
Japanese Economic Takeoff After 1945 (2002) - bootload
http://www.iun.edu/~hisdcl/h207_2002/jecontakeoff.htm
======
Razengan
Some pictures to put it in perspective: [0]

That country's recovery from being the only nation ever to be nuclear-bombed,
to becoming the world's second best economy, while peacefully maintaining some
of the world's safest, cleanest and most orderly cities, is one of mankind's
most admirable success stories.

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/japanpics/comments/59l1am/historica...](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanpics/comments/59l1am/historical_photos_of_postwar_japan/)

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shrewduser
What does second best economy mean?

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hencq
They mean second largest GDP, which Japan was for a while before being
overtaken by China.

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akamaka
If you're interested in this sort of subject, Thomas McCraw's book _Creating
Modern Capitalism: How Entrepreneurs, Companies, and Countries Triumphed in
Three Industrial Revolutions_ gives excellent overviews of how the economies
of Japan and Germany operated before, during, and after the war.

One interesting and counter-intuitive fact I learned is that both countries
came out of the war with a significantly greater industrial capacity than they
had beforehand. Despite the enormous devastation, the wartime build-up was
even more immense, and left both countries poised for recovery.

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elvinyung
There's a very good article[1] by William Gibson on post-Lost Decade Japan. It
even reads like the first few chapters of _Neuromancer_.

[1]
[https://www.wired.com/2001/09/gibson/](https://www.wired.com/2001/09/gibson/)

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truthexposer
This article fails to mention the vast amount of money the US poured into
Japan to make Japan a base of US influence in Southeast Asia. Domestic peace,
maybe, but the other side of the whole international story is a less happy
picture

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nihonde
Why is it so difficult to simply give credit where it's due? There are plenty
of countries that take huge amounts of assistance that fail all day long.
Would you also attribute American success to the spoils of war, colonialism,
Manifest Destiny and African slavery, etc.?

~~~
nsp
Absolutely, wouldn't you?

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nihonde
It's not incorrect but it's dismissive of the thoughtful, hard work that's
necessary to pull off a success. Every big opportunity doesn't equal a big
win. Also, it's easy to take a hard-won effort for granted as an
inevitability.

~~~
geofft
It's only dismissive if you think of events as having a single cause.

America's success relied, absolutely, on African slavery and on the removing
the indigenous populations that were in its way. There are many other
countries that engaged in slavery and population removal that didn't succeed
to the extent America did, yes; you are correct. But there are _also_ many
other countries that simply had Enlightenment ideals and a democracy and
didn't succeed to the extent America did, and many more that simply had
thoughtful, hard work and didn't succeed at all.

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Safety1stClyde
> After the war, they were taught to redirect their devotion to the nation
> from its military expansion to economic expansion. _They were constantly
> exhorted that they were a homogeneous people and superior to all other
> Asians, and superior even to the whites._ To establish their national
> position in the postwar world, they should not be very concerned about
> individual well being, thus should not mind the high cost they have to pay
> for consumer goods that cost less abroad.

It would be nice to have a shred of evidence for claims like this. "Constantly
exhorted ... that they were superior to all other Asians" is almost certainly
pure fiction.

~~~
user982
_> "Constantly exhorted ... that they were superior to all other Asians" is
almost certainly pure fiction._

It's not.

    
    
      The Japanese race is a unique isolate, having no known affinities with any 
      other race. In some extreme versions, the race is claimed to be directly 
      descended from a distinct branch of primates.
    
      "First, they implicitly assume that the Japanese constitute a culturally and 
      socially homogeneous racial entity, whose essence is virtually unchanged from 
      prehistoric times down to the present day. Secondly, they presuppose that the 
      Japanese differ radically from all other known peoples. Thirdly, they are 
      conspicuously nationalistic, displaying a conceptual and procedural hostility 
      to any mode of analysis which might be seen to derive from external, 
      non-Japanese sources."[1]
    

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron)

~~~
Safety1stClyde
Saying the words "It's not" then quoting an almost entirely irrelevant
Wikipedia article is not an effective way to convince me that I'm incorrect.

~~~
user982
You stated that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority was
fiction. I linked to an article that directly demonstrated the existence of,
and examined the effects of, that exact narrative.

Given that you consider that "irrelevant," I agree that I will not convince
you of your incorrectness, since there is clearly no good faith or intelligent
discussion to be had with you.

