell processor(As seen in every PS3 made by Sony.) So chips get designed and built in the US. The architectural design and first implementation were carried out at the STI Design Center in Austin, Texas In March 2007 IBM announced that the 65 nm version of Cell BE is in production at its plant in East Fishkill, New York
  - rubashov 16y ago
    There's a substantial amount of semiconductor plant still in the states. There's a huge Micron plant not far from me right now. The quality and reliability surveys over the last eight years or so are not favorable to Toyota. US made cars are as good as any other, and the German brands have actually slipped a lot.
adario 16y ago
There's comment made on the site under the post which I think is the most accurate, concise, spot on explanation of the difference between the Japanese market and the American market. Here it is:"Could Japan be a secret counter-example to the worldview that sees prosperity coming only from high growth? Maybe the Japanese have in many ways decided that they don't want high growth lives?" I say the answer to that likely rhetorical question is YES. I've been traveling to Japan for business for 10 years and I think this difference in approach is the chief reason why most American firms never really 'get' Japan. Their business motives and market DNA are fundamentally different from America's devotion to growth and scale. In Japan it's not about growth, it's about consistency and quality, often even to the detriment of the business. I think that's also why, in terms of tech startups, Korea & China & Singapore will ultimately leave Japan behind.
jwcacces 16y ago
Japan became America. Labor prices went up to ours, people grew to want their pensions just like us, the old are living longer just like us, they now want the good things in life just like us. In the short time since World War II, they have grown to have that good life. And in that they have become more and more plagued with the same benefits and detractions that we've been enjoying. During the time they were rapidly advancing, they had the same abilities as us, but a different lifestyle. And they beat us. But what was the point of their growth? The point was to get to where we are. And now that they're the same as us, in the end, they'll just be the same as us. China's the same. One day all of China will be just like America. And then they won't be competitive. Until then, they'll eat our lunch because although they can do the same things as us, they just don't yet have our standard of living.
bpfh 16y ago
Curious coindidence – I was thinking about this the other day, wading through Gibson's _Neuromancer_. The novel, just like earlier Stephenson fiction, paints a not-too-distant future entirely dominated by "Nipponese" brands and cultural artefacts. _Neuromancer_ was published in 1984. A lot has changed ever since.

30 points by chrismealy 16y ago

I spent a couple of weeks in Japan last summer and spent a lot of time thinking in the context of Japan being a lens through which we can divine insight towards where we are headed as a country in the future. There are two major issues facing the Japanese economy. Nepotism of the old (there is a much more succinct word for this, but it escapes me) and the incredibly long life expectancy of the population. The nepotism of the old (someone please tell me the name for this) is causing issues in a few different ways. The older government officials are notorious for taking private sector positions in the very industries they previously regulated. This happens so frequently there is actually a Japanese phrase to describe it (again I can't remember for the life of me what this phrase is). In America this happens, but isn't nearly as blatant or widespread. It Japan it is a near guarantee. The older population in Japan has a stranglehold on influencing public policy. They are a huge block of voters who actually turn out for elections. They consistently vote for, or force politicians to push for, unsustainable short-term solutions to problems. Japan has a pension crisis similar to our social security problem. Everyone knows it is unsustainable, yet the older people vote for it and push the burden onto the young. The young people entering the economy don't have the job availability they need. Old people aren't retiring as early as they once were and basically aren't getting out of the way for the young. People are living longer and need to work longer. As a result, young workers are forced to be underemployed and struggle to become part of the economy. There is also the issue of failure being viewed as shameful. There is very little entrepreneurial activity going on in the country so they don't have this potential of creating jobs for the economy. The long life expectancy is exacerbating all of the above issues. That said, Japan is a fascinating place, the projections towards the strain social security and medicare taking on our economy in the future are good proof that Japan may still offer insight towards our own future.

jackfoxy 16y ago
Gerontocracy.
- kylelibra 16y ago
  Thanks, it was killing me that I couldn't come up with the term.
wgren 16y ago
Politicians taking on jobs in industries they regulated: amakudari, "descent from heaven".
- kylelibra 16y ago
  Exactly the term I was trying to remember!
xiaoma 16y ago
>The young people entering the economy don't have the job availability they need. Old people aren't retiring as early as they once were and basically aren't getting out of the way for the young. People are living longer and need to work longer. As a result, young workers are forced to be underemployed and struggle to become part of the economy. I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding your argument or not, but it sounds like you're saying that the more old people work, the fewer young people can, i.e. there are a fixed number of jobs. If this were truly the way economics worked, then it would be easiest to find in places full of lazy and/or incapable people. This isn't the case though. As long as there exist services or makable things that people want enough to spend money on, there are always jobs to be done. Maybe the issue is in education, willingness to retrain, liquidity of job markets, or hurdles to starting businesses, but I don't believe that old people working means that young people can't. If 99% of Japanese companies truly did hire old people into upper management who weren't as capable as younger people at doing their work, the other 1% would eat them alive.
- neutronicus 16y ago
  If 99% of Japanese companies truly did hire old people into upper management who weren't as capable as younger people at doing their work, the other 1% would eat them alive. "Doing one's work" in the modern world does not happen in a vacuum. If substantial segments of the market refuse to do business with you on the basis of your age, yeah, you're not going to be quite the stellar businessman. When performance is measured by how much money you extract from a few organizations (think government contracting, think enterprise sales, think manufacturing), institutional prejudice can become one of the primary factors determining success.
  - xiaoma 16y ago
    Yes, that's a reasonable scenario for heavily regulated industries, some B2B and most government work. It doesn't really address my point about "running out of jobs", though. Older people doing jobs of that sort in no way means that there's a shortage of work younger people could do... unless you're implying that Japanese people are both 1) unwilling to purchase goods and services outside of large industries that discriminate against young people and 2) incapable of creating goods or services non-Japanese would pay for
r00fus 16y ago
> The older government officials are notorious for taking private sector positions in the very industries they previously regulated. This happens so frequently there is actually a Japanese phrase to describe it (again I can't remember for the life of me what this phrase is). In America this happens, but isn't nearly as blatant or widespread. It Japan it is a near guarantee. This totally happens here, and there is a term for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) (Revolving Door) Almost everything you said about older people in Japan can be said about the USA as well.
- eru 16y ago
  Yes, but the demographic outlook of the USA is more favourable.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

