A left turn in Japan

[KurtFF8]

Source (http://www.marxist.com/left-turn-in-japan.htm)


Written by Frederik Ohsten Friday, 28 August 2009


Prime Minister Taro Aso recently dissolved the Japanese parliament, and has called for elections to be held on the 30 August. All signs point to the ruling party, the bourgeois Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), losing power for the first time since 1955 - excluding a 10-month period at the beginning of the 1990s. Right-wing observers are now talking about a ”political revolution” in Japan.
An interesting article in The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/world/asia/19japan.html) talks of a “broad upwelling of frustration” in Japanese society. The article states that the frustrations are beginning to express themselves politically, seeing as the ruling party is almost certainly going to lose power. Japanese politics has seemed stable for decades, since the same party has been in government for more than 50 years. This makes the current change all the more interesting, and significant.
http://www.marxist.com/images/thumbs/251x171-images-stories-japan-world_economic_forum-tara_aso.jpg (http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/japan/world_economic_forum-tara_aso.jpg)Japanese Prime Minister Tara Aso has called for new elections at the same time as Japanese society is shifting to the left. Photo by World Economic Forum.The New York Times article points to the economy as the decisive factor. The headline “Economy spells trouble for leading party in Japan” alone states this clearly. The article quotes a professor of economy, Masary Kaneko from the Keiko University in Tokyo:
“Voters are finally being pushed into action because their livelihoods are starting to crumble.” The article states that the current wave of mass layoffs following the economic crisis has been the decisive factor.
Living standards are falling

According to the World Bank, the average household income has also fallen to a 19-year low. The nation’s per capita gross domestic product declined from the third highest in the world in 1991 to 18th last year. Throughout the last period, ordinary Japanese people have seen an increasingly insecure economic situation.
Since 1990, there has been a large rise in temporary work contracts. Post-war Japan was known as a country where you worked at the same place all your life, and where layoffs and unemployment were basically relatively unknown phenomena. All social measures, even housing, were handled through the workplace. This underlines the seriousness of losing your job in Japan.
Unemployment

These days a third of all workers in Japan are hired on flexible and temporary contracts - if they even have a job. 216,000 workers have been laid off since October last year. The youth have been hit especially hard, as they are the ones with most flexible contracts. In May, the unemployment rate for youth between the ages of 15 and 24 rose to 9 percent. That is almost double the average unemployment rate. The temporary and flexible workers also receive a lower salary than their contracted colleagues. At factories like Toyota and Canon, they receive less than half. In this way the Japanese capitalists hope to divide and weaken the working class.
Safety disappeared

The Japanese economy is fast in decline. The Japanese economy fell at an annualised rate of 15.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, its steepest decline on record. Even if later quarters should help to cushion the fall (which is far from certain), we are still talking about a dramatic and steep fall, which has shaken the consciousness of broad layers of the Japanese working class and youth. All sense of comfort has vaporised like water on a red-hot frying pan.
Meanwhile, working conditions have also deteriorated and wages have dropped. The number of Japanese earning less than 2 million yen per year (15,000 euro) has risen to more than 10 million. The conditions at large factories like Toyota and Canon have become even more unbearable. Most Japanese still remember the story of a 45-year-old worker at Toyota, who died because he had been pressured to work 80 hours of overtime every month. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. In Japanese there is a word for “sudden death due to overtime” – karoshi. This fact shows the inhumane pressure that ordinary Japanese workers suffer.
Communists gain

It is this atmosphere of merciless pressure on the working class, together with a sudden wave of mass layoffs, which has started a change in the political landscape of Japan. It now seems likely that second biggest party – the bourgeois Democratic Party (DPJ) will take office after the elections in August. Opinion polls give this party around 30 per cent of the votes, as against 20 percent for the LDP.
However, what is really interesting is the clear shift to the left, which can be seen in the support for the Communist Party, the JCP. The JCP is set to surpass the New Komeito Party, a Buddhist conservative party in coalition with LDP. This will make the JCP the third largest party in Japan.
Youth turn Communist

