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In any case, Japan and its history are very far away from Socialism / Communism. Meiji Era was pre-industrial Samurai. Meiji / Imperial Japan was Fascist but wi

In any case, Japan and its history are very far away from Socialism / Communism. Meiji Era was pre-industrial Samurai. Meiji / Imperial Japan was Fascist but with the rise of independent companies like Mitsubishi (who had ties to the old Samurai families). Perhaps its best to use Japanese words: like Zaibatsu, to describe these concepts. I don't know if Capitalist is the best word for Japan, because those weird centuries-old Samurai families / companies are just an alien concept to Western-language. Yes, Zaibatsu is kinda-sorta like a Western Company or Corporation, but not really. If I were forced to put Japan on the Capitalist vs Communist axis, I'd say the proliferation of Zaibatsu clearly put them towards Capitalist slant (ie: private entities who control large sums of wealth). But its very different than Western societies or our concept of companies. The values system of a Zaibatsu / Japanese century-old company is very different from the values system of a traditional American mega-corp. --------------- Going back to this topic: Nintendo itself was founded in 1889, during this rise of the Meiji Era and Zaibatsu (though I don't think Nintendo ever grew to the size large enough to be considered a Zaibatsu... it grew up and existed in the era of such beasts). Due to the emphasis of longevity and company values, Japan has odd traditions. Such as the concept of adult-adoption, where some Fathers (often businessmen in charge of a 200, 300+ year old company) will adopt 20 to 30+ year olds with the expectation that these adults will take over a family business. Does this make Japan more capitalist or socialist? Well, neither. Its just different and probably best to try to not bring Western axis (like Capitalism vs Socialism) to describe their society. Japanese society from Meiji era onward was undoubtably influenced by the British (Japan studied the history of the other "industrialized island", and used Britain as the basis for their new government / theories). And later, when USA took over and occupied after WW2, Japan further was influenced by USA. As such, I really do think they're more capitalist if we had to pick capitalism vs socialism.

hotnfresh 3y ago
Japan's big deviation from what "capitalism" has meant since the 1980s, in the US and Britain, at least—which is to say, neoliberal economics—wasn't quite as weird to "westerners" at the time it was really at its height, I think, because we hadn't so entirely shifted our Overton window to put neoliberalism smack in the middle. But now, for sure, it doesn't look like what's usually promoted as healthy capitalism around here. Instead of "my half-understanding of Ricardo means I'm sure this will make us all better off" free trade and laissez-faire domestic economic policies, they pursued lopsided (export-focused) trade, plus heavy government intervention and public-private partnerships aimed at accelerating technological development and reducing domestic technical competition among the zaibatsu, in order to make them more competitive in foreign markets. Their "miracle" economy spanning decades involved a ton of government guidance and spending and seemingly-weird shit like deliberately keeping domestic prices higher than they otherwise could have been—with the guidance part maybe being the most surprising bit, to those who've internalized certain limited ideas about what can and (surely!) cannot work well in economic policy. It worked incredibly well and was the first draft of what would become the blueprint for the "Asian Tiger" economic strategy. [EDIT] Big deviation in the postwar era and (kinda) up to today, I mean. Obviously it was doing some different stuff during and before WWII.

hotnfresh 3y ago

Japan's big deviation from what "capitalism" has meant since the 1980s, in the US and Britain, at least—which is to say, neoliberal economics—wasn't quite as weird to "westerners" at the time it was really at its height, I think, because we hadn't so entirely shifted our Overton window to put neoliberalism smack in the middle. But now, for sure, it doesn't look like what's usually promoted as healthy capitalism around here. Instead of "my half-understanding of Ricardo means I'm sure this will make us all better off" free trade and laissez-faire domestic economic policies, they pursued lopsided (export-focused) trade, plus heavy government intervention and public-private partnerships aimed at accelerating technological development and reducing domestic technical competition among the zaibatsu, in order to make them more competitive in foreign markets. Their "miracle" economy spanning decades involved a ton of government guidance and spending and seemingly-weird shit like deliberately keeping domestic prices higher than they otherwise could have been—with the guidance part maybe being the most surprising bit, to those who've internalized certain limited ideas about what can and (surely!) cannot work well in economic policy. It worked incredibly well and was the first draft of what would become the blueprint for the "Asian Tiger" economic strategy. [EDIT] Big deviation in the postwar era and (kinda) up to today, I mean. Obviously it was doing some different stuff during and before WWII.