How do they do it Veeky Forums? How does a single party stay in power for almost 60 consecutive years, the exception being a slight hiccup in the early 2000s?
I like to think this doesn't fall under the 25 year rule since they've been in power for nearly 70.
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Japan is practically a feudalistic society plus nintendo
It is a one party state
Democracy didn't emerge naturally in Japan through a popular revolution or democratic reform movement like it did in most of Europe.
They just went from being a dictatorship to being a democracy overnight because America told them they were now a democracy after WWII. On top of that, Eastern culture values conformity and social order far more than Western cultures, so it really wouldn't make sense for two equally strong adversarial parties to emerge like you have in America.
This
And also this
I think it's because they had a modern Weberian state before democratization.
Because they spent those many decades creating the political equivalent of a mega corporation or crime family. Like some zaibatsu or yakuza syndicate, the party is more about an enormous hierarchy of personal loyalties than appealing to voters on issues or advancing an ideology. Its constituents are more like low-level employees who rely on the party's patronage the way an office worker practically lives and dies inside the enclosed world of his company. Voting for another party becomes something like working part-time, self-employed, or for a startup.
Japanese democracy is really just a sham
rural areas have much more representation than they make up of the population, especially before the electoral reform of the 90s.
Two party is a thing in FPTP systems, like the US political system.
Even the US itself recognizes how shitty this system is, and set up parliamentary systems in all the places they democratized, see Japan, Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq.
They cheat, they literally cheat. The system is designed such that as long as the LDP maintains control of the low-population rural areas, they can literally never lose majority power. They haven't won the popular vote since like 1963.
Here's a video that goes pretty in-depth about it, but be warned that it's like an hour long and is a literal powerpoint presentation. The man giving the lecture is talking from experience with the system though.
youtube.com
>the party is more about an enormous hierarchy of personal loyalties than appealing to voters on issues or advancing an ideology. Its constituents are more like low-level employees who rely on the party's patronage the way an office worker practically lives and dies inside the enclosed world of his company.
So like the Roman Republic worked?
Rural constituencies are basically always theirs.
Ponders to older demographics.
System us set up that no other party has a chance
>Panders to older demographics.
Well a third of the total population is senior citizens so that isn't a bad idea.
It's more like pander to an established voter base and as time goes on also pander to the older demographics which grows bigger as time goes on.
Basically other parties lose votes through attrition as the pop ages
Essentially this.
The LDP politicized the Bureaucracy and therefore whenever a reformist party gains power, they have to fight the Bureaucracy to make any changes.
It's like if the GOP selected all 9 Supreme Court Justices back in 1987 and they are all still in power.
Also, rural districts are proportionally given 8x more voting power than the cities. You can guess who guarantees 40% of all Diet seats for LDP each election.
That's not REALLY cheating. Yes the rules are bullshit, but they are playing by the rules as written.
Isn't the bureaucracy literally an official branch of government alongside the legislation there?
LDP has a loyal voter base because its tenure was associated with the japanese economic miracle. People mindlessly voted for the party back then because they saw the LDP as the party that would best manage the economy.
The early 1990s economic recession that has dramatically slowed japan's economic growth rate ever since. resulted in the ldp losing power once during the 90s due to the recession and another in late 2000s after the global financial crash. but they managed to bounce back because their voter base is more lyal than the opposition surges at points that evaporate within the next election.
furthermore other than middle class japs voting for ldp because they trust them over the economy despite the 90s crisis happening during their watch. you have older + rural voters who vote for LDP because they are THE conservative party in japan and are against gay rights and immigration.
all these factors allow them to be the dominant party in japan.
Aren't they a big tent party and have different factions within it?
They legit have no fucking clue what's going on so they just go the safe route.
Most Japanese ppl are apolitical I heard
Parliamentary systems aren't immune to fptp, we invented the system and we've still got fptp, saying "they instituted governments with proportional representation" would be more appropriate
Japan carefully masquerades being a democratic country which they don't find that hard to do since for about 80 years before 1945 they also carefully masqueraded being a westernized country, and being a country before that.
Japan is the most exciting continuous theatrical performance in the world after North Korea.
