1999 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Logic of Crises and Restructuring of Contemporary Japanese Economy
| Project/Area Number |
09630032
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
経済政策(含経済事情)
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| Research Institution | Kokugakuin University |
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Principal Investigator |
ITOH Makoto Kokugakuin University, Faculty of Economics, Professor, 経済学部, 教授 (10012121)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1997 – 1999
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| Keywords | Japanese economy / changes in family life / depopulation of children / neo-liberalism / industrial hollowing-out / information technologies / competitive markets / backward flow of capitalism |
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| Research Abstract |
This research projected to reconsider the logic of crises and restructuring of Japanese economy since the 1970s. My assumption, that capitalism has made a large-scaled backward flow toward a more competitive free market through the impact of information technologies, has been applied and re-examined in the case of Japan. The final results are materialized in a complete manuscript of my English book, The Japanese Economy Reconsidered (Macmillan and St.Martin's Press, forthcoming). Some findings in it are summarized below;
1. The Japanese economy shifted down its growth trend from high economic growth to lower growth in the 1970s, and further to almost zero growth in the 1990s. It also became very unstable with several different phases of crisis and recovery.
2. Information technologies spread rapidly in Japanese firms on the ground of workers' royal cooperation. Resultantly, flexible and competitive markets for various types of workers, as well as for products were revitalized, and gave strength to neoliberalism.
3. Intensified Japanese industrial competitive power tendentiously appreciated yen. This promoted multi-nationalization of Japanese firms especially after the middle of l980s. Industrial hollowing-gut then became a real problem.
4. As women have been more and more mobilized into workplaces, family life has changed, and population of children has become smaller so as to lower the ceiling of economic growth for the 21ィイD1stィエD1 century.
5. Neoliberalism failed to prevent the huge bubble and its burst in the Japanese economy. It was also inconsistent in injecting huge public money into rescue operation of banks while shifting the burden of fiscal crisis of the state to shoulders of working people. Globalization has been used as an ideology to promote neoliberalism.
Thus, my assumption on the historical backward flow of capitalism is largely verified in the case of Japan with certain unfortunate results against economic democracy and fairness,
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