http://www.marxist.com/images/thumbs/250x187-images-stories-japan-youth-radicalisation-in-japan-2.jpg (http://www.marxist.com/images/stories/japan/youth-radicalisation-in-japan-2.jpg)According to an article in the Telegraph, the JCP has gained 14,000 members over the last 18 months. One in four of these new members is under the age of 18. This indicates a clear shift to the left amongst Japanese youth. This is a generation that grew up without having experienced the relative stability and sense of safety that existed in Japan during the post-war boom. This generation has only experienced hard conditions – conditions that have led important layers of the youth to come to revolutionary conclusions.
The JCP daily, Akahata, (the Red Flag) has also increased in circulation in the last period. The paper now has a circulation of 1.6 million copies. The JCP claims well over 400,000 members in 25,000 branches. This makes the JCP the second largest Communist Party in the G8-countries, only the Russian Communist Party is bigger.
Literary socialism

The growing support for the JCP is interpreted even by conservative commentators as a clear sign of the desire for radical change in society. A 42-year-old worker form a Tokyo-based transport company said: "Companies are only interested in their profits and protecting their management. They do not care about their staff. They see us as disposable."
This worker voted for the New Komeito Party in the last elections, but now he has turned to the JCP.
The shift to the left is also apparent in literature. A classical Japanese novel, Kanikosen, written 80 years ago by Takiji Kobayashi, a communist who was murdered by the state, about a group of workers at a crab-factory ship in northern Japan, struggling against the employers, has become a best-seller. It has sold well over 500,000 copies. A manga comic with the same story has sold more than 200,000 copies.
Karl Marx’s Capital has also been published as a manga comic. 6000 copies were sold in the first two days alone after it was published.
JCP leaders steer right

At the same time as this shift to the left is taking place in society, the leaders of the JCP have maintained a course to the right. These leaders openly state that they do not want a socialist revolution, but a “democratic revolution” to make “democratic changes in politics and the economy”.
The party leaders, such as former party Chairman, Fuwa Tetsuzo, are talking about “achieving socialism in Japan in stages” and “following a course towards socialism through a market economy.”
The leaders of the JCP will be pressured by objective conditions. Japanese capitalism is in a deep crisis. In such a period, the open declarations of the JCP leaders in favour of the market economy means accepting sackings, wage decreases and cuts in the public sector. That is the exact opposite of what the party’s supporters want. The new generation of communists want to fight for radical change, while at the same time, the leaders do everything they can to stay within the boundaries of the status quo. This is a finished recipe for internal struggle in the JCP.
The DPJ will be discredited sooner rather than later when they take office. They will only be elected due to the hatred of LDP. Those voters who want to kick the LDP out of office in order to achieve “something else” will find that the DPJ is just another ruling class party. This will mean even bigger opportunities for the JCP. In order to enable the JCP to take advantage of these opportunities, and offer an alternative to unemployment, poverty and the capitalist crisis, a clear defence of the working class is needed. This can only be done on the basis of real communist policies – a return to Marxism. During the course of events, through experience, more and more people in and around the JCP will, without doubt, be drawn in direction of the ideas of Marxism.Considering the elections are coming up, I figured this would be a good article to share.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You need to provide the link to the IMT article you posted (I just read it, BTW).

[KurtFF8]

Oh whoops, I posted the wrong link, let me fix that (The one I accidentally linked to was not as good of course)

[BIG BROTHER]

Although from the few I know about the Japanese communist party they are a more or less burocratic/reformist party the fact that people are going to it is very important. Indeed the working masses are growing more radical, the growth to the Japanese communist party symbolizes that. Very good I hope the masses move things forward.

[n0thing]

If you look at their policies, then it certainly closer resembles a social democratic party than a communist or socialist one.

I think it's amazing that Asians, of all people, can still have faith in governments and political parties to spur radical social changes on their behalf.

[Conquer or Die]

If you look at their policies, then it certainly closer resembles a social democratic party than a communist or socialist one.

I think it's amazing that Asians, of all people, can still have faith in governments and political parties to spur radical social changes on their behalf.

Libertarian racist.

Japan's internal quagmire and past political history should be an interesting confrontation.

[MarxSchmarx]

I think it's amazing that Asians, of all people, can still have faith in governments and political parties to spur radical social changes on their behalf.

What the hell is that supposed to mean??

[Revy]

If you look at their policies, then it certainly closer resembles a social democratic party than a communist or socialist one.

