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It wasn't intended as a refutation but a qualification, the Gastarbeiters contributed significantly to accelerate the enormous reconstruction and the Wirtschafs

It wasn't intended as a refutation but a qualification, the Gastarbeiters contributed significantly to accelerate the enormous reconstruction and the Wirtschafswunder of the 60s and 70s, so the story is more complicated in a lot of places. But to refute the actual point even though it hasn't much to do with Japan today, early industrialization was also a story of immigration. It just happened to be internal migration, i.e. urbanization. The story of getting rich in places like Manchester isn't particularly pretty, and it's a story of huge churn of uneducated rural workers and surplus labor being funneled into emerging economic centers. As it is in China or India today. For the habitual culture warrior nowadays internal migration isn't very exciting, but it is economically the exact same thing. And if you're Japan and you don't happen to have 20 million young rural folks sitting around, but you want growth, you're going to have to look for people somewhere else.

maxglute 2y ago
>you want growth Sometimes I wonder who wants growth (leadership obviously). I feel like most east asian cultures would gladly take less ridiculous/involuted work culture where you waste half your waking like appeasing to hierarchy. How many would take slightly less growth for much more free time. Assuming that's how that scales, and it does feel that's how it scales with how many people doing shit all in the office or doing work activities just to keep up face time. There are some strategic industries where I understand the need to grind people to work 200% harder to have 10% competitive advantage, but there are tons of less essential work where salary man culture does returns relative ot effort.
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hollerith 2y ago
>It wasn't intended as a refutation but a qualification I don't know what animates you in the conversation, but for me it is question of whether immigration of people with very different cultural backgrounds into a country has harmful effect that in the long term might cancel out the positive economic effects. You have not explained (and I have failed to guess) how your "was also a story of immigration" sheds any light on that question.

maxglute 2y ago

>you want growth Sometimes I wonder who wants growth (leadership obviously). I feel like most east asian cultures would gladly take less ridiculous/involuted work culture where you waste half your waking like appeasing to hierarchy. How many would take slightly less growth for much more free time. Assuming that's how that scales, and it does feel that's how it scales with how many people doing shit all in the office or doing work activities just to keep up face time. There are some strategic industries where I understand the need to grind people to work 200% harder to have 10% competitive advantage, but there are tons of less essential work where salary man culture does returns relative ot effort.

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hollerith 2y ago

>It wasn't intended as a refutation but a qualification I don't know what animates you in the conversation, but for me it is question of whether immigration of people with very different cultural backgrounds into a country has harmful effect that in the long term might cancel out the positive economic effects. You have not explained (and I have failed to guess) how your "was also a story of immigration" sheds any light on that question.