Social Inequality in Japan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Chiavacci
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Growth Model ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
Class Society ◽  
Successful Solution

Social inequality is a central issue of modernity in the intersection between the idea of a market economy, with competition as an irreplaceable element, and democracy, with equality as one of its fundamental principles. In postwar Japan, after a period of fierce conflicts, a shared growth model that included a redistribution from urban centers to the rural peripheries was established as a highly successful solution to this inherent contradiction. Upward mobility and increasing incomes, as well as the support of the countryside, led to a narrative of Japan as a general middle-class society and made it exemplary regarding social and political stability. However, since the late 1990s, due to missing growth and social stagnation, this model is no longer functioning, and a new narrative of Japan as a gap society has become dominant. Since 2000, Japanese governments have tried to establish alternative models of neoliberal growth, welfare growth, and Abenomics, but these have not been able to emulate the success of the former shared growth model.

scholarly journals The new social inequality. From middle class society to bipolar society

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-34
Author(s):  
N. L. Polyakova
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Class Society ◽  
Structuralist Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Type

The article analyzes the social transformations that have taken place in societies at the turn of the XXI century. These transformations are largely due to formation of radical inequality which is known now both in practice and theory as “1% economy”.The article demonstrates that adequate understanding of this new type of social inequality is possible only under the condition of change in methodological approach. Contstructivist approach should be given up in favour of structuralist approach. The structuralist approach makes it possible to view the new social inequality as an objective social process as the social structure of a new type of society. This social structure and social order determine social chances and life conditions of individuals.New radical social inequality gives rise to a new type of contemporary society. The bipolar society replaces the mass middle class society of the second half of the XX century. The bipolar society may be graphically presented as a pyramid with a truncated top and a broad social bottom.The article shows the processes and mechanisms that are forming this broad social bottom. This makes it possible to conceptualize the new social lower class as an axial central component in the structure of contemporary bipolar societies. In this function it has replaced the middle class.

The Myth of Middle Class Moderation: African Lessons for South Africa

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-48
Author(s):  
Pauline H. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Underlying Assumption ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
The Government

An underlying assumption that ocurs in both conventional wisdom and in many academic analyses of political behavior is the notion that a critical linkage exists between political change and economic performance. The assumption is that economic growth is either a precondition or a correlate of democracy and political stability. Little empirical research has been done to test the validity of this widely held assumption as it applies to multicultural societies. Moreover, in the African environment, the assumption seems to operate only in selected cases or in ways that defy categorization. Jerry Rawlings, for example, said he led his first coup d’etat in Ghana because the government was going to devalue the currency; he led his second coup, in part, because the next government was going to devalue; and, during his own tenure in office, he has presided over a 1000 percent devaluation.

scholarly journals RAWLS’S CONCEPT OF POLITICAL LIBERALISM

Defendologija ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (37) ◽  
Author(s):  
Duško Vejnović ◽  
Stefan Vukojević
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
The Political

John Rawls’s concept of political liberalism provides new arguments in defi ningpolitical concept of justice. The issues of social inequality and distribution of goods insociety are put aside and in the political focus are the citizens who are in favor of differentphilosophical, moral and religious universal doctrines. The central issue which the conceptof political liberalism seeks to resolve is how is it possible for a society made up ofpluralism of different confronting universal doctrines to be well-ordered and stable. Thepaper focuses on essential elements of political liberalism whose aim is to regulate theplural coexistence of universal doctrines.

Moral Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-148
Author(s):  
Craig Smith
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Moral Science ◽  
Active Pedagogy ◽  
British State ◽  
Forward Looking

This chapter explores how Ferguson used the moral philosophy of chapter 3, based on the moral science of chapter 2, to create a system of education for the rising Scottish middle class. It examines his notion of active pedagogy and his use of stoic and Christian ideas to create a cadre of well-educated and sensible gentlemen who would form the backbone of the British state. The chapter examines Ferguson as a theorist of the modern gentleman rather than the ancient citizen and suggests that he saw institutions as shaped by their personnel. This leads to an account that favours political stability and gradual reform. Ferguson is seen as forward looking educator rather than backward looking nostalgic for Roman citizenship.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 242-258
Author(s):  
Nana Okura Gagné
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Socioeconomic Change ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Individual Self

This chapter reviews the different meanings of the new middle class, which describe the historical and cultural configurations of postwar Japan and universalized notions of socioeconomic class used in social science. It reflects on the configurations, relations, and operationalizations of the slippage between discursive and ideological characteristics of “middleness” that have been elided under the term the new middle class in postwar Japan. It also offers new insights on the understanding of dominant ideology and dominant groups, including anthropological theorizations of power, ideology, and subjectivity in late capitalism. The chapter emphasizes on the issues of individual self-cultivation and concerns of families in practice in the midst of socioeconomic change. It explains how salarymen or any other social actors represent both the nexus and product of ongoing self-cultivation and socialization in the changing global economy.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Jennifer Patico
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Charter School ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Research Setting ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
The Way

This chapter introduces the argument of the book: that tensions in the way middle-class parents treat children’s food reflect the influence of an underlying ethic that is linked with neoliberal capitalism and that shapes social inequality in the United States. Several literatures and subthemes are introduced, including the politics of parenting in the United States; middle-class aesthetics and anxieties, particularly as these relate to parenting and food; and theories of neoliberalism and its impacts on selfhood and everyday life. In addition, this chapter describes the research setting of the book: “Hometown,” a K–8 charter school and the urban, gentrifying area of Atlanta in which it is located. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of the ethnographic methods used to collect materials for this book, including reflexive discussion of the ethnographer’s positioning.

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