George Will on aging Japan

Never one to be left out of a discussion, in his latest Washington Post column, George Will addresses the problems of Japan’s aging population.

There’s little worth commenting on, no new ideas, no new analysis, another retreat of the same ground that any number of articles and columns on the topic have had. And of course, the same old mistaken assumptions.

But today almost one-third of all workers are “non-regular” (up from one-fifth in 1990) and have little security and few benefits.

I believe that would be one-third of office workers. Do the millions of people working in stores, restaurants, agriculture, factories not owned by a Toyota or Canon, or other low hourly jobs not count?
Just look at the latest Labor Force Survey of employees by industry. Do the 11,220,000 people engaged in the “wholesale and retail trade” or the 3,430,000 working in “eating and drinking places, accomodations” have so-called “lifetime employment” jobs? Did they ever? Even at the peak of the so called lifetime employment system, there were wide categories of jobs that were never included, and this is often overlooked in cursory analysis of Japan.

Another fine quote:

Japan, with its centuries of commitment to social harmony

Yes, if you consider a caste system with Samurai permanently on the top and eta permanently on the bottom a “commitment to social harmony,” then I suppose I can’t call him on this one.

9 thoughts on “George Will on aging Japan”

  2. I also read those, but not having any particular errors to call out, had no reason to mention them. I would also think that they are basic enough so that the audience of this blog will find little new in them. The Yasukuni article was better than the Article 9 one though, and I thought he made a very good analogy at the end, for the typical American reader who wants to understand the issue.

    The controversy about Yasukuni should not mystify Americans. With their comparatively minor but still acrimonious arguments about displays of Confederate flags, Americans know how contentious the politics of national memory can be, and they understand the problem of honoring war dead without necessarily honoring the cause for which they died.

  3. I just point those out because the guy seems to be going through a phase of Japan interest. Three columns about Japan in less than a month is pretty unusual.

  4. Very true. I should have linked to them as well, but frankly I had forgotten about them. I wonder which issue in particular that has caused Will to focus so much on Japan recently. Perhaps he’s had a visit recently?

  8. Hmm. Novak has long had a special relation with Japan–have you ever seen that program with the Japanese guy who interviews Washington people with Novak by his side? I forget the guy’s name and which channel he’s on.

  9. Hmm.

    The Article 9 article did have one typo in it. The zero percent interest rate wasn’t an indication of Japan’s economic malaise. I suppose he means ‘growth’ not ‘interest’. One would have thought he would be more careful. Rather laughable how he completely ignores public opinion and procedural problems with changing the constitution.

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