{"id":7524,"date":"2026-05-07T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/?p=7524"},"modified":"2026-05-07T15:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:09:13","slug":"work-and-conservatism-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/work-and-conservatism-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Work and conservatism in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Article by Bernard Thomann<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to the Japanese Prime Minister, the Japanese must work ever harder. This productivist discourse must be placed within the long history of Japanese conservatism and its relationship with liberalism.<\/p>\n

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The full article is available on La Vie des id\u00e9es<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[1] See Bernard Thomann, “From the liberal ‘rupture’ to national refoundation. What future for the ‘Japanese model’ under Abe Shinz\u014d?”, La Vie des id\u00e9es, March 1, 2007. ISSN: 2105-3030.<\/p>\n

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[2] See Bernard Thomann, “Are Asian economies converging toward Anglo-Saxon capitalism?”, La Vie des id\u00e9es, May 23, 2012. ISSN: 2105-3030.<\/p>\n

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[3] “Reng\u014d kaich\u014d ga dai hanron! Shinbun ha detarame de k\u014d puro’ y\u014dnin ha shite inai”, Daiyamondo onrain, 10\/08\/2017.<\/p>\n

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[4] Charles Weathers, Scott North, Shinji Kojima, “Abe Shinz\u014d’s campaign to reform the Japanese way of work”, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, volume 1, issue 23, number 3.<\/p>\n

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[5] Yonaha Y\u016b, D\u014ditsu r\u014dd\u014d – d\u014ditsu chingin ha p\u0101to y\u016bki haken r\u014dd\u014d sha no taig\u016b o kaizen shita ka, Panel Data Research Center, Keio University PDRC Discussion Paper Series, 3\/2025.<\/p>\n

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[6] While the objective of “Abenomics” was to pull Japan out of deflation and restart growth, the results were very mixed: wages stagnated, job insecurity exploded, and public debt reached more than 260% of GDP.<\/p>\n

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[7] Seizon no tame no korona taisaku nettow\u00e2ku, “Seizon hosh\u014d o tettei seyo”, Sekai, June 2020, pp. 88-122.<\/p>\n

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[8] The archetype of this type of economist was Heiz\u014d Takenaka, the architect of postal privatization and certain labor market deregulation measures, a minister between 2001 and 2006 and professor at Keio University who studied at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[9] Fuji Satoshi, Naze, Nihonjin no 9 wari ha kanemochi ni narenai no ka, Tokyo, Poplar Publishing, November 2021.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[10] Hara Taketo, K\u014deki shihon shugi eibei-gata shihonshugi no sh\u016ben, Tokyo, Bunshun shinsho, 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[11] Return on equity (ROE) having traditionally been low in a Japanese capitalism that had long relied primarily on indirect bank financing, but from the 1990s onwards governments had encouraged an ROE of at least 8%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[12] Oguma Eiji, “‘Liberal’ and pacifism in postwar Japan: their given conditions and historical background”, Japan Policy Forum.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[13] Uno Shigeki, End\u014d Masahisa, “Haigaishugi no kiki ni hoshu ga hatasu beki ‘sekinin'”, Ch\u016b\u014d k\u014dron, 2\/2026, pp. 20-31.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[14] Saeki Satoshi, “Nihonry\u016b no hoshushugi to ha nanika?”, Seiron, 02\/2026, pp. 52-62.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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*****<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Bernard Thomann is a professor at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco, Paris) and director of the Institut fran\u00e7ais de recherches sur l’Asie de l’Est (Inalco, Univ. Paris Cit\u00e9, CNRS). He served as French director of the Maison franco-japonaise in Tokyo from 2019 to 2023.<\/p>\n

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Professor Thomann conducts research on the history of labor and social policies in contemporary Japan. He is notably the author of the following works: “Le salari\u00e9 et l’entreprise dans le Japon contemporain – Formes, gen\u00e8se et mutations d’une relation de d\u00e9pendance (1868-1999)” (The Employee and the Company in Contemporary Japan: Forms, Genesis and Transformations of a Relationship of Dependence), Les Indes Savantes, 2008, and “La naissance de l’Etat social japonais. Biopolitique, travail et citoyennet\u00e9 dans le Japon imp\u00e9rial (1868-1945)” (The Birth of the Japanese Welfare State: Biopolitics, Labor and Citizenship in Imperial Japan), Presses de Sciences Po, 2015.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This publication reflects the views and opinions of the individual authors. As a platform dedicated to the sharing of information and ideas, our objective is to highlight a diversity of perspectives. Accordingly, the opinions expressed herein should not be interpreted as those of the Fondation France-Asie or its affiliates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article by Bernard Thomann   According to the Japanese Prime Minister, the Japanese must work ever harder. This productivist discourse must be placed within the long history of Japanese conservatism and its relationship with liberalism.   The full article is available on La Vie des id\u00e9es   [1] See Bernard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7489,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7524"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7582,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7524\/revisions\/7582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationfranceasie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}