Japan's New Miracle Economy: Neoliberalism and the Poverty of Wealth

By Ronald Dore at Japan Focus (09.11.2006) :

More striking is the new voice concerned with growing poverty. Books on income distribution, social mobility, the withering of aspiration, pour off the press at the rate of one a week, all deploring the new "divided society." That 28 percent of children in Osaka and 24 percent in Tokyo qualify for free school meals and textbooks has become one of the most quoted statistics. The wage figures I quoted above were those for the labor aristocracy in the big firms. In smaller firms employing half the labor force, wages fell by 10, not 6 percent.

Yet, there is no effective political force to organize the backlash and mobilize sentiment among the electorate at large. Until that happens, investors can relax. The Abe Cabinet will continue to promote the conversion of Japan to Anglo-Saxon capitalism.