Here's a rundown on how it began:
jpri.org
There's a manga out there about how the closed country policy came about because there was an epidemic that wiped out 90% of the male population, and they feared they would be invaded if other countries found out, so they minimized contact with foreigners and had noble women in drag pretending everything is perfectly normal and manly.
very low voter turnout, the lowest of any first world nation
oh hi there Rand Paul
I was in a course on Japanese politics taught by Scheiner while at UC Davis, nice guy, good lecturer and well informed.
Japan is a de facto one party state, same as Turkey, Russia and Singapore etc.
It's actually a good model for stability.
Btw the founder of the LDP described himself as a "National Socialist". Libcucks who think Japan is some sort of libtard derpmocracy BTFO'd!
LDP is a big-tent right-wing party in that it includes everyone from center-rightists to hardcore Japanese nationalists.
>Singapore
>Japan
Can you spot the difference in pic related?
Hasn't Singapore attracted large numbers of professionals to swell its population over the past 20-30 years from overseas, whereas Japan's labor force has actually declined?
the chart is per capita
Asian ''''''''''democracy''''''''''
What does this have to do with my point? Both Singapore and Japan aren't really democracies in the sense westerners would understand the term, that has nothing to do with their respective per capita incomes.
All Asians can do is copy, but their creations lack soul and true inspiration. Their copies always result in cheap mockeries of the original, simple mimicry, a replication of the exterior aspect and formal elements of the original without a true understanding of its spirit and essence.
Japanese only respect strenght. They were utterly defeated by a democracy, so of course they had to become """democratic""".
But again, this is simple mimicry. The spirit of democracy is just not there, only the formality. There is free speech, but there is no lively clash and debate of ideas. There is voting, but there is almost no alternation of parties in power. There is a Parliament, but it's the backroom deals that truly rule the day. There are political parties, but it's the LDP bureaucracy that rules the country.
Singapore's GDp is artificially boosted by giving residency to rich people, thus the result.
Maybe this is the natural order of things then. The west comes up with ideas and the east physically produces the actual manifestations of those ideas. Like all the modern devices that were designed in America but produced in China. Meanwhile the rest of the world serves to keep east and west in constant fear so that no one wants to rock the boat. Global stability, in perpetuity.
????
Wealth isn't even a part in GDP. It's a measure of economic activity.
>Can you spot the difference in pic related?
City-states vs nation-states. An adequate comparison would use Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei instead.
>South Korea
>50 million people
>City-state
Please fuck off weeaboo
>What is Hong Kong and Singapore
Begone brainlet
you must be kidding
Are you that Sinkie Chink leftard who rants about FTs/ang mohs all the time and doesn't believe Singapork has an inbuilt preference for mainland chink immigrants?
Fucking faggot.
Triggered samefag.
Hong Kong and Singapore being city states doesn't explain Japan's stagnation.
South Korea abd Taiwan are NOT city states yet they also managed to catch up and overtake Japan.
See Only a weeaboo retard like the kind inhabiting this shit site would make up excuses for Japan's utter failure as a country post 1990.
>utter failure as a country post 1990.
>capital-intensive manufacturing sector is stronger than it was in 1990
Hmmm.
Sounds about right for mango
True wealth and GDP are different. But wealthy people tend to spend more thus increasing the GDP. Singapore is Tax haven, not that its a bad thing.
W E E A B O O
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It is a bad thing. Tax havens grow their economies by encouraging nationals from other countries to send their money there. They get richer from eroding everyonr else's tax base. Then it becomes a race to the bottom.
Not in the slightest, weebs are self-loathing faggots.
It was 1995 when Japan pushed the last foreign competitor out of the SMC silicon market, turning it into a virtual duopoly run by ShinEtsu and Sumco. SMC: Probably one of the most important producer's goods on earth, requiring some of the most elaborate and sophisticated manufacturing techniques on earth.
This during the height of the so-called "lost decades". Why were the US and Germany not able to outcompete them? Why did Japan push them out instead?
If you'd prefer to discuss other producer's goods, e.g. LCD steppers, precision engineered auto-parts etc - we can discuss those too.
>Japan is the most exciting continuous theatrical performance in the world after North Korea
What about Israel?
>Triggered samefag.
Nice try.
>Hong Kong and Singapore being city states doesn't explain Japan's stagnation.
