As you may know, in the 80s before the japanese economy crashed, many thought that Japan would become a global superpower, with it's language and culture spreading all over the world. However, the aforementioned economic crash lead to a "Lost Decade" and currently Japan is facing a demographic crisis due to a rapidly aging population-- not exactly superpower material. So, without any ASBs, and with a POD after surrender in 1945, how can you have Japan be as economically and politically dominant as possible?
AHC: Have 1980s ideas about global Japanese dominance come true
- Thread starter King Jasper
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Wasn't one of the main issues of the economic boom the fact that speculation had increased asset prices (especially real estate) to unreasonable levels? I guess the government could have intervened to try and cool off that speculation earlier on in the 80s. Another issue was that there were companies that were overvalued without actually producing much (zombie corporations, I believe)? That's more an issue of corporate structure. It's not like Japan lacked regulation at the time, though...
I personally think that more real estate and financial regulation would of helped cool down the economy, and keep the bubble from getting so big. It would probably still pop, but it would be much less severe, and the Japanese economy would be able to recover.
Another big issue, though, is demographics, though that'll only start becoming a big problem in the 2000s and 2010s. The easiest solution to that is probably more immigration, though weakening japanese society's weird dislike of pregnant women would help a lot too.
Why the hell, did you link to that shirt with the word "culture". There's more to Japan thsn stuff like that, you know. It's not even funny, it's just gross and reductive.
Calm down, dude, I was just making a joke. I'm sorry if you felt that it was reductive or gross.
Sorry dude, but someone had to come in and have a tirade about a fucking hentai joke.
I my opinion, if you can stop the Plaza accord of 1985 from happening and avoid the Bank of Japan's monetary easing policy of the mid 1980s (they almost halved the discount rate in one year) you butterfly the price asset bubble entirely.
The problem is that, by doing that, you won't get the period of massive growth that caused these ideas of "Japan taking over the world" to form in the first place, and you're just left with shitty growth rates througout most of the 80s and 90s (assuming the monetary and financial sectors remain tightly regulated). Now, this is still definitely a net positive, as you avoid the country falling into a pretty nasty recession, but still doesn't provide us with the conditions for a modern Japanene "wank".
To get the Japanese economy to grow quickly in the 21st century, you need to solve of a series of social problems that (IOTL) do not seem to be going away anytime soon, including the declining birthrates, the sexism that is keeping women out of the workforce, the unwillingness to take in immigrants, static corporate culture and abysmal enforcement of worker's rights (which leads to a ridiculously overworked and unproductive workforce).
Perhaps the best way to get this would be to manufacture a lot of corruption scandals in the late 70s and early 80s (there were actually quite a few IOTL, we probably just need a little bit more) so that the LDP might become discredited in a way that allows the socialist party to come into power. Under a JSP government, the monetary and financial sectors would remain tightly regulated, organized labour and worker's rights would get a major boost, allowing the most exploitative aspects of Japanese work culture to be addressed, the keiretsus may get broken up and there's a possibility of social liberalization. The only problem is that such a massive shake up of Japanese society may lead to a lot of instability, which would obviously hurt the economy. But if the changes get done and endure, it will robably be worth it in the long run.
The problem is that, by doing that, you won't get the period of massive growth that caused these ideas of "Japan taking over the world" to form in the first place, and you're just left with shitty growth rates througout most of the 80s and 90s (assuming the monetary and financial sectors remain tightly regulated). Now, this is still definitely a net positive, as you avoid the country falling into a pretty nasty recession, but still doesn't provide us with the conditions for a modern Japanene "wank".
To get the Japanese economy to grow quickly in the 21st century, you need to solve of a series of social problems that (IOTL) do not seem to be going away anytime soon, including the declining birthrates, the sexism that is keeping women out of the workforce, the unwillingness to take in immigrants, static corporate culture and abysmal enforcement of worker's rights (which leads to a ridiculously overworked and unproductive workforce).
Perhaps the best way to get this would be to manufacture a lot of corruption scandals in the late 70s and early 80s (there were actually quite a few IOTL, we probably just need a little bit more) so that the LDP might become discredited in a way that allows the socialist party to come into power. Under a JSP government, the monetary and financial sectors would remain tightly regulated, organized labour and worker's rights would get a major boost, allowing the most exploitative aspects of Japanese work culture to be addressed, the keiretsus may get broken up and there's a possibility of social liberalization. The only problem is that such a massive shake up of Japanese society may lead to a lot of instability, which would obviously hurt the economy. But if the changes get done and endure, it will robably be worth it in the long run.
overall a perfect summary. I wouldn't put the blame of the plaza accord (the bank of Japan had kept the yen depreciated for decades) but on the answer of BoJ took to its first cooling down effects.
To add to the problems you have mentioned the imposibility of failure of any big company as matter of national prestige that leads to zombification (unluckily this is starting to be the norm evetwhere), and extreme proteccion (red tape and above all cultural) from external competition that restricts the potential in several key industruies that woul need better/cheaper input)
A lot of the most successful companies today involve software/information technology. The overwhelming success of the Japanese economy in the era of hardware-based innovation hindered its transition into a digital, software-based economy.
(hence, Hatsunia is literally based on a software)
Another factor is English, which became the lingua franca of software development due to it being easier to store on early computers.
(hence, Hatsunia is literally based on a software)
Robert E. Cole and Yoshifumi Nakata said:
Another factor is English, which became the lingua franca of software development due to it being easier to store on early computers.
In order to have greater Japanese influence upon world economy, I think we have to also continue the Cold War, so Eastern Europe is not integrated to EU, and China continues the true socialist path so it's still a developing country instead of a medium income country.
Continuing Cold War would mean the US and EU/EC would have very strong interest in having a powerful Japan in economic table of the world.
Continuing Cold War would mean the US and EU/EC would have very strong interest in having a powerful Japan in economic table of the world.
Japan doesn’t have the demographics. Even with a GDP per capita that’s nominally on par with Switzerland (I’m not sure if that is possible for a country with Japan’s size who can’t benefit from relatively small niches to the extend Switzerland can) they would have a GDP of less than half of the US.
Unless Japan either establishes a natalist culture on par with Israel during the 60s or has fairly radical immigration policy, I don’t think Japan has the population base.
Unless Japan either establishes a natalist culture on par with Israel during the 60s or has fairly radical immigration policy, I don’t think Japan has the population base.