> Do those at the top not feel any social obligation to ensure continuation of Japanese society beyond serving their own selfish needs? I would refer you to:

> Do those at the top not feel any social obligation to ensure continuation of Japanese society beyond serving their own selfish needs? I would refer you to: The Psychological Consequences of Money by Kathleen D. Vohs, Nicole L. Mead, and Miranda R. Goode Science 17 Nov 2006, Vol 314, Issue 5802 pp. 1154-1156 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1132491 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1132491 The Abstract: "Money has been said to change people's motivation (mainly for the better) and their behavior toward others (mainly for the worse). The results of nine experiments suggest that money brings about a self-sufficient orientation in which people prefer to be free of dependency and dependents. Reminders of money, relative to nonmoney reminders, led to reduced requests for help and reduced helpfulness toward others. Relative to participants primed with neutral concepts, participants primed with money preferred to play alone, work alone, and put more physical distance between themselves and a new acquaintance." These effects are observable across many cultures and social ideals. So, yes, those at the top do view themselves as distinct and independent of the larger society, as demonstrated by the highly selective and insular lifestyles that they actively seek and engage in. Exclusivity is very nearly a defining feature of that 'filter' which is applied at Japanese organizations as I explained above, such that mid-level employees find an enforced social ceiling to keep those who are not already in the leading cliques from rising into a controlling position. > How does that square with increasing foreign investment? Foreign investment into Japanese industry is not the same as foreign investment into other jurisdictions, like EU, UK or US. Foreign investors do not gain actual control of the Japanese parent corporation. Companies will allow foreign investment in strict minority positions. This applies in most industries even without official legal requirement, and the regulatory review threshold for control in any critical; semiconductor, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, medicine, rare earths is as low as 1%. Investment in these requires approval BEFORE not after finalization. Agriculture is another field with strict foreign investment rules. Non-Japanese citizens cannot purchase Ag. zoned land, period. It is not likely that foreign investment, i.e. PE will find much room for capture of potentially closing Japanese companies. What I think is more likely will be a blend of collectivization, as many operating companies are already highly leveraged from banking and national investment due to the durable extremely low interest rates of the last three decades. The firms which have successfully invested heavily overseas and have restrained those investments from repatriation, in order to maintain the low inflation rates, have immense capacity to absorb local productivity downturns. These 'external' finance pools do not appear on the Japanese companies balance sheets due to how those investments are structured, and will enable these companies to dwindle to extremely low staffing levels while maintaining the level of comfort and financial wherewithal for the executive board members.