The welfare state, which was one of the major characteristics of the "Golden Age" of post-war prosperity, implied more than a mere hotchpotch of various social policy measures. It embodied the universal right of citizenship, the ideas of social justice and the moral post-war reconstruction as well. It also achieved a unique pattern of combination of welfare production and distribution, which altogether were the genuine hallmarks of the welfare capitalism. By trying to overcome deeply embedded class-division, market nexus and political extremism or barbarism, it made every effort to facilitate the social integration and to raise the living standard of the people. It was indeed what Marx called the great, though still quite limited, civilising influence of capital. In today's global integrated open economies, however, many of the assumptions that guided post-war welfare capitalism seem no longer to sustain. New drifting waves of socalled globalization challenge traditional social policy thinking. What, then, is the prospect for the welfare capitalism as we step into the highly competitive market-oriented stage where we eventually come full circle into the original image of market capitalism. We can identify, against this general backdrop, the clear symptoms of crisis in such four fields as class, employment, gender and generational relations. It has also become evident that three distinct welfare regimes are responding to this general and historic crisis in more or less regime-specific ways. Then, not only the general crisis but also each of the regime-specific dilemmas should be shed more light on. For example, the social democratic regime, though it is of relatively universalistic nature, still suffers the substantial degree of gender segregation, with women concentrated in public sector and low-skilled jobs. The liberal regime, in contrast, tries to confront its own dilemma, economic decline and domestic unemployment, by pursuing greater market and wage flexibility, and seeking to reduce the social costs and taxation. Deepening inequality and rising poverty rates are the necessary and associated result of the low wage strategy. The conservative regime, finally, epitomizes the gendered "insider-outsider problem" in which a small, predominantly male, "insider" workforce is enjoying rather privileged working conditions with other half or growing population of "outsiders" depending either breadwinner's pay or the relatively less favourable conditions. If we pick up another characteristic of this regime, highly gendered job segregation as well, we can also find the solid fact that this welfare regime tend strongly to stress the family as the core unit of social care and the woman as full-time housewife. Both tax policies and social services in this conservative regime firmly based on the particular ideological framework, which points the family, rather than individual, as the locus and the women, rather than men, as the main providers of the care. Evidently the percentage of the elderly living with their children is quite high in this regime. Interestingly this familism, which is quite strong among the Mediterranean countries, is also shared by Japanese welfare capitalism. In this whole context, we would like to conclude that our prime target for the policy change must be the familism as the ideology of the persistent cultural and social policy framework in Japan.

View full abstract

The contradiction between the concept of family wage and the equal pay for equal work principle had functioned as the driving force behind the emergence of family allowances, which were paid as parts of wages, and the following development of family/child allowances as social policies. At first, such allowances were paid as the alternatives to the corresponding parts of wages, and consequently enlarged the concept of family wage and motivated mothers to stay home to care their children. However, the characteristics of the allowances gradually changed in the opposite direction when feminists demanded that the allowances should be paid not to fathers but mothers. Two major universal characteristics emerged in the process. First, allowances came to be provided regardless of parents' occupations and incomes. Second, at least the basic part of the allowances could be provided whether mothers were employed or not. Eugenic tendency to promote the increase of middle and upper classes population and conservative ideas to encourage mothers to stay home for their child cares had also affected the process of the historical development of the allowances. However, the same amount of allowances was paid based on the number of children regardless of parents' status and, as a result, the main character of the allowances gradually changed into the one of a social policy for equality between children. Furthermore, the said developments also affected the attitude of labor unions towards the allowances. Unions began to abandon their former negative policies and to promote the development of the allowances because they could be one of effective measures to weaken the subordination of workers to employers by providing families with children with a certain amount of incomes. However, in Japan, the allowance is still paid mainly to fathers. And various arguments were highlighted in the process of institutionalization of the allowance, for instance, replacement of seniority-order wage system with wages attached to a post in order to restrain wages, encouragement of mothers to stay home and eugenic population policies. Thus both labor and women's movements took cautious positions against the allowance. On the other hand, the ministry of finance and the big businesses hesitated to shoulder the spending because they could not expect that the allowance would serve the said purposes. Thus it was forced to start as a meager measure that was paid only to families with more than two children and incomes less than a certain amount. And gender bias and pro-capitalist policies have hindered and distorted the process of development of the Japanese child allowance system. Critical arguments against the Japanese concept of family wage and an alternative perception of child allowance are needed for both labor and women's movements to promote the development of the allowance. In this paper, a critical analysis of the character of contributions from corporations to the allowance is made to give evidence for the said arguments.

