Word: japanization
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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This is a key to the whole film. While apparently feeling constrained to show tradition and the recent westernization in close proximity, Marker carefully avoids cutting which would imply an ironic intent. No attempt is made to explain the westernization of Japan, nor is the modern seen as un-Japanese. Like Koumiko and the city, tradition and modernity exist within the same framework, and any effect that the one has upon the other is not readily discernible to the outsider. The outsider can merely present an image, which is nothing more than a concrete memory...
...Effluent Society. The consensus system also operates to perpetuate some startling inefficiencies that tend to keep consumers from sharing fully in Japan's industrial growth. Businessmen abroad complain about the low prices of Japanese exports, but prices inside Japan have been rising at close to the fastest rate in the industrialized world -5.3% last year. The 102 million Japanese now own more appliances per capita than any people except Americans but have practically no room for them. Housing space in metropolitan areas averages 40 ft. per person, no more than before World War II. To millions of people jammed...
Japanese companies are loaded with unneeded employees who can never be fired-and this leads to relatively low productivity. On the average, the Japanese worker produces only 50% as much as the West German and 25% as much as the U.S. worker. Japan's gross national product, at $142 billion last year, edged ahead of West Germany's largely because Japan has twice as many workers as West Germany. But this advantage may soon be weakened because Japan faces a severe labor shortage...
...More Time. Japan's leaders smile and agree that, yes, change and more competition are necessary. Toshihiko Yoshino, research director of the Bank of Japan, concedes that opening Japan to foreign businessmen would help considerably to ease inflation. But he and other leaders plead for more time to strengthen companies against aggressive foreign rivals-and time to squeeze the necessary decisions out of the consensus system. Japan's exasperated trading partners are no longer in any mood to grant that time. For instance, Japanese companies do not invest much in research, but instead rely largely on buying foreign...
...rest of the world has a large stake in the outcome of Japan's struggle for change. A free-trading Japan, expanding its programs to develop other Asian economies, could do much to narrow the gap between the world's rich and poor countries. If Japan's businessmen can find ways to open their economy to foreign influence and domestic reform, while preserving their system's virtues of harmony and discipline, then the 21st century-and perhaps even the closing years of the 20th century-may indeed be Japan...