I think it's amazing that Asians, of all people, can still have faith in governments and political parties to spur radical social changes on their behalf.

wtf? What does them being Asian have to do with anything?

[Eat the Rich]

I think it's amazing that Asians, of all people, can still have faith in governments and political parties to spur radical social changes on their behalf.

I think that he wants to connect it with the failed (according to him), experiments of Chinese "socialism" , Vietnamese "socialism" etc.

But of course his view is wrong on many levels and can be seen as racist.

[Raúl Duke]

If you look at their policies, then it certainly closer resembles a social democratic party than a communist or socialist one.

I think it's amazing that Asians, of all people, can still have faith in governments and political parties to spur radical social changes on their behalf.

To use the blanket term "asian" in this context is incorrect and inaccurate.

The reason why people are heading to the JCP in Japan may lie more in the fact that sometime during the 30s (after some earthquake) Japan's nascent radical movement and radical labor organizations were crushed. Afterwards, arguably, Japan had little experience of radical mass labor organizations (however, South Korea points to a different example). This "lack of experience" may have something to do with it. Another reason is also the fact that in Japan the same party has been in control virtually uninterrupted since the 50s.

[StalinFanboy]

Man, why is it always Communist Parties that are anti-revolution?

[x359594]

...The reason why people are heading to the JCP in Japan may lie more in the fact that sometime during the 30s (after some earthquake) Japan's nascent radical movement and radical labor organizations were crushed. Afterwards, arguably, Japan had little experience of radical mass labor organizations (however, South Korea points to a different example). This "lack of experience" may have something to do with it. Another reason is also the fact that in Japan the same party has been in control virtually uninterrupted since the 50s.

Your history is a little bit off here comrade. After the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, a number of leading radicals were summarily executed (most famously Socialists like Hirasawa Keishichi, anarchists like Osugi Sakae and Ito Noe, and the the Chinese communal leader Ou Kiten.) However by 1925 the radical labor movement had revived and was making significant gains in organizing the working class. This era is known in Japanese history as "Taisho Democracy."

Prior to the Kanto Earthquake, from 1873 with the establishment of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement until 1923 there was a vigorous if often persecuted mass radical labor movement. There was a two year interregnum after the earthquake, but from 1925 until 1935 the radical labor movement continued to flourish. In 1935 the fascist government cracked down on all socialist and radical labor agitation eventually arresting around 50,000 "undesireable elements."

After WWII political parties began to revive almost immediately. Left-wing organizations, such as the Japan Socialist Party and the Japan Communist Party, quickly reestablished themselves, as did various conservative parties. The US Occupation made an attempt to break up the zaibatsu and was more successful in land reform (the land reform program was overseen by the socialist Wada Hiro.) Membership in newly legalized unions sky rocketed and agressive organizing campaigns commenced almost immediately culminating in the Motion Picture Industry Strike of 1948. The strike was crushed with the help of US Occupation forces.

The labor movement in Japan was very active during the 1950s and 1960s; radical unions formed the backbone of the AMPO "riots" of 1960, a nation wide protest against the US-Japan Security Pact. During downturns, or when management tries to reduce the number of permanent employees, strikes often occur. The number of working days lost to labor disputes peaked in the economic turmoil of 1974 and 1975 at around 9 million workdays in the two-year period. In 1979, however, there were fewer than 1 million days lost. Since 1981 the average number of days lost per worker each year to disputes was just over 9% of the number lost in the United States. After 1975, when the economy entered a period of slower growth, annual wage increases moderated and labour relations were conciliatory. During the 1980s, workers received pay hikes that on average closely reflected the real growth of GNP for the preceding year. In 1989, for example, workers received an average 5.1% pay hike, while GNP growth had averaged 5% between 1987 and 1989. The moderate trend continued in the early 1990s as the country's national labor federations were reorganizing themselves. It was around this time that Japan entered as period of prolonged economic stagnation and employers sought to recuperate their declining profits on the back of labor. This is the origin of the discontent now manifesting itself in the turn to the left in my view.

[Q]

Man, why is it always Communist Parties that are anti-revolution?
The mechanism is very simple. Times go rough, people move to the left. The often bureaucratic leadership of the left party feels their policy is vindicated and moves to the right in an attempt to move to "realpolitik" and be an acceptable coalition partner. Note that this is only an abstraction of historical processes and that each situation might be different.

