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Why Japanese companies do so many different things

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Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#391

Post by ajmurmann »

eunos wrote: post #367
lacewing wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being a single-party, notionally communist dictatorship may be helping with the image too? I don't know, spitballing here. I think the default approach in the West - and that's not a US-specific thing - is to treat exotic faraway lands with a mix of curiosity and awe. But China is a geopolitical rival with a political system that rightly makes many Westerners queasy, so it doesn't benefit from that anymore.

Laugh in Plaza Accord and 80s anti Japan scare. At one point American was more concerned with Japanese economy than Soviet lmao/

Not being worried annoy the Soviet economy makes sense though

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#392

Post by jdw64 »

senko wrote: post #388
jdw64 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are from the West, navigating East Asian culture can be exceptionally grueling. At a fundamental level, our societies tend to be inherently exclusive toward different races.

Do you have a good book, article(s) or podcast to recommend on this topic (business culture in East Asia, or a specific country), in English & approachable by Westerners, while not giving just a cartoon overview of the issues?

https://japan-dev.com/blog/black-companies-in-japan

Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan

japanese Business Culture and Practices: A Guide to Twenty-First Century Japanese Business Protocols

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#393

Post by ajmurmann »

adamwk wrote: post #205
jimbokun wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recent Abundance movement on the left argues strongly that progress has been held back by over regulation and bureaucratic processes.

Does it? I’ve seen Ezra Klein talk about his book and he talked about how bureaucracy is frequently a scapegoat for getting things done. Europe is very bureaucratic yet is able to build. The issue he called out is red tape yes but more so litigation by the private citizen. That any individual can stop an apartment being built because it blocks morning light into their flower bed

Isn't he for relaxing zoning? Arguably one of the main pieces of red tape leading to the housing crisis

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#394

Post by astrange »

evilos wrote: post #321
socalgal2 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 Graph here: https://imgur.com/a/UwWvaHW

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.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#395

Post by astrange »

layoric wrote: post #297
cortesoft wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 resource…

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.)

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#396

Post by astrange »

wk_end wrote: post #125
blowscum wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was a futuristic land, but a futuristic land of suicides, with little drone-like salarymen crammed into little shoebox apartments the size of a Western bathroom, working 20 hour days. So basically just what the west is becoming?

Not really? If I were to describe the issues inflicting the west, none of too-small homes, high suicide rates, or an economy based on long hours of white collar work would immediately come to mind. Rather, the west seems to be characterized mostly by insanely expensive housing caused by an extreme antipathy towards denser housing as populations grow, and a K-shaped economy where white collar coastal elites are actual…

> everyone else - namely blue collar and service workers - are doing worse and worse

* better and better

https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#397

Post by astrange »

jatins wrote: post #383
jdw64 wrote: post #7

It’s always fascinating to see how Westerners idealize Japan on platforms like HN. It makes me wonder(i'm korean): how would a Westerner react if they saw me romanticizing the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain? They’d probably find it strange and out of touch with reality. This essay on Japan's corporate diversification and physical tacit knowledge is an interesting read. However, as an East Asian, my assessment is tha…

> In Japan, your corporate affiliation often dictates your social standing Where does it not? As in which countries are not like this?

The US doesn't.

"Social standing" in this case means if your girlfriend's parents will let you marry her. Not, like, who likes your LinkedIn posts.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#398

Post by parineum »

layoric wrote: post #297
cortesoft wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 resource…

> 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.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#399

Post by parineum »

jatins wrote: post #383
jdw64 wrote: post #7

It’s always fascinating to see how Westerners idealize Japan on platforms like HN. It makes me wonder(i'm korean): how would a Westerner react if they saw me romanticizing the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain? They’d probably find it strange and out of touch with reality. This essay on Japan's corporate diversification and physical tacit knowledge is an interesting read. However, as an East Asian, my assessment is tha…

> In Japan, your corporate affiliation often dictates your social standing Where does it not? As in which countries are not like this?

I don't know where most of my friends work and I barely understood what my wife does when we started dating.

Re: Why Japanese companies do so many different things

#400

Post by parineum »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #68
MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who finds Japanese corporate culture interesting or even desirable in some ways, it definitely doesn't seem like the most efficient way to run a company. And I'm sure there are plenty of cultural aspects that would not be my cup of tea.

I've worked for an American megacorp and the branch office of a Japanese company. The Japanese company felt a lot more humane on balance, though it doesn't express as well when I write it. The Japanese company had some rituals were a bit weird, but harmless/charmingly quaint like mandatory volunteer days, keeping a copy of the founder's precepts on my desk for executive walkthroughs. They also had some bad tendencies…

> The employer was constantly involving themselves with US national politics, but employees were expected to refrain from having political opinions of their own.

During work hours or after work hours (for both)?

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