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Japanese and American companies have different purposes. In Japan the corporation primarily provides stable income and employment for society, and secondarily

Japanese and American companies have different purposes. In Japan the corporation primarily provides stable income and employment for society, and secondarily returns on capital invested. In America, corporations primarily provide returns on capital invested and secondarily provide stable income and employment. This shows up in the data too. Japanese corporations are less likely to go out of business but provide worse investment returns. American corporations provide better investment returns, but the citizens have to deal with layoffs. Most citizens would prefer stability to growth, but I think the tradeoff has a lot of downstream consequences.

johnnyanmac 4mo ago
Stable income and employment feels like a distant 4th nowadays. Nothing feels stable.
therealdrag0 4mo ago
Stability is preferred to growth in the moment, but in retrospect and in comparison to others most people don’t want to give up what they have and go back in time.
- jimbokun 4mo ago
  And arguably growth could lead to better overall stability in the long run, as people find employment in new companies at higher wages over time with lower overall unemployment.
- jjmarr 4mo ago
  > but in retrospect and in comparison to others most people don’t want to give up what they have and go back in time. And in the long-term, people start fleeing the "stable" countries for already-grown ones.
rhdndndn 4mo ago
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joe_mamba 4mo ago
>Japanese and American companies have different purposes. In Japan the corporation primarily provides stable income and employment for society, Are you Japanese? Because this doesn't match what I know about Japanese companies, like Sony for example, who operate in a very American way. Your image on Japanese vs American companies feels like the copy and pasted idealistic impression of what American redditors imagine Japanese companies would be like, rather than reality.
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- andrewmutz 4mo ago
  The idea that Japanese companies provide more stability and lower returns on capital isn't a hypothesis, it's backed up by data https://www.nber.org/papers/w1762 https://www.nber.org/papers/w1762 https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6183.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6183.html
  - oefrha 4mo ago
    Failed businesses also tend to provide lower returns on capital, and that’s totally backed up by data. Doesn’t mean the “purpose” of those companies was to provide lower returns on capital.
    - thfuran 4mo ago
      The purpose of a system is what it does.
      - simianwords 4mo ago
        This is mostly a meaningless statement that can be used in any situation
cortesoft 4mo ago
> Most citizens would prefer stability to growth, but I think the tradeoff has a lot of downstream consequences. People want personal stability, which in our current society means a stable job. That doesn't have to be the case, though. Overall, economic growth is good for society as a whole, so it makes sense that a state should encourage it as much as it can. This means that what is good for an individual is not the same as what is good for society. I think the ideal solution would be to keep the risk-taking in business that you need for good growth, and instead provide stability through strong social support services, like healthy unemployment insurance or UBI. That way, everyone can take risks to try to drive the economy forward, but not starve if things go poorly.
- layoric 4mo ago
  > Overall, economic growth is good for society as a whole, so it makes sense that a state should encourage it as much as it can. The problem with basing the language in the aggregate, is implies that distribution doesn’t matter, and all modern economic models agree. This is a big problem for the reality of people living in ever increasing inequality. Money is a competitive resource, we use it to bid for real resources. If constant economic growth disproportionately goes to the already wealthy, it worsens inequality when resources to exploit become more scarce. It’s one thing to have massive swaths of untouched natural world to exploit for human benefits, but those days are long gone IMO.
  - astrange 4mo ago
    Inequality is not "ever increasing". You should resist the urge to say everything is constantly getting worse just because that makes you look more sympathetic to the poor. (A worse issue is that inequality decreasing can mean things are getting worse for everyone.)
  - parineum 4mo ago
    > If constant economic growth disproportionately goes to the already wealthy, it worsens inequality when resources to exploit become more scarce. Economic growth means resources get more plentiful.
  - 4mo ago
socalgal2 4mo ago
If you see how Japanese CEOs live, they live a far more deprived life on the backs of their employees than any billionary CEO in the USA. Japanese companies are centered around treating most employees like indentured servants in a sweatshop so the few bosses can have giant expense accounts, vacation houses, company cars, etc.
- evilos 4mo ago
  > they live a far more deprived life It took me a minute to figure out the typo ("depraved" instead of "deprived") Japan compares much better to the US in terms of how much wealth the top 1% control. 24.6% vs 34.8% according to https://wid.world https://wid.world Graph here: https://imgur.com/a/UwWvaHW https://imgur.com/a/UwWvaHW
  - CarlitosHighway 4mo ago
    That is true, but at this point in time, looking at wealth inequality in the US for comparison feels pointless, as the US can't be seen as a humanoid society anymore. By that I mean the riches of the Top 1%, and the "soon" attitude of the bottom 80% in the US feel alien, surreal, and perverted to an extent it stopped being useful as a measure for humans.
    - evilos 4mo ago
      If you look at the graph I linked, you can see that the world average for that statistic has consistently been higher compared to the US, though the two series have been converging lately. So according to that data the US has not been uniquely unfair, but it has been getting worse. I do think there will have to be large changes soon.
  - astrange 4mo ago
    Depends what you mean by "control". If you don't own a nice house, car, driver etc. but your company just happens to provide it as a perk, then you still have it.