[Bankotsu]

What do you all think? A victory for the left in Japan and the weakening of U.S influence in Japan?

Article by New Japanese Prime Minister:


A New Path for Japan

By YUKIO HATOYAMA
Published: August 26, 2009

TOKYO — In the post-Cold War period, Japan has been continually buffeted by the winds of market fundamentalism in a U.S.-led movement that is more usually called globalization. In the fundamentalist pursuit of capitalism people are treated not as an end but as a means. Consequently, human dignity is lost.

How can we put an end to unrestrained market fundamentalism and financial capitalism, that are void of morals or moderation, in order to protect the finances and livelihoods of our citizens? That is the issue we are now facing.

In these times, we must return to the idea of fraternity — as in the French slogan “liberté, égalité, fraternité” — as a force for moderating the danger inherent within freedom.

Fraternity as I mean it can be described as a principle that aims to adjust to the excesses of the current globalized brand of capitalism and accommodate the local economic practices that have been fostered through our traditions.

The recent economic crisis resulted from a way of thinking based on the idea that American-style free-market economics represents a universal and ideal economic order, and that all countries should modify the traditions and regulations governing their economies in line with global (or rather American) standards.

In Japan, opinion was divided on how far the trend toward globalization should go. Some advocated the active embrace of globalism and leaving everything up to the dictates of the market. Others favored a more reticent approach, believing that efforts should be made to expand the social safety net and protect our traditional economic activities. Since the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (2001-2006), the Liberal Democratic Party has stressed the former, while we in the Democratic Party of Japan have tended toward the latter position.

The economic order in any country is built up over long years and reflects the influence of traditions, habits and national lifestyles. But globalism has progressed without any regard for non-economic values, or for environmental issues or problems of resource restriction.

If we look back on the changes in Japanese society since the end of the Cold War, I believe it is no exaggeration to say that the global economy has damaged traditional economic activities and destroyed local communities.

In terms of market theory, people are simply personnel expenses. But in the real world people support the fabric of the local community and are the physical embodiment of its lifestyle, traditions and culture. An individual gains respect as a person by acquiring a job and a role within the local community and being able to maintain his family’s livelihood.

Under the principle of fraternity, we would not implement policies that leave areas relating to human lives and safety — such as agriculture, the environment and medicine — to the mercy of globalism.

Our responsibility as politicians is to refocus our attention on those non-economic values that have been thrown aside by the march of globalism. We must work on policies that regenerate the ties that bring people together, that take greater account of nature and the environment, that rebuild welfare and medical systems, that provide better education and child-rearing support, and that address wealth disparities.

Another national goal that emerges from the concept of fraternity is the creation of an East Asian community. Of course, the Japan-U.S. security pact will continue to be the cornerstone of Japanese diplomatic policy.

But at the same time, we must not forget our identity as a nation located in Asia. I believe that the East Asian region, which is showing increasing vitality, must be recognized as Japan’s basic sphere of being. So we must continue to build frameworks for stable economic cooperation and security across the region.

The financial crisis has suggested to many that the era of U.S. unilateralism may come to an end. It has also raised doubts about the permanence of the dollar as the key global currency.

I also feel that as a result of the failure of the Iraq war and the financial crisis, the era of U.S.-led globalism is coming to an end and that we are moving toward an era of multipolarity. But at present no one country is ready to replace the United States as the dominant country.

Nor is there a currency ready to replace the dollar as the world’s key currency. Although the influence of the U.S. is declining, it will remain the world’s leading military and economic power for the next two to three decades.
Current developments show clearly that China will become one of the world’s leading economic nations while also continuing to expand its military power. The size of China’s economy will surpass that of Japan in the not-too-distant future.

How should Japan maintain its political and economic independence and protect its national interest when caught between the United States, which is fighting to retain its position as the world’s dominant power, and China, which is seeking ways to become dominant?

This is a question of concern not only to Japan but also to the small and medium-sized nations in Asia. They want the military power of the U.S. to function effectively for the stability of the region but want to restrain U.S. political and economic excesses. They also want to reduce the military threat posed by our neighbor China while ensuring that China’s expanding economy develops in an orderly fashion. These are major factors accelerating regional integration.