No, it doesn't. Still doesn't make your chart an accurate comparison.
>South Korea abd Taiwan are NOT city states yet they also managed to catch up and overtake Japan.
True, but many factors have to be taken into account in GDP (ppp) per capita. Currency, pop growth, etc. The single-party link with stagnation isn't being addressed at all.
>Only a weeaboo retard like the kind inhabiting this shit site would make up excuses for Japan's utter failure as a country post 1990.
??? If being a stable, undivided and actually recognized country is failure I don't know what to say.
>WE WILL RULE THE WORLUUUU FUKING AMELICANS PIGS
Less GDP per capita than fucking Angola
You actually seriously believe that Singapore's GDP is high because of consumption by wealthy people? Consumption makes up only 10% of Singapore's GDP. This is incredibly low. Most countries are around 60%. Singapore has a high GDP because its a trade hub.
What in God's name are you talking about? Are you mentally unwell? I can hardly understand half your post.
Japan hasn't been the wealthiest nor the largest Asian economy since the 1990s. It has stagnated across all metrics.
Deal with it.
>Japan hasn't been the wealthiest nor the largest Asian economy since the 1990s. It has stagnated across all metrics.
Deal with it.
Japanese economic stagnation is common knowledge. No one is refuting it. Equating it with failure is exaggerated.
If your only metric for success as a nation is just GDP per capita, you fail to take into account other factors: re-annexed in all but name, progressive diplomatic marginalization and having your other half held in impoverished hostage.
All that GDP per capita in the future will shift (absorbed by China or dragged down via reunification), whereas Japan will remain stagnant but stable. You ever wonder why the Yen is an international reserve currency and a haven currency even, whereas the others are not? You don't because you just are an autist that keeps screaming muh gdp per capita.
Refer to:
>all metrics
They've been posting large current account surpluses, give or take a few blips, for many years since the 1990s now
>B...But GDP!
Yeah, they're a mature economy with a declining labor force. Of course their GDP isn't going to be increasing at the same rate as a country of 1.4bn with a per capital GDP 1/3rd of theirs.
>You ever wonder why the Yen is an international reserve currency
More important than that are the coupon rates their bonds command on international markets - together with Switzerland they've been viewed as the most secure economy for decades.
Good point, are JP sovereign bonds primarily USD denominated or Yen denominated? If it's the latter that would make the it even stronger than I thought.
Yes. Imagine if a political party appointed every significant bureaucrat to lifelong positions in the Bureaucracy. They wouldn't be technically forced to support the LDP, but they all would in a de facto sense.
LDP literally is "The Establishment".
> from being a dictatorship to being a democracy overnight
brainlet american perspective. Japan was a liberal democracy from around 1900 to late 1920s until militarists took over (even then they preserved the forms of the parliamentary democracy)
Not really. Mostly conservatives with a few reformists.
>cucked by SK
AHAHAHHAHA
Lmao at every brainlet here who referred to moderate oligarchy as democracy. Put down your modern propaganda and read a classical text some day.
JGB ones are yen-denominated.
Another good example of the strength of the Japanese economy (current account surplus is probably the best) is the fact they're a net capital exporter too - Japan's FPI in net is huge, they own debt all over the world, including a significant chunk of US treasuries.
Being a net exporter of capital is hugely important as a metric because it's actually the position the US occupied in the 1950s, 60s and 70s back when the US was paramount world-leader.
Wtf
Is this from like 2005?
China's per capita nominal GDP is $8,000 and it is 87th in the list.
Financial strength != economic strength
All that money has done nothing for their economy the last twenty shittu years.
GDP remains the best metric of living standards worldwide, and in that Japan is still at 1995 levels.
>All that money has done nothing for their economy the last twenty shittu years.
Most people have jobs in Japan: Good, secure jobs in real, productive fields like manufacturing. Unemployment in Japan never goes above 5%, and that's using a more rigorous method of ascertaining it than the simple claimant count measure most western economies do. House prices are declining in Japan, unlike in the Western world, making home ownership more affordable. Japan's cities are orders of magnitude more safe, clean and livable than just about any western urban center, Japan doesn't face weekly terror attacks from giant and growing fifth columns inside its own borders.... I could go on, but you get the idea.
