a post-blog
According to this article in the Financial Times, Japan's economy is creating much greater income distribution inequity by creating two classes in the work force: well-paid white collar jobs and poorly-paid working class jobs.
As I've written before, income inequality has been on the rise in Japan since 1970, but the question is: when will the inequality be great enough to crush the myth of a classless Japan in the cultural sphere? A lot of what we like about Japanese culture comes from a lower-middle mass embrace of items from the upper-middle world. Without class consciousness, there's little hostility towards "egghead" culture, and while there may not be a strong upper-middle, intellectual cutlure in Japan, a lot of foreign items from this realm get sucked into Japanese mass culture.
So if class lines start becoming much more apparent, there may become a split in culture, which I would argue, you're already starting to see on the streets. (The death of the Shibuya-kei upper-middle culture indies scene is linked to this.) Culture has an economic deterministic component, and if things progress as they're progressing, we may see Japanese popular culture taken over completely by lower-middle taste, just like current American popular culture.
Posted by marxy at January 24, 2005 12:05 PMIncome inequality has been steadily on the increase in the States since the 70's as well and yet, still, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, most Americans refuse to acknowledge class differences... the working poor and the ultra wealthy all consider themselves "middle class". And as for popular culture it's all about the normative middle, ie: aspiring to work for Donald Trump in the Apprentice and slopping pig shit with Paris Hilton (of the Hilton hotel chains) in the Simple Life 2(!). I haven't been here long enough to know if the trend is the same here, but I suspect it is. I believe popular culture is all about being, well, popular.
And as for foreign items being introduced into the culture, I suppose it depends on the method of transmission. Here it's been by way of connoisseurship, there (the States) by immigration. Perhaps, here the process is being re-produced through more immigration and undocumented labor. Maybe the place is not such an island anymore.
Posted by: josh at January 24, 2005 3:46 PMIn America, lower-middle culture dominates network television, and while there may be little consciousness of a class hierarchy, the lower-middle classes HATE upper-middle and high culture. They hated Kerry for speaking French.
In Japan, lower-middle culture dominates most realms of popular culture, but there is less antagonism towards the educated classes and high culture. I am worried an antagonism may develop, however.
Posted by: marxy at January 25, 2005 12:00 PM