Even though the market economy is at the core of the socio-economic order in modern Germany, certain adjustment has been necessary due to limits on its function and coverage. It was not always the State but primarily individual consanguineous, territorially-connected and/or multiple social linkages (or solidarity), which carried out this adjustment. However, as the extent of economic activity expanded and each nation state became firmly established as an economic unit, social problems became a growing concern and the State could not ignore its social responsibilities. Social benefits in Germany after the enactment of legislation creating the "Workers' Insurance" in the 1880s were a typical expression of this trend. However, existing communities or solidarity associations not infrequently hindered the development of a system of nationwide solidarity. Friction was often generated between individual interests which promoted the conservation of social and economic differences, and the intention to expand social cooperation to the nationwide scale. Even though nationwide solidarity was functionally ineffective in the severe economic circumstances of the depression, and a national community was once built forcibly at the cost of enormous sacrifice, the concept of nationwide solidarity became a generally established principle in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) after WWII within the system of the market economy. This nationwide solidarity was further complemented by communities or associations for solidarity in various dimensions in the form of pluralistic function in the social welfare system. In the FRG the "Welfare State" was not pursued as a providing state, but as a "Sozialstaat"(Social State) on a philosophical foundation, derived from a full consideration of the nature of the market economy. In this concept of a "Social State", the realization of fair distribution and the elimination of inappropriate social and economic difference was to be pursued, at least in the speculative dimension, in a fashion compatible with the market economy and without hindering its effectiveness or incentives to individual economic activity. Although factors such as the ending of rapid economic growth after WWII or the "oil shock" might expose difficulties or limits of the enhancement of social benefits, this did not provoke a fundamental dismantling or reconstruction of the system of social benefits in the FRG. It might be thought that this was because of a solid agreement about the nature of the "social state" in Germany, but recent movements contradict this interpretation. Even the Social Democratic Party is now willing to cut back the welfare system in the face of economic difficulties brought about by strong economic competition due to globalization and regional integration. It is to be wondered what happened to the philosophical constructs underlying the fairness of distribution and the health of the market economy. In this sense, the dynamism of the "social state" is still a meaningful field for research.

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Unemployment policy in Japan has undergone considerable change since 2000. The main characteristics of this change are the tendency towards deregulation and greater mobility of the labor market, common to many countries under globalization; but there are some characteristics particular to Japan such as the severe reduction of unemployment benefit and the continuing absence of a public direct employment policy. This change, based on the neoclassical theory, is also linked with Japan's historical experience. This paper, tracing the experience of unemployment policy since the First World War, tries to understand the significance of ongoing changes from a historical perspective. Our conclusion is that Japanese government has made too much of economic recovery to solve the unemployment problem in order to avoid increasing public expenditure for the unemployed and allow employers to behave freely. As a result of these features, the main target of unemployment policy has been limited to the lower income class of workers. These characteristics, which were not apparent through the period of economic development, have become clear as the unemployment rate grows higher.

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This paper discusses the present state and causes of the contemporary expansion of economic and social inequality in the United States. Making up for intermediate explanations between theory and reality, and accepting the understanding that "people make history", this paper focuses on middle class citizens in the United States, nearly seven-tenths of the total population of this country, i.e. the actual governing group. Then we discover that middle class citizens in fact expect a more competitive economy and society, the ultimate causes of the inequalities. Even though the expansion of inequality and its resolution will threaten national stability, middle class citizens, including the economic losers, not only not deny that neo-liberal policies and a competitive economy are the background factors causing inequality but expect such policies. The reasons are first, the inclination to a petit-capitalist conception expecting revival of opportunities, efficiency and growth; second, reliance on a more competitive economy in order to defend middle class citizens' interests against the rising lower classes under liberal conditions, democracy and the results of the Civil Rights Movement; and third, the impossibility of middle class citizens' withdrawal from the competitive global economic structure which benefits them. The middle class citizens whom we can see today were shaped in the New Deal period, and gained a certain abundant standard of living with various safety devices (social security in case of unemplayment, etc.) under the corporate Liberal regime, and after the collapse of this regime, ran around pursuing opportunities, efficiency and growth to the extent that they brought about their own ruin. The expansion of inequalities is nothing other than the phenomenon of the historical process of the fall of the American middle class citizens.

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The key problem with widening income differentials is that over a quarter of Japanese families are now living under the poverty line. This essay defines "poor family" as a family whose annual pretax, post-cash-transfer income falls below the threshold of Public Assistance. The threshold is measured by the average minimum cost of living of beneficiary families of Public Assistance as estimated by the local welfare office. The overall poverty rate rose from 18.1% in 1997 to 22.3% in 2002 excluding families receiving Public Assistance. In spite of the assertion of then-PM Koizumi, the highest increase was in the number of working poor families (1.4 million added). Poor pensioner families were second (0.8 million). Major changes in the structure of the Japanese labor market, in particular a decline in Japanese-style long term employment practices, was the main cause of the increase of working poor families. Because Japanese-style long term employment was the most effective guarantor of a stable and fair standard of living for most Japanese workers, Japanese social security and social allowances are insufficient. Japanese social security policy has, since the latter half of the era of high economic growth, targeted the care of people who are not able to work either temporarily or permanently. The structural reforms which really started 1997 have destroyed the Japanese style of management on the one hand, and on the other reduced the level of social security. These major changes have resulted in a crisis of social integration, which in turn has stimulated the ruling political groups to introduce a new type of social integration centered on the rich upper class. This perhaps is nothing more than the institutionalization of a differentiated society.

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the efforts of energy-saving developed in interwar Japan, in particular focusing on the nensho shido (technical guidance for fuel burning),which encouraged improvements in factories' fuel-burning technologies. From the end of the 1910's, against a background of not only rising coal prices but also a consciousness of the limits of domestic coal reserves, the Fuel Research Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce was established and engineers and researchers interested in combustion engineering organized a group called the Fuel Society of Japan. In the second half of the 1920's, activities promoting fuel economy were implemented in several prefectures among which Osaka prefecture proved most aggressive in Japan. The Osaka Prefectural Institute for Industrial Management (OPIIM) established its nensho shido division in 1929 and provided guidance to local factories in saving fuel. OPIIM guidance focused on the methods in which the factory boiler workers burned fuel, rather than building new facilities or refitting older facilities for burning fuel. Furthermore, because OPIIM thought that in order to improve the manner of burning it was necessary for boiler workers to acquire higher levels of skill, Osaka prefecture established a qualification for boiler workers and OPIIM opened a training school for them. Osaka prefecture's development of nensho shido was considered an industrial rationalization, and therefore was imitated by several municipalities and regional organizations for industrial management. Furthermore, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which had become more interested in fuel economy from the beginning of the 1930's, started nensho shido in 1938 as the Sino-Japanese war exacerbated the tight coal supply situation. It was technicians from Osaka being posted to or sometimes visiting the other regions that promoted the spread of nensho shido. During the interwar era, nensho shido was immature because the scope of guidance was limited to burning with a boiler. However, the groups of combustion engineering technicians formed during the interwar era would later lead the development of energy-saving technology in wartime and postwar Japan. Since the interwar era, against the background of limited domestic resources, Japanese industrial rationalization has made a point of reducing production costs rather than acquiring merits of scale.

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