>GDP remains the best metric of living standards worldwide
No it doesn't? Would you rather live in India or Estonia?
How can one man be this brainlet?
>Financial strength != economic strength
LOL nigger you don't become financially strong without having a dependable economic base. How dumb are you? In this case Japan is financially strong because its export-sector is just that damn good that people can rely on it to continue churning out top-tier producer's goods.
>oh yes the Japanese-named Lost Decades were perfectly okay and Japanese don't know what they're talking about!
Deluded fuck right here
>india
I specifically meant GDP per capita remains the best metric of living standards. You not understanding that is seriously pathetic.
He's still right but with incorrect chronology. The rapid modernization took place during the Meiji era. and reached its zenith during Taisho. It backslid a bit but the US "helped" them get back.
Also all the shenanigans in Korea started in the 1890s.
>Deluded fuck right here
I've already pointed you here:
Answer the question:
This during the height of the so-called "lost decades". Why were the US and Germany not able to outcompete them? Why did Japan push them out instead?
Japanese manufacturing has only become stronger since the early 1990s. There isn't a single auto-assembly plant on the planet that could function without Japanese producer's goods. Hence why they all shut down after the Tohoku Earthquake.
>I specifically meant GDP per capita remains the best metric of living standards.
GDP per capita doesn't tell you about livability. KSA, UK and USA have higher per capita GDPs than Japan, but Japan is undeniably the more livable place.
Great insight. What do you think the BoJ response be to a potential FED balance sheet unwinding in the future? I've always found it fascinating how the BoJ has been at the forefront with QE and negative rates and whatnot.
>Financial strength != economic strength
Nor does GDP != economic strength
>GDP remains the best metric of living standards worldwide, and in that Japan is still at 1995 levels.
You mean HDI
Let's ask the Japanese people how they feel about financial strength.
tradingeconomics.com
>quality
Enjoy your toyota cars!
google.com
Their "quality" is leading to at least $2 trillion in ruined goods.
>nor does
So what do you suggest as a measure of economic strength? There's a reason literally every significant country still uses GDP as its measure. There's a reason that measure is updated and improved every few years.
>HDI
Oh yes, the amount of women in parliament. How beautiful.
By HDI, Japan is #31. Amazing!
>the Lost Decades didn't happen! Japanese have no clue that their economy was actually AMAZING!
I still think the thesis that democracy and other western ideas are "unnatural" and transplanted is not fair. It denies that the Japanese were genuinely enthusiastic for western ideas, were eager to implement them and debated the implementation among themselves. They did all of this in the late 19th/ early 20th century, but its obvious most people itt haven't read about that era.
Is that why their entire democratic governmental system is based off of the UK and the USA?
>What do you think the BoJ response be to a potential FED balance sheet unwinding in the future?
It's difficult to say, I think the Japanese in general plan for the long-run though. If you look at something like the Japanese whaling fleet, I've heard it convincingly put that its sole reason for existence is that Japanese elites fear that the fact they're a net importer of food makes them vulnerable to potential incidents overseas and that say, if SHTF in the US and other net foodstuff exporters, Japan would upscale the size of its whaling fleet in an attempt to procure a viable source of protein.
More generally, if the FED actually unwound its balance sheet I think the Japanese would just find a way to deal with it.
I'm not talking about Japanese cars per se (although they're still the most reliable statistically speaking by just about any metric), I'm talking about the producer's goods that are used to manufacture any modern car anywhere on earth.
>Let's ask the Japanese people how they feel about financial strength.
Of course the Japanese feel they aren't as strong as they were in the 1980s, when they had a real estate bubble.
The "lost decades" are and have always been a trade negotiation tactic the Japanese government invoke when the US is pressuring them to open up say, their domestic rice market.
The real answer is that liberal democracy was assumed to be intimately linked to material progress, and that the continued success of illiberal governments and systems economically, and even the idea that liberalism may retard progress of various kinds, has simple depleted liberalism's brand value over time.
The spell that you need to be liberal to get rich, developed and strong has been broken. Westerners just haven't realized it yet.
No, that's because they lost WW2 and the Americans write their new constitution for them. This is also why the Jap constitution is one of the most ultra-feminist on Earth, which is ALSO why they have suffered such a dramatic demographic decline.