poutine 16y ago

"The future will now be produced by cheap and abundant labour, not by mysterious oriental tech-wizardry (NB I am trying to describe an imaginary, not a reality!). " This is an artefact of today, not the future. As has happened in the developed world the developing world will eventually see automation and robotics become cheaper than human labour. Possibly within the next decade or two. Once this point is reached and those countries haven't lifted themselves up they're screwed. They'll have a massive number of undereducated, illiterate and underemployed people. This is not China's century as many people are saying. Robotics will turn vast numbers of people in to a liability, not an asset.

eru 16y ago
> ... and underemployed people. Depends. If they can keep labour cheap enough, they won't be underemployed. I don't worry about future under-education in the now-developing countries. Education is all the rage in most places.
michaelchisari 16y ago
On the flip side, if robotics are taking care of mass production with very little human input, 3d printing and other emergent home technologies will create an explosion in artisan production. We're about to see a shift in the material world similar to the way the open source world changed software.
- Retric 16y ago
  I don't see how "open source" had all that big of an impact on software. IMO, "open source" software fills the same roll as government spending on infrastructure. Basically, contributing a small amount of energy for a share of a public good has a net positive result. But, little changes from the perspective of a user or a developer.
  - kingofspain 16y ago
    More or less the entire web?

russell 16y ago

The 80's were Japan's time in the sun. I remember shock waves in the Valley when HP announced that it was no longer going to use US-made memory chips because Japanese ones were so much better. And a picture in Forbes Magazine open on a Tokyo sidewalk, saying that the real estate taken up by the magazine was worth $500,000K or some such astronomical number. General Motors announced that its goal was to make a car as good as a Toyota. And for us technical types the big shock was the Fifth Generation Computer Project was going to make Silicon Valley a backwater. Well it didnt happen that way. US semiconductor manufacturers learned to make chips, companies learned just in time inventory control and QC, and the Fifth Gen computer was overtaken by the PC, Moore's law, and the internet. (OK we did loose Detroit.) Then the 90's came and the Japanese economy tanked from the real estate bubble, insane infrastructure protects, and fiscal mismanagement, and never recovered dominance.

kiujhygtfhj 16y ago
>US semiconductor manufacturers learned to make chips No they didn't - the chips are now made in Singapore or Malaysia with Japanese plant. When did you last see a US mask stepper? GM make a car as good as a Toyota? I think their current goal is to make a car as good as a Fiat.
- ghc 16y ago
  That's odd, I seem to recall Intel, AMD and IBM having major chip fabs in the US, Germany and Israel. Or are you talking about something different (I don't know much about mask steppers)?
- stonemetal 16y ago
  From the Wikipedia page on the Cell processor(As seen in every PS3 made by Sony.) So chips get designed and built in the US. The architectural design and first implementation were carried out at the STI Design Center in Austin, Texas In March 2007 IBM announced that the 65 nm version of Cell BE is in production at its plant in East Fishkill, New York
- rubashov 16y ago
  There's a substantial amount of semiconductor plant still in the states. There's a huge Micron plant not far from me right now. The quality and reliability surveys over the last eight years or so are not favorable to Toyota. US made cars are as good as any other, and the German brands have actually slipped a lot.

adario 16y ago

There's comment made on the site under the post which I think is the most accurate, concise, spot on explanation of the difference between the Japanese market and the American market. Here it is:"Could Japan be a secret counter-example to the worldview that sees prosperity coming only from high growth? Maybe the Japanese have in many ways decided that they don't want high growth lives?" I say the answer to that likely rhetorical question is YES. I've been traveling to Japan for business for 10 years and I think this difference in approach is the chief reason why most American firms never really 'get' Japan. Their business motives and market DNA are fundamentally different from America's devotion to growth and scale. In Japan it's not about growth, it's about consistency and quality, often even to the detriment of the business. I think that's also why, in terms of tech startups, Korea & China & Singapore will ultimately leave Japan behind.

jwcacces 16y ago

Japan became America. Labor prices went up to ours, people grew to want their pensions just like us, the old are living longer just like us, they now want the good things in life just like us. In the short time since World War II, they have grown to have that good life. And in that they have become more and more plagued with the same benefits and detractions that we've been enjoying. During the time they were rapidly advancing, they had the same abilities as us, but a different lifestyle. And they beat us. But what was the point of their growth? The point was to get to where we are. And now that they're the same as us, in the end, they'll just be the same as us. China's the same. One day all of China will be just like America. And then they won't be competitive. Until then, they'll eat our lunch because although they can do the same things as us, they just don't yet have our standard of living.

bpfh 16y ago

Curious coindidence – I was thinking about this the other day, wading through Gibson's _Neuromancer_. The novel, just like earlier Stephenson fiction, paints a not-too-distant future entirely dominated by "Nipponese" brands and cultural artefacts. _Neuromancer_ was published in 1984. A lot has changed ever since.