Resisting Japan's Neoliberal Model of Capitalism: Intensification and Change in Contemporary Patterns of Class Struggle
| Published date | 01 September 2016 |
| Author | Saori Shibata |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12149 |
| Date | 01 September 2016 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12149
54:3 September 2016 0007–1080 pp. 496–521
Resisting Japan’s Neoliberal Model of
Capitalism: Intensification and Change
in Contemporary Patterns of Class
Struggle
Saori Shibata
Abstract
The Japanese model of capitalism has tended to be conceptualized within
the extant literature in terms of a transition from a model characterized by
coordination towards one in which neoliberal reforms have produced greater
levels of instability, competition and inequality. This article argues that these
trends raise the question of what patterns of resistance have been part of this
transition. The article highlights how the neoliberalization of Japan’s model of
capitalism has also been accompanied by intensified class antagonism.Although
the impact of such contestation on policymaking and actual policies has thus far
been limited, Japan’s neoliberalization has nevertheless been (and seems likely
to remain) far from uncontested.
1. Introduction
The Japanese model of capitalism, as depicted in much of the contemporary
political economy literature,tends to be conceptualized in terms of a transition
from a coordinated market economy characterized by class compromise and
relatively high levels of equality and economic security, to a more liberal
market economy characterized by the introduction of neoliberal reforms and
a resultant increase in instability, competition and inequality. Much of this
analysis pivots around 1990 and the bursting of the Japanese financial, asset-
price and housing market bubble(s) — with the Japanese postwar model
viewed as havingreached its limits during the late 1980s, thereby necessitating
a degree of liberalization in an attempt (thus far unsuccessful) to resecure
the conditions of growth. This conceptualization is perhaps most common
Saori Shibata is at the Leiden Institute forArea Studies, Leiden University.
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2015 John Wiley& Sons Ltd/London School of Economics. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
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Resisting Japan’s Neoliberal Model of Capitalism 497
within the comparative capitalisms literature (Anchordoguy 2005; Boyer and
Yamada 2000; Est´
evez-Abe 2008; Streeck and Yamamura 2001; Vogel 2006;
Witt 2006), but is also common to much of the political economy literature
more generally (Ahmadjian 2012; Imai 2011; Rosenbluth and Thies 2010).
This article argues that this depiction raises the question of what patterns
of resistance have been a part of this transition. In particular, and in part
reflecting the prevalence of ‘institutionalist’ approaches within the political
economy literature (Bru 2011; Coates 2005), the response and actions of
workersduring the transformation of Japan’smodel of capitalism have tended
to be understudied. The central question addressed by the article, therefore,
is: what are the politics of liberalization in Japan and, more specifically, what
role does workers’ resistance play within this process? The article argues that
the existing literature has not lookedin detail at the politics of liberalization in
Japan and specifically the role of workers’ resistance. In contrast, the current
article adopts a class-struggle-focused Marxist approach, which especially
concentrates on the study of labour, class struggle and resistance. The
article presents the results of event data analysis, reporting workers’ acts of
contestation as recordedwithin Asahi Shinbun, one of the major newspapers of
public record in Japan.This spans the last three decades of workers’ resistance
in Japan, according to which we see the neoliberalization of Japan’s model
of capitalism being accompanied by intensified labour activism. The article
goes on to argue, in discussing the case of the Democratic Party of Japan
(DPJ) Government (2009–2012) and its reform of the Worker Dispatching
Law (WDL), that one of the consequences of the new patterns of workers’
resistance charted above has been the emergence of what we might consider
a new policy dissensus, including both policy dilemmas for Japan’s political
elite and suboptimal policy outcomes.
2. From a consensus-oriented to a neoliberal Japanese labour market
This section analyses the changes to capital-labour relations that occurred
between the 1980s and the late 2000s, charting the general trend towards
neoliberalization since the 1990s and in the process contextualizing and
foregrounding workers’ resistance within the politics of the liberalization of
Japan.
Attempts to regulate capital-labour relations in the postwar growth period
in Japan, up until 1990, were built largely around the goal of securing core
workers within a long-term employment arrangementin a way that would act
to contain dissent and ensure worker discipline. Thus, long-term employment
for high-skilled core workers, secured largely through in-house training, and
funded in part by long-term loans from interconnected financial institutions,
ensured a low level of labour market turnover and relative stability within the
wage-labour nexus. Attempts to avoid dissent witnessed the construction of
co-operative enterprise unions,based at the level of the firm, which permitted
only in-house core regular workers to be their members, and whichbecame the
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2015 John Wiley& Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
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