Japan explicitly rejected Anglo style governance in favor of German style during the Meiji. I think one of the few English-like things they did was the Emperor sharing executive power with a privy council. They turned towards Anglo/American governance under the "guidance" of America after WWII (but traces of of Meiji-era and pre-Meiji institutions remain).
Depends on who you ask I think. I know that most contemporary Japanese scholars believe that the Meiji Constitution is a horrific deviation from good democratic practice.
I prefer Great Britain myself.
i not saying that they didn't copy the models, i mean to say that western models will not always be eternally alien to japanese culture, because in fact they incorporated those forms into their political and social life a century ago.
>So what do you suggest as a measure of economic strength? There's a reason literally every significant country still uses GDP as its measure. There's a reason that measure is updated and improved every few years.
GDP measures size not strength. It fails to account for economic complexity, resilience, dependence, etc. An alternative measure that can put all of these factors into a single measure doesn't exist as far as I know. The best we can do for now is probably arbitrarily weighing different indexes and metrics.
>Oh yes, the amount of women in parliament. How beautiful.
By HDI, Japan is #31. Amazing!
Among other things. Now compare it with Qatar and Brunei, while accounting for their GDP per capita.
>Depends on who you ask I think. I know that most contemporary Japanese scholars believe that the Meiji Constitution is a horrific deviation from good democratic practice.
Sure. But only in the 20th century did "democratic practice" become an actual reality, even in the West. Before then, all talk of democracy was largely rhetorical and not a reality. It still is to a large extent...
>This is also why the Jap constitution is one of the most ultra-feminist on Earth
Dumb subhuman poster
>muh cars
Toyota just announced a massive withdrawal of its vehicles because of subpar products it used in them. Japanese "quality" is a meme that is now being BTFO by their failures finally not getting covered up in time.
>Of course the Japanese feel they aren't as strong as they were in the 1980s, when they had a real estate bubble.
Or the 1960's or the 1970's.
There is a reason Japanese call the last two decades the Lost Decades. It's because they were shitty compared to the previous four.
You are an idiot. I never indicated their system started in 1945. The Diet and House of Councilors system is directly take from the British parliamentary system. It has been in effect since 1887.
>GDP measures size, not strength
>subpar products
I'd advise you to look at aggregate rankings of say, breakdown rates per manufacturer. Japanese car manufacturers still dominate, withdrawal or no.
>Or the 1960's or the 1970's.
Well yes, Japan was still recovering from the war and arguably a developing economy in the 1960s and 1970s to a lesser extent. Growth in mature economies slows, because there's less low-hanging fruit you can go after.
>Japan explicitly rejected Anglo style governance in favor of German style during the Meiji.
Source?
Just look at the history of their code of laws, the first Constitution was basically copyeu-pasteud from the Prussian one
Italy's GDP outranks Russia's, by your logic Italy is stronger than Russia
The fundamental problem was the Japanese military being able to exercise a huge amount of independent authority even during the Taisho era. Strict civilian control of the military is pretty deeply ingrained in the American tradition going back to the Founding Fathers so it wasn't a completely new thing at that point.
The Rule of Law in Japan: A Comparative Analysis
Source? I read that many German producers have better quality control as of more recent surveys.
>le if they cover up all the problems until someone dies then they have great quality
>lesser developed
Consumer confidence in the richer and better HDI nations of The Netherlands, Denmark, and the USA are all near all time highs. Japan is still middling.
Try another argument my weeb friend.
>economic power represents national power
Guess where the Prussian one came from.
What kind of retard equates reduced economic growth to a failed state?
German producers are among the worst for reliability, especially when factoring in average cost per maintenance.
reliabilityindex.com
>Consumer confidence in the richer and better HDI nations of The Netherlands, Denmark, and the USA are all near all time highs. Japan is still middling.
Does it really matter? Western economies are driven by debt-consumption, that's why you allow in so many people who have virtually no skills - because what drives growth in western economies is the "C" side of the GDP equation, which is buffeted by the sheer scale of immigration and the sheer ease of availability of consumer credit (something Japan simply doesn't have, on both counts).
>Try another argument my weeb friend.
I'm a European nationalist. How on earth am I a "weeb"?