Today, as the supranational political and economic philosophies of Marxism and globalism have, for better or for worse, stagnated, nationalism is once again starting to have a major influence in various countries.

As we seek to build new structures for international cooperation, we must overcome excessive nationalism and go down a path toward rule-based economic cooperation and security.

Unlike Europe, the countries of this region differ in size, development stage and political system, so economic integration cannot be achieved over the short term. However, we should nonetheless aspire to move toward regional currency integration as a natural extension of the rapid economic growth begun by Japan, followed by South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and then achieved by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China. We must spare no effort to build the permanent security frameworks essential to underpinning currency integration.

Establishing a common Asian currency will likely take more than 10 years. For such a single currency to bring about political integration will surely take longer still.

ASEAN, Japan, China (including Hong Kong), South Korea and Taiwan now account for one quarter of the world’s gross domestic product. The economic power of the East Asian region and the interdependent relationships within the region have grown wider and deeper. So the structures required for the formation of a regional economic bloc are already in place.

On the other hand, due to historical and cultural conflicts as well as conflicting national security interests, we must recognize that there are numerous difficult political issues. The problems of increased militarization and territorial disputes cannot be resolved by bilateral negotiations between, for example, Japan and South Korea, or Japan and China. The more these problems are discussed bilaterally, the greater the risk that emotions become inflamed and nationalism intensified.

Therefore, I would suggest, somewhat paradoxically, that the issues that stand in the way of regional integration can only be truly resolved by moving toward greater integration. The experience of the E.U. shows us how regional integration can defuse territorial disputes.

I believe that regional integration and collective security is the path we should follow toward realizing the principles of pacifism and multilateral cooperation advocated by the Japanese Constitution. It is also the appropriate path for protecting Japan’s political and economic independence and pursuing our interests in our position between the United States and China.

Let me conclude by quoting the words of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, founder of the first popular movement for a united Europe, written 85 years ago in “Pan-Europa” (my grandfather, Ichiro Hatoyama, translated his book, “The Totalitarian State Against Man,” into Japanese): “All great historical ideas started as a utopian dream and ended with reality. Whether a particular idea remains as a utopian dream or becomes a reality depends on the number of people who believe in the ideal and their ability to act upon it.”

Yukio Hatoyama heads the Democratic Party of Japan, and would become prime minister should the party win in Sunday’s elections. A longer version of this article appears in the September issue of the monthly Japanese journal Voice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/opinion/27iht- (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/opinion/27iht-edhatoyama.html?pagewanted=all)edhatoyama.html?pag ewanted=all (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/opinion/27iht-edhatoyama.html?pagewanted=all)

[n0thing]

What the hell is that supposed to mean??
For the last 50 years Asia has been the centre of institutionalized tyranny and despotism. Most of it coming from governments that claimed to be socialist, communist or whatever.

So yeah. I expect people who grew up in Asia, learning about Asian history, and presumably talking to a few people who've lived under some of these regimes, to be just a little bit less naive.

[kharacter]

"this indicates a clear shift to the left amongst Japanese youth"

this is great to hear. During the occupation by the US, the investment-driven growth in the economy badly damaged trade unions and radical organizations; I mean the US had their own way of doings things, and it stayed embedded into Japanese society. This is a great opportunity for change. This is a also a chance to mess things up, but I feel optimistic about this.

Hearing the JCP softening their methods is disheartening, but there is no need to depend on them to lead the way of the new wave. I think Shūsui Kōtoku would feel some relief reading this article in the Times of the heavens.
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Fuck Jesus! (As an atheist I must make up for the semi-religious connotations in the last sentence)

[n0thing]

As opposed to regimes of peace and freedom for the working class in the West? Capitalism is a global system. Your pointing out Asia solely for so-called "socialist tyranny" also ignores the elephant in the room: the USSR.
Uh, Russia stretches into Asia, you know, And the European USSR example isn't really relevant, since I'm talking about governments that were supported by the people and later went on to betray them. The USSR invaded eastern Europe; they weren't democratically elected, and didn't hold popular support. So it's not relevant to this discussion.

I was tired and drunk when I left the first comment. It's not necessarily all that inaccurate, but the wording is pretty stupid.