View full abstract

Esping-Andersen's influential analysis for de-commodification is one of powerful conceptualization of need fulfillment under modern capitalism. Feminists' critique against his analysis and his effort to reply to these criticisms has contributed to the academic enquiry for "the welfare state and family". In his response, Esping-Andersen introduced concept of de-familialization. I discuss both consepts (de-commodification and de-familialization) have two analytically distinct contents; say, Polanyian de-commodification (policies for maintenance of commodification), and Esping-Andersenian de-commodification(policies beyond such a institutional rationality); De-familialization for maintenance of family, and De-familialization beyond such a institutional rationality. I argue both latter contents are crucial if we consider both concept as "emancipatory potential", as Esping-Andersen wrote. I also argue his conceptualizing de-familialization is problematic because it means eventually commodification. We could recognize really existing both latter contents and de-familialization beyond his conceptualization, in terms of "moral economy".

View full abstract

This article, employing a political economy analysis, explores how American "market theory" has been received within American society. In my view, American "market theory" has not been fully realized even in the society that has produced that logic; this is due to various countervailing forces that have prevented the diffusion of pure market theory into society. I fear that scholars outside of the U.S., including those in Japan, have embraced the view that the perspectives of mainstream economics that have emerged since the Reagan Administration have been accepted without question in American society. I do not deny that changes to housing policy adopted under the Reagan administration had a strong effect, reversing the tendency to expand the American welfare state. However, I have noticed that while the impact of the political rhetoric in the slogans voiced by the Reagan administration was strong, the views contained therein did not establish themselves fully in society; rather, one sees strong resistance to them among communities in the U.S. Under Reagan, housing assistance outlays, either nominal or constant, did not in fact decline. While his administration was successful in restricting budget authority, communities worried about neighborhood blight established numerous nonprofit housing developers (of which CDCs are a representative example) and confronted the deterioration of the living environment. Ultimately, the Federal government had to make security of the living environment a policy goal in the 1990s. We must note that housing policy reforms in the 1990s were not a repeat of those undertaken before the 1970s. The more recent reforms involve the use of non-profit organizations, the influx of private capital, and include both block grant programs that empower state and local governments and "tax expenditure" programs that empower private housing developers. I emphasize that, even though the American welfare state was changed to some degree in the 1980s and 1990s, in the field of housing policy at least these changes have meant only that old-fashioned direct housing assistance was replaced with "indirect housing assistance." In fact, since the 1990s the supply of affordable housing units for low-income individuals offered by non-profits and other private developers is greater than that of Federal assisted housing. These changes in policy-for instance, indirect assistance-are more difficult to analyze than those that have been seen before. Nonetheless, this article demonstrates that the American market theory prevalent in mainstream economics has not been fully realized in American society, that this is due to the presence of countervailing forces that seek to protect social environments, and that a balance is being maintained in American society due to the establishment of a new policy framework.

View full abstract

This is a comparative study of fiscal policy under finance minister Takahashi in prewar Japan and the New Deal period in prewar United States, based on fiscal sociology approach which receives increasing attention recently. The arguments and implications are as follows; 1. Fiscal Sociology recognizes the nature of public finance as distinct from that of the market, and intends to grasp it within its interactions with society as a whole. It also focuses on policy making processes where actors with diverse interests interact, in order to find the momentum behind epochal societal changes. 2. The New Deal finance and Takahashi finance are known by the fact that they both achieved economic recovery with active spending policy. However, they differ significantly in the way relief programs were implemented, how they covered up fiscal deficits, the timeliness of policy change, and tax policy. This paper discusses these differences by clarifying institutions and related factors in both cases, such as fiscal ideas held by political leaders, the interrelationship between the central bank and finance ministry, and budgeting system. 3. Fiscal policy under the New Deal period was limited in intensifying taxation and implement ing public work programs swiftly, due to the idea of balanced budget held by Roosevelt, high autonomy in decision making by the FRB, divided policymaking power, etc. 4. Takahashi finance, in contrast, achieved drastic upturn of the economy by swiftly employing fiscal measures. The institutional settings behind it were the concentration of budgeting power to the administration (especially the ministry of finance) and weak autonomy of the central bank. However, the same institutional characteristics caused relentless increase in military spending and heavy reliance on central bank credit when some tightening in fiscal policy was called for. 5. Based upon comparative discussion above, this paper criticizes dichotomous conceptualization of "New Deal" and "Fascism", and also shows the relationship between fiscal sociology and such studies as welfare state studies, systems theory, and pluralistic theory of the state.

