Word: socialism
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...wide range of research studies of rich countries that have revealed that greater national wealth, by nearly any measure, does not lead to better human welfare." He believes that governments in wealthy countries should take steps to rein in excessive wealth among individuals and redistribute resources through social spending. While he acknowledges the political difficulties of wealth redistribution, he says, "As a doctor, I recognize that an unequal society is the biggest contributor to ill health. It's my obligation to make that known...
...businesses to become more productive, and that ensure consumers can consume. Those policies are not in place today. The country is a de facto gerontocracy that has failed to adapt to today's economic and demographic realities. Japan must redefine its goals and, at a deeper level, rewrite its social contract so that youth are better served...
...country needed to rebuild its industrial capacity after World War II. The challenge then was to ensure producers could produce. Political and business leaders resorted to guaranteed job security and total employment as the primary forms of welfare, while workers were supposed to plug any gaps in the social safety net themselves with prodigious savings. Strategic industries were propped up to protect jobs. This system worked fine when earnings were plentiful during the postwar boom. But today the policies sap the strength of small- and medium-sized businesses, a major source of new jobs. At the same time, younger Japanese...
...Moreover, as Japanese must rely on private savings as their biggest cushion when times are tough, they tend to save more than they would otherwise. Even workers eligible to receive government benefits cannot rely on the public pension system for adequate retirement funding. In short, this thin social safety net perpetuates the population decline and prevents private consumption from rising to offset the shrinking number of consumers. You can't expect the population and the economy to grow by guaranteeing survival to only the oldest workers and businesses while subjecting everyone else to market forces...
...Policymakers have failed to match increased job insecurity with a corresponding expansion of social welfare. It's true that Japan's public debt is approaching 200% of GDP - the highest among developed countries - which limits the government's options. Still, the state must deepen the social safety net to better cover the underserved: young workers and families. This will help reverse the population decline, rebalance growth toward domestic demand and remove the need to mitigate unemployment by propping up inefficient companies and farms. Japanese citizens will have to make sacrifices - they may have to pay more taxes, for example...