Capitalism in Japan Essays

Two ships can arrive at the same destination; however that does not necessarily mean that they used the same route on their journey. Such is the same with the industrialization of Britain and Japan. Both rose to become the two great pioneers of the modern world; however the paths they took to success were different. This paper will compare Japan and Britain, exploring the causes of its industrialization, and how the countries drastically changed because of it. What sets Britain’s industrialization process apart from Japans is that it did not have a role model to base its development on; it was the first industrial nation. Therefore the cause of its industrialization must have much

The Zaibatsu, which is a combination of the top grossing companies in Japan and have many connections in the government and court system that give them a substantial amount of power. Lastly, Japan’s resources are very limited because only 12% of its land is fertile, and they must import 80% of its energy to them. Socially, Japan’s ageing population is another reason why the economy has become stagnate. The ageing population will eventually cause labor shortages that Japan cannot replace.

Between the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Japan’s economy developed remarkably. China had also developed economically; however, not near as much as Japan. The Japanese government industrialized greatly and encouraged western influence, but the Chinese government did the opposite.

After centuries of living in seclusion to the outside world, the government knew that they needed the technological advancements that the West offered. The Industrial Revolution and growing urbanisation in Japan had intended to and succeeded in mimicking Western growth. Moreover, the Japanese were well-known for their diligence, discipline, perseverance, and hard work – this resulted in substantial economic development including increased shipping of commodities and a significant expansion of trade and handicraft industries. However, the political elite pocketed most of the profits through influence and corruption. Workers and farmers found it unfair that their patriotic and back-breaking labour only received a little wage in comparison, but with a state-controlled media and education system, they couldn’t make their voices heard. So overall, this collective and nationalistic open-mindedness for communal prosperity was beneficial for Japan as a whole, but the common people were disadvantaged with no access to basic human rights and a fair

Both Western Europe and Japan used the feudal system from the 800s to the 1700s. The two regions show economic similarities, but differ greatly with respect to politics and society.

Economically, Japan is one of the most highly developed nations in the world. Japanese brand like Toyota, Sony, Fujifilm and Panasonic are famous across the globe. One common pattern which is followed by Japan from the very beginning is to import raw materials and processed them to make finished products which are sold domestically and exported. Agriculture and transportation are the highly developed industries in Japan. Japan’s main agricultural product is rice and most rice eaten in Japan is home grown. Shinkansen, or bullet trains ,are

While the Depression initially hit Japan hard by showing that half of all factories were closed by 1931, children in some areas were reduced to begging for food from passengers on passing trains, and farmers were eating tree bark therefore active government policies quickly responded. Under the 1930s minister of finance, Korekiyo Takahashi, the government increased its spending to provide jobs, which in turn generated new demands for food and manufactured items, yielding not only the export boom but also the virtual elimination of unemployment by 1936. Indeed, Japan made a full turn toward industrialization after 1931, its economy growing much more rapidly than that of the West and rivaling the surge of the Soviet Union. Production of iron, steel, and chemicals soared. The spread of electric power was the most rapid in the world. The number of workers, mainly men, in the leading industries rose sevenfold during the 1930s. Quality of production increased as assembly-line methods were introduced, and Japanese manufacturing goods began to rival those of the West. Japan also initiated a series of new industrial policies designed to stabilize the labor force and prevent social unrest. Big companies began to offer lifetime contracts to a minority of skilled workers and to develop company entertainments and other activities designed to promote hard work and devotion. By 1937, Japan boasted the

Combining imported technology with their domestic innovation was translated in the inception of the Japanese low-cost mass productions system. Technological improvements such as the one mentioned above played a huge role in the country’s economic growth, as improvement of technology in one industry often influenced the growth of other industries. For instance, Japan’s steel industry was successful in improving the quality of steel used in manufacturing automobiles, due to the technological process in the casing of parts; the automobile industry too benefited and hence could reach a level where it could compete with its international

He states that Japan used market capitalism to pursue individual and corporate material wealth. However, China has been far more conservative approach having evolved from Mao Zedong’s planned socialism towards a “functional market socialism”. Further Japan appears to have adopted a far more western attitude more readily in comparison to China.

Japan emerged from the Tokugawa-Meiji transition as the first Asian industrialized nation. Domestic commercial activities and limited foreign trade had met the demands for material culture in the Tokugawa period, but the modernized Meiji era had radically different requirements. From the beginning, the Meiji rulers embraced the concept of a market economy and adopted British and North American forms of free enterprise capitalism. The private sector — in a nation blessed with an abundance of aggressive entrepreneurs — welcomed such change.

According to Moritz Bonn, “the modern world is the result of colonisation,” and colonisation is generally defined as “the transfer of political, economic, and cultural institutions from one society to another.” During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the world was in chaos. A number of countries from all over the world had colonised other states or had been colonised by others. However, among the states that had escaped from the fate of being colonised, Japan stood out more noticeably as it had become westernised, and turned itself into the only nation in East Asia with a strong and competent military power as other Western countries, such as the U.S., Germany, and British. There are several major factors that contribute to the fact that Japan was not colonised by the Western powers. Firstly, it is primarily related to the success of social and cultural reforms of Japan during the Meiji period. Secondly, it is correlated to the Japan’s completion of westernisation and industrialisation.To begin

In 1945, Japan was devastated and lost a quarter of the national wealth after suffering a defect in the second world war. A majority of the commercial buildings and accommodation had been demolished, and massive machinery and equipment formerly used in production for the civil market were out of service to provide metal for military supplies (Miyazaki 1967). Despite the trash and ruins had left over in Japan, Japan was able to rebuilding its infrastructure and reconstruct their economy. It is revealed that the Japanese economy was on its way to recovery, which received a rapid development since the war, and the reconstruction of Japan had spent less than forty years to become the world’s second largest economy in the 1980s. This essay will explore the three factors account for the economic growth of post-war Japan: the financial assistance from the United States, the external environment, and the effective policy of Japanese government.

Jeffrey Kingston. Japan in Transformation, 1952 – 2000. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2001. 230 pp.

The deregulation of financial markets catalysed by Globalisation worldwide has impacted on the amount of trade within the Japanese economy beneficially allowing easier access to foreign currencies, facilitating a higher flow of goods between nation, by relaxing laws that severely prevented foreign buying of currency, and floating the yen. These drivers have helped boost Japan's trade and recovery from its recession. Technology has allowed finances to be traded and communication to be near to instantaneous. This has increased dramatically the amount of FDI into Japan largely thanks to the numerous strategies the Japanese government has taken to promote economic growth and hence development. Finance and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) have increased as a direct result of globalisation doubling from $63 billion in 2001 to $144 billion in

Japan ranks as the third largest economy in the world as of 2010. The GDP at current prices in US dollars in Japan was reported at 5068.06 billion in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Japan’s resurgence after World War II has however reached an inflection point in yearly 1989 after the burst of Japan’s asset price and real estate bubbles. As can be seen from the graph below, Japan’s GDP has hovered around the same level through more than 20 years of economic stagnation. The GDP’s slow growth has been exacerbated by the world financial crisis of 2008. A major landmark of Japan’s stagnation has been the BOJ’s fight against deflation.