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I have my disagreements with Abe, but it’s hard not to admire someone who walks in with bold ideas and tries for as long as he did to push society in a differen

I have my disagreements with Abe, but it’s hard not to admire someone who walks in with bold ideas and tries for as long as he did to push society in a different direction. The morass would have done many in much sooner. Wishing Mr. Abe a swift recovery.

xnyan 6y ago
There's a pro Abe narrative in the west I do not understand. It's a one party system, and as all one party systems it's incredibly corrupt. Under his tenure poor people became poorer, his friends became richer, and press freedoms got crushed into the earth. What on earth did he do or attempt to do that was admirable?
- claudeganon 6y ago
  The Liberal Democratic Party (Abe's party) has received monetary, opposition intelligence, and propaganda support from the US since it's inception: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-...
- ahmedalsudani 6y ago
  Again, I have disagreements with him. But Japan has been in a bad place for decades. Abenomics, though it has not achieved the results it was aiming for, was an attempt. Trying to restore Japan’s standing army is another bold attempt. Bringing about big changes is something to be admired.
- conception 6y ago
  He’s done quite a bit of work on getting women into the workforce and into leadership positions with not terrible results for such a difficult problem.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    This narrative is touted in the western press, but has little basis in reality. In real terms, women were only allowed into low wage, low rank, and part time or contract work to juke labor force participation stats. Gender parity is worse than it was 14 years ago: >This year, the World Economic Forum ranked Japan 121st out of 153 countries on gender parity, down 11 places from the year before and 41 places from 2006. Its gender pay gap of 23.5 percent is the highest among G-7 countries and the second highest in the OECD, behind only South Korea. And while the share of women in the labor force has grown to more than 70 percent, higher than in the United States or the European Union, most female workers in Japan have part-time or contract jobs, which are more vulnerable during economic crises. Of the 970,000 irregular jobs that were lost in April due to the coronavirus pandemic, 710,000 were held by women. https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/28972/for-japan-s-abe-womenomics-is-not-enough-to-achieve-gender-equality https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/28972/for-ja...
    - conception 6y ago
      It's hard to say without more data. Are more women who have never been in the workforce, or out of it for a very long time, now coming back in at lower positions and thus bringing the stat down, but there's a net benefit as those women are now there, climbing the ladder slowly but surely? Or it can be as you say, and that they are getting glass ceiling. We will see what the results are but - https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Japanese-companies-set-goal-of-30-female-executives-by-2030 https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Japanese-co... is a goal at least, publicly stated. The US hasn't had such a goal by any administration.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        I’m not sure if you read the article I linked, but the 30% of executives is not a new goal but a revision by ten years of a failed target set by Abe when he first took office. It’s not a serious measure, but something used to distract from the widening inequality and growing poverty measures in Japan. Japanese households needing two wage earners to survive is increasingly becoming a reality, but is a violation of what the LDP has promised would be delivered through its conservativism. Abe’s pivot to “womenomics” was a little more than a PR maneuver to distract from the worsening material conditions that the LDP’s corrupt, failed leadership have wrought, while preserving the underlying, extreme sexism of the country.

xnyan 6y ago

There's a pro Abe narrative in the west I do not understand. It's a one party system, and as all one party systems it's incredibly corrupt. Under his tenure poor people became poorer, his friends became richer, and press freedoms got crushed into the earth. What on earth did he do or attempt to do that was admirable?

claudeganon 6y ago
The Liberal Democratic Party (Abe's party) has received monetary, opposition intelligence, and propaganda support from the US since it's inception: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-...
ahmedalsudani 6y ago
Again, I have disagreements with him. But Japan has been in a bad place for decades. Abenomics, though it has not achieved the results it was aiming for, was an attempt. Trying to restore Japan’s standing army is another bold attempt. Bringing about big changes is something to be admired.
conception 6y ago
He’s done quite a bit of work on getting women into the workforce and into leadership positions with not terrible results for such a difficult problem.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  This narrative is touted in the western press, but has little basis in reality. In real terms, women were only allowed into low wage, low rank, and part time or contract work to juke labor force participation stats. Gender parity is worse than it was 14 years ago: >This year, the World Economic Forum ranked Japan 121st out of 153 countries on gender parity, down 11 places from the year before and 41 places from 2006. Its gender pay gap of 23.5 percent is the highest among G-7 countries and the second highest in the OECD, behind only South Korea. And while the share of women in the labor force has grown to more than 70 percent, higher than in the United States or the European Union, most female workers in Japan have part-time or contract jobs, which are more vulnerable during economic crises. Of the 970,000 irregular jobs that were lost in April due to the coronavirus pandemic, 710,000 were held by women. https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/28972/for-japan-s-abe-womenomics-is-not-enough-to-achieve-gender-equality https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/28972/for-ja...
  - conception 6y ago
    It's hard to say without more data. Are more women who have never been in the workforce, or out of it for a very long time, now coming back in at lower positions and thus bringing the stat down, but there's a net benefit as those women are now there, climbing the ladder slowly but surely? Or it can be as you say, and that they are getting glass ceiling. We will see what the results are but - https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Japanese-companies-set-goal-of-30-female-executives-by-2030 https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Japanese-co... is a goal at least, publicly stated. The US hasn't had such a goal by any administration.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      I’m not sure if you read the article I linked, but the 30% of executives is not a new goal but a revision by ten years of a failed target set by Abe when he first took office. It’s not a serious measure, but something used to distract from the widening inequality and growing poverty measures in Japan. Japanese households needing two wage earners to survive is increasingly becoming a reality, but is a violation of what the LDP has promised would be delivered through its conservativism. Abe’s pivot to “womenomics” was a little more than a PR maneuver to distract from the worsening material conditions that the LDP’s corrupt, failed leadership have wrought, while preserving the underlying, extreme sexism of the country.