[Zeus the Moose]

Well, exit polls/projections I've seen actually have the JCP losing a seat, though the official results will not be announced until Monday. What is fairly clear, however, is that the Democratic Party of Japan is more or less guaranteed to have an absolute majority in the Lower House. Combined with winning the Upper House back in 2007 (I think, could have been 2008), they're now Japan's governing party. So not only will this be only the second time since 1955 that the Liberal Democrats have not been in government, but this will be the first time the Democratic Party of Japan will be a government party as well, as the DPJ was only formed in the mid-late 1990s.

That said, however, I'm not sure I expect too much change to come out of a DPJ-led government, as politically the DPJ and LDP are almost politically closer to each other than the Democrats and Republicans in the US. So we'll see about that...

[pierrotlefou]

"this indicates a clear shift to the left amongst Japanese youth"

this is great to hear. During the occupation by the US, the investment-driven growth in the economy badly damaged trade unions and radical organizations; I mean the US had their own way of doings things, and it stayed embedded into Japanese society. This is a great opportunity for change. This is a also a chance to mess things up, but I feel optimistic about this.

I feel optimistic as well but probably in the same sense as I do with the US. The hope that this push to the middle from the right can keep going into the actual left and not the "corporate left". I don't see anything changing as of yet but at the very least, it's hopeful that maybe the next generation in the govt will actually be "less on the side of corporations" as they said.

[n0thing]

According to you, such a vile thing happens only in Asia?

The whole premise of your "argument" is fallacious since it ignores the global presence of capitalism. The state capitalist regimes of Asia were not independent of your precious western bourgeois wonderlands as all of them were and are part of capitalism.

Its a load of bourgeois liberal crap.
You realize you made a mistake, you try to change the subject and redirect the argument.

Accept your soviet union point had no relevance and move on.

[POUM]

I think that he wants to connect it with the failed (according to him), experiments of Chinese "socialism" , Vietnamese "socialism" etc.

But of course his view is wrong on many levels and can be seen as racist.

No, it can't.

You see, geopolitics are real and existant,if you think that's racist then you're just a p.c. fascist:D

[Raúl Duke]

Your history is a little bit off here comrade. After the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, a number of leading radicals were summarily executed (most famously Socialists like Hirasawa Keishichi, anarchists like Osugi Sakae and Ito Noe, and the the Chinese communal leader Ou Kiten.) However by 1925 the radical labor movement had revived and was making significant gains in organizing the working class. This era is known in Japanese history as "Taisho Democracy."

Prior to the Kanto Earthquake, from 1873 with the establishment of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement until 1923 there was a vigorous if often persecuted mass radical labor movement. There was a two year interregnum after the earthquake, but from 1925 until 1935 the radical labor movement continued to flourish. In 1935 the fascist government cracked down on all socialist and radical labor agitation eventually arresting around 50,000 "undesireable elements."

After WWII political parties began to revive almost immediately. Left-wing organizations, such as the Japan Socialist Party and the Japan Communist Party, quickly reestablished themselves, as did various conservative parties. The US Occupation made an attempt to break up the zaibatsu and was more successful in land reform (the land reform program was overseen by the socialist Wada Hiro.) Membership in newly legalized unions sky rocketed and agressive organizing campaigns commenced almost immediately culminating in the Motion Picture Industry Strike of 1948. The strike was crushed with the help of US Occupation forces.

The labor movement in Japan was very active during the 1950s and 1960s; radical unions formed the backbone of the AMPO "riots" of 1960, a nation wide protest against the US-Japan Security Pact. During downturns, or when management tries to reduce the number of permanent employees, strikes often occur. The number of working days lost to labor disputes peaked in the economic turmoil of 1974 and 1975 at around 9 million workdays in the two-year period. In 1979, however, there were fewer than 1 million days lost. Since 1981 the average number of days lost per worker each year to disputes was just over 9% of the number lost in the United States. After 1975, when the economy entered a period of slower growth, annual wage increases moderated and labour relations were conciliatory. During the 1980s, workers received pay hikes that on average closely reflected the real growth of GNP for the preceding year. In 1989, for example, workers received an average 5.1% pay hike, while GNP growth had averaged 5% between 1987 and 1989. The moderate trend continued in the early 1990s as the country's national labor federations were reorganizing themselves. It was around this time that Japan entered as period of prolonged economic stagnation and employers sought to recuperate their declining profits on the back of labor. This is the origin of the discontent now manifesting itself in the turn to the left in my view.