~~~
Safety1stClyde
> You stated that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority
> was fiction.

I did not.

> I linked to an article that directly demonstrated the existence of, and
> examined the effects of, that exact narrative.

You may have linked to an article that directly demonstrated that, but since I
did not state that the claim of a Japanese narrative of their own superiority
was fiction, whether or not your article demonstrates that is irrelevant.

> Given that you consider that "irrelevant,"

It is irrelevant since I did not say that "the claim of a Japanese narrative
of their own superiority was fiction". I did not even say anything remotely
similar to that.

> I agree that I will not convince you of your incorrectness

You will not be able to convince me of my incorrectness in saying something
which I did not say. Since I did not even say the thing that you claimed me to
have done, it is very hard for me to become convinced that I was or am
incorrect about what you claim I said. The only logical way out of this
conundrum is for you to go back to what I wrote, and notice that I didn't say
what you seem to think I did.

> since there is clearly no good faith or intelligent discussion to be had
> with you.

Now, if you have a new-found desire for an intelligent discussion, the jumping
off point for you, to try to make your future discussions more intelligent, is
to actually read the words the other person has written, then respond to them.
If you respond to something the other person has not written, that will not
result in an intelligent discussion. The failure of intelligence here is not
the failure of the other person to say something intelligent, but a failure of
yours to read the other person's words.

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calinet6
What was the impact of management and efficiency of operation, production
process, and improvement process within these companies? Surely not none. In
the decades post WWII they were simply able to produce better product faster
and with more predictability and consistency—that was not an accident, nor was
it simply capacity, world economy, or internal policy.

"If Japan Can, Why Can't We?"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcG_Pmt_Ny4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcG_Pmt_Ny4)

The opportunity still exists to make a sea change in industry through the
widespread improvement of the management of people.

------
branchless
Princes of Yen:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY)

Rise then neoliberal fall.

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madads
It really was a great way to run their economy.

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branchless
Yes, and the neoliberal way is dire, except for the rentiers.

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flippyhead
This is the main reason I decided to learn Japanese and then live there for a
year of college.

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partycoder
They just re-focused all their effort from being a militaristic power to being
a trade power.

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interfixus
Oh yeah, they _just_ did that. Simple as pie.

~~~
partycoder
Let me rephrase it:

They took their existing mindset/hard work, stopped spending it on military
(in part due to a paradigm shift and also restrictions imposed by foreign
powers) and started spending it purely on industrialization, technology,
infrastructure, trade, education, science... a self-reinforcing effect that
made them incrementally more productive.

~~~
interfixus
No disagreement on the first part.

I remmain to be convinced that Japanese demography will prove of any negative
consequence whatsoever in the long run. globally, population neds to shrink.
The Japanese are showing us how to. The West how to not.

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throwaway323444
"Princes of Yen" ( 円の支配者) has a more cynical view of things. I'd definitely
recommend it, if you're the "conspiracy theorist" sort.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Ac7ap_MAY)

Some of Richard Werner's and Karel van Wolferen's lectures might be
interesting too.

Our society is inclined to attribute success to some intrinsic nature (race,
culture, language..). Japan's successful ? It must be Zen. China not ? Must be
Confucianism, shame-based culture. Now China is ? Ah it must be Confucianism,
collectivism. India is not successful ? It must be Hindooism. They have
Sanskrit ? Ah it must be the Aryans. The Native Americans died out ? Ah it
must be their immune system. The play is clear.

Japan's success is likely due to the way MacArthur normalized its war-economy,
and because of how it was guided in the post-war years. Ditto with
Korea/China/Thailand/ and now Vietnam/India (and other SE countries). I
haven't seen a tick of anything "native" at the heart of it, even though
nationalism dictates that the citizens be deluded into believing these things.

