Reprogramming Japan
Subtitle: the high tech crisis under communitarian capitalism
By: Marie Anchordoguy.
Series: Cornell studies in political economy
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Ithaca, N.Y
Language: eng
Number of pages: 257
ISBN-13: 9780801441875
Subjects: High technology industries -- Japan.; Capitalism -- Social aspects -- Japan.; Industrial policy -- Japan.; Japan -- Economic conditions -- 1989-
Description: "Reprogramming Japan shows how the institutions and policies that emerged during and after World War II to maintain communitarian norms, such as the lifetime employment system, seniority-based wages, enterprise unions, a centralized credit-based financial system, industrial groups, the main bank corporate governance system, and industrial policies, helped promote high tech industries. When conditions shifted in the 1980s and 1990s, these institutions and policies did not suit the new environment, in which technological change was rapid and unpredictable and foreign products could no longer be legally reverse-engineered. Despite economic stagnation, leaders were slow to change because of deep social commitments. Once the crisis became acute, the bureaucracy and corporate leaders started to contest and modify key institutions and practices. Rather than change at different times according to their specific economic interests, Japanese firms and the state have made similar slow, incremental changes."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The dynamics of communitarian capitalism; title: Norms and institutions; title: Telephone titan; title: Telecommunications : obsolete institutions; title: Computers : cooperation or competition?; title: Software : programmed for failure; title: Semiconductors : from boom to bust; title: Crisis in communitarian capitalism.