Thanks for the history brief.

Ok then, I'll just scratch the first part that I mention and just stick to the fact that the same party has been in power virtually uninterrupted is part of the reason why the "left turn" is mostly being funneled into the JCP (i.e. in Japan most people are probably really really cynicall of the current ruling party and are probably, some at least, a bit cynical of the other major party since they've seen their preformance in local government. But there's probably no cynicism towards the JCP or similar parties unlike there could be in Europe, which has had some experience of radical and labor parties winning elections.)


Yukio Hatoyama Article

According to the bottom, he's a politician for the Democratic Party...I don't think that party is considered to be on the left (although his statement in the article is interesting but reminds me of the kind of rhetoric the Partito Democratico might use in Italy and they're not a solidly left, only "center-left", or radical party either)

[MarxSchmarx]

For the last 50 years Asia has been the centre of institutionalized tyranny and despotism. Most of it coming from governments that claimed to be socialist, communist or whatever.

So yeah. I expect people who grew up in Asia, learning about Asian history, and presumably talking to a few people who've lived under some of these regimes, to be just a little bit less naive.It is silly to lump the different countries of "Asia" together; there is probably no single region on earth with more diversity in terms of social and political organizations. Even within a single asian country (say, China), your broad generalization breaks down on the most cursory of examinations.

Frankly there are a host of (likely unconscious) racist undertones and assumptions to your claim. That is what makes it really disturbing.

On another note, I agree with x359594's broad outline but there are a few other details that need accounting. For instance, crackdowns on the left actually go back to the meiji era and the great treason incident, if not earlier. Also, the Japanese left was decimated during the second world war, with many of its prominent leaders jailed or executed and whatever organizational remnants crushed. This meant that a lot of the left had to relearn its organizational skills and an infrastructure rebuilt from scratch, whereas their jailers and the fascists went on to fill high level government and corporate posts with considerable American aid. Finally, the Socialist Party imploded in the early 90s, in part from its own opportunism and in part from the fact that it was more closely aligned to the collapsing eastern bloc than the JCP (although more rightwing on domestic issues). Thus, when the LDP and the economy began to falter, there was no credible political alternative for labor unionists, as the JCP failed to fill the void for labor unions left by remnants of the defunct SP .

[Red Apex]

If you look at their policies, then it certainly closer resembles a social democratic party than a communist or socialist one.

I think it's amazing that Asians, of all people, can still have faith in governments and political parties to spur radical social changes on their behalf.

Racist much?
libertarian socialist sounds a lot like a national anarchist to me. you wouldn't happen to be one would you??

[POUM]

oh yes,libertarian socialists of all are so very racist...as i said before stop with the politically correct bullshit, it is very clear what the man meant, if i said- It is very unusual for Americans to have elected Bush twice. Would that be chauvinist or racist?

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Racist much?
libertarian socialist sounds a lot like a national anarchist to me. you wouldn't happen to be one would you??

Personally I'm not sure how you get one from the other. Maybe I don't understand what you mean by "sounds a lot like" but they're two pretty distinct and different things. He's obviously not a racist either, so chill out.

[KurtFF8]

It seems that the JCP failed to gain any seats in this election, however:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_general_election,_2009#Results

[Zeus the Moose]

It seems that the JCP failed to gain any seats in this election, however:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_general_election,_2009#Results

So it looks. However, since nearly 3/5th of the seats are gained through single-member districts, I'd say it's not entirely surprising, though it is a little disappointing that they didn't seem to gain much in votes in the block constituencies.

Still, I'd be interested to see how they did in the single member districts as compared to 2005, as there may be an increase in JCP votes there.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The JCP only kept its seat count because voter turnout was much higher.

[MarxSchmarx]

Well, at least they didn't lose seats, which is the best they could ask for as they are not seen as a credible alternative. Another reason that they hung on was that there are a small # of seats set aside for proportional representation in Japan. The JCP did not win a single winner take all slot.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That is expected for first-past-the-post shit, though. :)