Year: 1991
Type: article
Abstract: The Japanese state is often perceived as the archetype of the strong state controlling the society in all its aspects.The reality should be nuanced. Not only the state has never been an important commercial actor on the market but it has always been obliged to compose with private interests during the elaboration and enforcement of the legislation. Its involvement in the industrial policy was important in the development of the industrial basis but was never accepted without condition. The State influence results of a continuous negociation process with the private interest in which nobody can tell who is controlling or dominating the other. Moreover, both the state and the private concerns are heterogenous and must cope with diverging interests among themselves. Those interests have evolved over time and according to the industries considered.A Japan Inc in which all parties share the same concern has never existed. Everybody fights for its own interest and tries to keep the profit and transfer the losses. It is difficult to talk of a consensual approach, but more of a kind of reciprocal acceptation of ever changing situation. On one hand, the result is a state never trusting completely the market but whose action is always reinforcing market structures because of the pervasive influence of private concerns and, on the other hand, private interests relying on the state and usingit to make regulations reinforcing their position on the market.
Source: Civilisations
Author: Philippe Debroux
Language: French
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2053854545