View full abstract

It is often said that the neoclassical economics has been developed on the basis of "equilibrium theory". In such a theory, the market system is supposed to stabilize economic forces, which means even if the disequilibrium exists, it is recognized as being in a temporary state or should be disappeared by the "normal" operation of the market system. Of course, there have been various theories against such a way of thinking. The theory of cumulative causation (CC theory) is also included in them. CC theory has a long history and has rather emphasized the circular and cumulative character in the process of economic change. The main theme of this paper is revaluation of Gunnar Myrdal's CC theory. Although Toner (1999), which is a representative study on the development of CC theory, draws the history of CC theory like one direct line from Young to Kaldor and puts Myrdal middle of them, this paper shows three currents. Young-Kaldor's CC theory might well be one of them. The originality and meaning of Myrdal's CC theory is shown in connection with the three currents. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes three currents of CC theory: Youngian CC theory (CC theory of "economies of scale"), Veblenian CC theory (CC theory of the institutional school), and Wicksellian CC theory (CC theory of monetary theories). Then, Kaldor's CC theory, which consists of three or four Kaldor's Laws, is reexamined. As Toner (1999) insists, his CC theory is positioned in the first current. Section 3 analyzes Myrdal's CC theory. Myrdal experienced three academic stages in his life: a theoretical economist, a politician, and an "institutional economist" as he called himself. It was the last stage that he utilized and emphasized CC theory as his main theoretical tool in analyzing practical socio-economic problems. In addition, this paper insists that his CC theory has a mutual relationship with his methodology of "explicit value premises". Myrdal's CC theory consists of four theses as follows: (1) the basic thesis (the thesis of "backwash effects"), (2) the opposite or exceptional thesis (the thesis of "spread effects"), (3) the thesis relating to the scope of the analysis (the thesis of the importance of institutional factors), (4) the thesis of political implication. Compared with Kaldor's CC theory, Myrdal's CC theory can be characterized in three points. The first is that his CC theory is not a simple logic of polarization process, because it includes not only "backwash effects" but also "spread effects". The second is that his CC theory consists of both "economic" and "non-economic" factors. The third is that his CC theory exists as the theoretical foundation of egalitarian policies following his methodology. Finally, section 4 concludes that Myrdal's CC theory is positioned between the first current and the second one and it might be able to integrate those two currents with its unique theoretical character. It is the theory for "development" including institutional and political factors besides demand and supply. It should be revaluated as a kind of indicator for the further theoretical development of CC theory.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explain how institutional adjustments in the labor market affect the macro-economic stability. We suppose that the institutional adjustments in the labor market consist of three factors: inelasticity of employment, money wage indexation to labor productivity, and money wage indexation to price level. In addition, we shall take into account also the relevance of reserve army effect to the macro-economic stability. In this paper, we adopt a Goodwin-type cycle model. This model, which has its origin in Goodwin (1967), has a characteristic feature in the respect that a business cycle is caused by factors in the labor market rather than those in the good market or in the money market. The model seems therefore to be appropriate for examining the relation between the macro-economic stability and adjustment patterns in the labor market. On the basis of this model, we construct the Goodwin-type model with alternative growth regimes: profit-led growth regime and wage-led growth regime. The former means that large profit share leads high growth, and the latter means that large wage share leads high growth. The difference between these two growth regimes has been analyzed by post-Keynesian economics. According to which growth regime we choose, the effects which institutional adjustments in the labor market have on the macro-economic stability are varied. Some of our results are as follows. First, under profit-led growth the macro-economic system with low elasticity of employment and with low money wage indexation to labor productivity is unstable, but not always so under wage-led growth. Second, either under profit-led growth or wage-led growth sufficiently large money wage indexation to price level destabilizes the macro-economic system. Third, controlling the reserve army effect makes the macro-economic system stable under wage-led growth, but unstable under profit-led growth.

View full abstract

With the assumption that the capital movements between the developed economies (the North) and the developing economies (the South) are free, a North-South economic model was built to analyze theoretically the impact of the increased bargaining power of the union labor of the North to the economic growth of both regions. This study confines the influence of the increased bar gaining power of the labor union in the North only to its accelerated wage adjustment cycle; focuses on income distribution and features a MNC that responds to the North-South profitability gap. The conclusions are as follows. The impact of the increased bargaining power of the labor union in the North to the growth of both regions relies upon the speed of price adjustments of the MNC. When it is quick, the increased bargaining power of the labor union in the North will increase its degree of capacity utilization and worsen the terms of trade of the South, lowers the growth rate of the rest of the world and stimulates economic growth rates of sectors owned by the South. When this happens, growth rate of North increases should the drop of its profit rate operating at full capacity is not large. Thus, the higher the sensitivity of North's investment to the North-South profitability gap is the larger the impact is. However, when the speed of price adjustments is slow, the increased bargaining power of the labor union in the North gives the South a higher terms-of-trade. The South will face difficulty with its balance of payment restriction, thus reducing its import. Therefore, the vector movement of the impact to the operating capacity of the North is unknown. In this situation, since the North-South profit rate is relatively favorable to the South, the growth rate of the North will slow down and that of the rest of the world will increase easily as the sensitivity to profitability gap of investment in the North grows higher. Also, it must be noted that this analysis is performed within the framework of the following restrictions. Firstly, the increased bargaining power of the labor union is interpreted as the increase in the speed of wage adjustments, and only that. Secondly, the discussions made here are limited to the impact of an increased bargaining power of labor union in the North to income distribution. Thirdly, no economies in the South are to produce capital goods and lastly, the debt of the South is not to play any part in this analysis. With all these bounding restrictions, this analysis could be one of the newest in its kind for it has taken the income distribution as well as the MNC into its framework to study the impact of the increased bargaining power of the union labor in the North to the economic growth in both the North and the South.

View full abstract