Abstract
In 1955, when the high economic growth era began, self―employment （comprising self―employed workers and family workers） accounted for 57 percent of all employed persons. At the end of the high growth era in 1973, when the oil crisis struck Japan, self―employment accounted for only 31 percent of the work force. For the first time in its long history, Japan had become a society dominated by company―dependent employment. Despite the growing volume of research on the high economic growth era, this fact has been ignored completely.
The principle of self―employment is different from that of company―based wage employment. The main aim of self―employment is to sustain the family, while the goal of companies is to obtain profits. This article analyzes the economic and social consequences of shrinking self―employment on Japanese capitalism.
