The Social Costs and Benefits of Japan's "economic Nationalism" from the 1960s Until the 1990s

The social costs and benefits of Japan’s “economic nationalism” from the 1960s until the 1990s

When the pacific war came to an end, Japan’s main aim was to try to improve their economy. One of the ways they did this was to follow some characteristics which existed from before the war. Traditional goals of nationalism still lingered, and leaders understood that a different approach had to be taken in the post-war period. There still was the presence of bureaucracy, as it managed to survive the purge from the militarism period, and this proved to be valuable for Japan as it had acquired valuable experience and insured the continuation of the existent bureaucrats. These same bureaucrats not only learned how to mobilize and manage the wartime economy, they also became adept at controlling the trade and foreign exchange and also help guide the fortunes of key industries (Pyle, 1996, p. 241). After the war Japan also took a different stance when it came to the main sectors of the industrial structure of the economy. During the war it had concentrated most of its economies in military production, but now since the war had ended and bans had been put upon the Japanese in regards to their military power, it shifted to chemical industrialization. This made Japan emerge as an economic leader in chemicals and heavy industry during the post-war period. Also there was an emergence of small enterprises whose purpose was to serve the needs of larger companies. The once engineers who devoted their hard work in creating military parts needed for war, now utilized their skill in a industry devoted to peace and innovation, seeking to improve the economic and industrial sectors (Pyle, 1996, p. 242). Japan had the desire to emerge as a great economic power, and could only do so by catching up with the capitalist countries of the west, and therefore looked to continue following a nationalist policy, so as to protect its own economy from external factors and to insure the highest growth possible of the economy. Achieving national power was still something Japanese people seek, but now a stronger focus was put upon the economic side of things, before anything else. As Japan was not a country rich in natural resources, it had to import them from other countries (Sato, 1991, p. 78). With their nationalist policies, they would try to keep this to a minimum, having a tight control on what could get imported, and only importing what was needed. This would allow them to fashion the imported resources into high-quality products, which would then be exported to other countries. This allowed them to excel as a second-class power. These factors combined ended up favouring Japan’s focus of becoming a great economic power (Pyle, 1996, p. 243).

By adopting a policy of economic nationalism, there were social benefits and costs for the Japanese people. One of the policies where the nationalist measures were evident

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