johnnyanmac 4mo ago

Stable income and employment feels like a distant 4th nowadays. Nothing feels stable.

therealdrag0 4mo ago

Stability is preferred to growth in the moment, but in retrospect and in comparison to others most people don’t want to give up what they have and go back in time.

jimbokun 4mo ago
And arguably growth could lead to better overall stability in the long run, as people find employment in new companies at higher wages over time with lower overall unemployment.
jjmarr 4mo ago
> but in retrospect and in comparison to others most people don’t want to give up what they have and go back in time. And in the long-term, people start fleeing the "stable" countries for already-grown ones.

rhdndndn 4mo ago

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joe_mamba 4mo ago

>Japanese and American companies have different purposes. In Japan the corporation primarily provides stable income and employment for society, Are you Japanese? Because this doesn't match what I know about Japanese companies, like Sony for example, who operate in a very American way. Your image on Japanese vs American companies feels like the copy and pasted idealistic impression of what American redditors imagine Japanese companies would be like, rather than reality.

deleted 4mo ago
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deleted 4mo ago
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andrewmutz 4mo ago
The idea that Japanese companies provide more stability and lower returns on capital isn't a hypothesis, it's backed up by data https://www.nber.org/papers/w1762 https://www.nber.org/papers/w1762 https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6183.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6183.html
- oefrha 4mo ago
  Failed businesses also tend to provide lower returns on capital, and that’s totally backed up by data. Doesn’t mean the “purpose” of those companies was to provide lower returns on capital.
  - thfuran 4mo ago
    The purpose of a system is what it does.
    - simianwords 4mo ago
      This is mostly a meaningless statement that can be used in any situation

cortesoft 4mo ago

> Most citizens would prefer stability to growth, but I think the tradeoff has a lot of downstream consequences. People want personal stability, which in our current society means a stable job. That doesn't have to be the case, though. Overall, economic growth is good for society as a whole, so it makes sense that a state should encourage it as much as it can. This means that what is good for an individual is not the same as what is good for society. I think the ideal solution would be to keep the risk-taking in business that you need for good growth, and instead provide stability through strong social support services, like healthy unemployment insurance or UBI. That way, everyone can take risks to try to drive the economy forward, but not starve if things go poorly.

layoric 4mo ago
> Overall, economic growth is good for society as a whole, so it makes sense that a state should encourage it as much as it can. The problem with basing the language in the aggregate, is implies that distribution doesn’t matter, and all modern economic models agree. This is a big problem for the reality of people living in ever increasing inequality. Money is a competitive resource, we use it to bid for real resources. If constant economic growth disproportionately goes to the already wealthy, it worsens inequality when resources to exploit become more scarce. It’s one thing to have massive swaths of untouched natural world to exploit for human benefits, but those days are long gone IMO.
- astrange 4mo ago
  Inequality is not "ever increasing". You should resist the urge to say everything is constantly getting worse just because that makes you look more sympathetic to the poor. (A worse issue is that inequality decreasing can mean things are getting worse for everyone.)
- parineum 4mo ago
  > If constant economic growth disproportionately goes to the already wealthy, it worsens inequality when resources to exploit become more scarce. Economic growth means resources get more plentiful.
- 4mo ago

socalgal2 4mo ago

If you see how Japanese CEOs live, they live a far more deprived life on the backs of their employees than any billionary CEO in the USA. Japanese companies are centered around treating most employees like indentured servants in a sweatshop so the few bosses can have giant expense accounts, vacation houses, company cars, etc.

evilos 4mo ago
> they live a far more deprived life It took me a minute to figure out the typo ("depraved" instead of "deprived") Japan compares much better to the US in terms of how much wealth the top 1% control. 24.6% vs 34.8% according to https://wid.world https://wid.world Graph here: https://imgur.com/a/UwWvaHW https://imgur.com/a/UwWvaHW
- CarlitosHighway 4mo ago
  That is true, but at this point in time, looking at wealth inequality in the US for comparison feels pointless, as the US can't be seen as a humanoid society anymore. By that I mean the riches of the Top 1%, and the "soon" attitude of the bottom 80% in the US feel alien, surreal, and perverted to an extent it stopped being useful as a measure for humans.
  - evilos 4mo ago
    If you look at the graph I linked, you can see that the world average for that statistic has consistently been higher compared to the US, though the two series have been converging lately. So according to that data the US has not been uniquely unfair, but it has been getting worse. I do think there will have to be large changes soon.
- astrange 4mo ago
  Depends what you mean by "control". If you don't own a nice house, car, driver etc. but your company just happens to provide it as a perk, then you still have it.