American Exceptionalism-Japanese Uniqueness

Seymour Martin Lipset

Japan and the United States are two of the foremost examples of industrial success in the contemporary world, and they took very different paths to reach that position.’ Efforts to account for America’s past success discussed earlier have emphasized that, as compared to Europe, it had fewer encrusted preindustrial traditions to overcome, and in particular, that it had never been a feudal or hierarchical state church-dominated society. All of Europe and, of course, Japan was once feudal, organized in terms of monarchy, aristocracy, and fixed hierarchy, with a value system embedded in institutions that both emphasized the virtues inherent in agrarian society and deprecated commercial activities. Japan’s feudal period, moreover, did not end until the latter half of the nineteenth century.

As I indicated in chapter Three, in discussing the expansion of capitalism, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Marxists, much like followers of Max Weber, pointed to the United States as the purest of bourgeois societies, the least feudal one, and therefore the most suc­cessful. An efficient market economy is seemingly best served by a
value system ivhich regards the individual as the equivalent of a commodity within the market.

The interpretation which identifies postfeudal structures and values as antithetical to the development of modern industrial society is challenged by the history of Japan, uhich boasts the most successful economy of the postwar era. Rising from a terrible military defeat and the almost total destruction of its economy, Japan experienced a level of sustained economic growth which enabled it to become, in per capita terms, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and to compete successfully with the United States. But this postwar “miracle”continues a successful development pattern that began in the latter part of the nineteenth century, long after Northern Europe and North America began their industrial revolutions. Self-starting industrialization and modernization took place almost exclusively in a feiv European coun-tries and the English-speaking overseas settler societies. Japan is the
earliest non-Western country to become affluent and industrially developed. Its record, compared to that of the United States or, to some degree, of Western Europe, seems to contradict much of what economic historians and comparative social scientists generally had thought they learned from the American experience.

In this chapter, I look at the two outliers, the two developed nations which are most different from each other. They clearly have distinct organizing principles and their I.alues, institutions, and behaviors fit into sharply different functional ti holes. These variations, of course, have been written about in myriad comparative scholarly, business, and journalistic works.’ These analyses not only tell us about Japan; they give insights into Western, particularly American, culture, which is the main concern of this book as well,

The question which now interests the West is: what is it about Japan that enabled this to happen? The Japanese themselves are fasciniated with discussions of Japanese uniqueness, Nihonron, their counterpart to American exceptionalism. The “reiterated refrain underlying the literature on Japanese identity is that of uniqueness.” One literature survey estimates that over tivo thousand works dealing with Japanse uniqueness have been published since World War II. Sugimito Yoshio and Ross Mouer take note of the agreement among many Japanese that their culture is “uniquely unique” and consequently cannot be understood by Western scholars.’ These argumentshave a long history.

REVOLUTION FROM ABOVE

Japan has modernized economically ivhile retaining many aspects of its preindustrial feudal culture. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the socia1 structure under the Tokugawa Shogunate was still feudal; its culture still resembled that of Renaissance Europe. Japan was an extremely hierarchical society, which placed a tremendous emphasis
obligation to those higher up as well as to those down below. Inferior were expected to show deference and give loyalty while superiors who are obliged to protect and support them.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, Japan avoided a prolonged breakdown of feudalism, when the Japanese aristocratic elite decided that the country had to industrialize to escape being conquered by the perialist West. Determined to avoid dependence on or takeover by Western powers, this elite sought to remake the country economically along Western lines. To do so, they recognized the need to consciously remold the social structure so as to create the conditions for economic development, a dauntingly gargantuan task. If individualism, egalitarianism, and liberalism (a weak state) are highly conducive to economic development, Japan has been more disadvantaged than most nations. Comparatively, it is still extremely status-conscious (the vernacular language and social relations are particularly hierarchical), politically centralized, and above all, by Western standards, collectivity-oriented and particularistic (group-centered).

Few Westerners, other than scholars, are knowledgeable about the reorganization of Japan. The record of the country’s mid-nineteenthcentury barons, that brilliant group of oligarchs who took over the country determined to modernize it, makes that of any group of Communist rulers seem like the work of indifferent bumblers. The changes which occurred in Japan from the 1860s on were among the most remarkable societal transformations that have ever occurred. The barons carried through a sociological transformation, using Emperor
Meiji to legitimate it.

Recognizing that the rapid-and major changes they planned for the nation would create major social strains which could precipitate serious discontent and protest, the Meiji barons restored the prestige of the emperor, enlarged his role, and revitalized the ancient Shinto religion with its links to emperor worship and stress on loyalty to the
state.I0 The concern to resist domination by the West and the continued postfeudal association of aristocratic status and military prowess led to a strong emphasis on armed strength, which continued until the end of World War II. Still, the Meiji elite were prepared to deliberately introduce an institution, the modern university, which they anticipated would be an inherently disruptive, even rebellious, force.

In 1870, Japan did not have a single institution ivhich resembled a university when Arinori Mori, the first minister of education, prepared a memorandum stating that the country required first-rate universities. These would train people to become leaders in scientific research, engineering, and other necessary aspects of modern life. hlori wrote that a university is a place whose faculty and students must be free to read and discuss all the ideas that exist in the world. He recognized that scholarship involves innovation, the superseding of old knowledge, of tradition. In this context, he wrote, the creation of new ideas means a rejection of the past, and therefore exposure to new concepts could result in expressions of doubt about the validity of the predominant values of Japanese society. Hence, though universities are endemically sources of disloyalty, he emphasized that Japan must have them. Since
they inevitably will be centers of opposition, even of sedition, they should not be allowed to influence those who teach students at lower evels of education. He proposed that teachers’ colleges be separated geographically from universities, so that children in the elementary and secondary schools would not be taught by instructors who had
attended a university.”

The Meiji planners were faced with the need to reorganize the state system. In a feudal agrarian society, banking and other commercial activities were held in low repute. This had been true in Europe where merchants, even when wealthy, were looked down upon by the feudal leaders; they were necessary, but they were not considered equals by the aristocracy. The Meiji elite realized that Japan had to encourage commerce and industry, the pursuit of profits. The populace, and the elite as well had to regard business pursuits as important and worthy occupations. The solution was to foster the merger of aristocratic and business statuses by encouraging the lowest aristocratic stratum, the samurai (knights), to become businessmen. This was possible since the samurai had been almost functionless even before the end of feudal era.

The Meiji transformation highlights the widely discrepant roles of the state in developed societies. The ideological heritage of Japan, derived from a postfeudal alliance of throne and altar, engenders a postive sense of the role of government, much as a somewhat similar background produced in most of Europe. Industrialism in Japan, as in
Imperial Germany, was planned by the government, indicating Japan had been less unique in this respect than many Japanese believe. Thorstein Veblen, writing in 1915, noted these developments in terms which resemble recent writings:

It is in this unique combination of a high-wrought spirit of feudalistic fealty and chevalric honor with the material efficiency given by the modern technology that the strength of the Japanese nation lies. In this respect . . . the
position of the Japanese government is not unique except in the eminent degree of its successful operation. The several governments of Europe are also . . . endeavoring similarly to exploit the modern state of the industrial
arts by recourse to the servile patriotism of the common rnan.

The “evolution of Japan,” Emile Durkheim stressed, corresponded in many ways to European “social evolution. We have passed through almost the same phases.” Norman Jacobs, Carmi Schooler, and Ken’ichi Tominaga all emphasize that feudalism and consequent state centralization aided industrialization in Japan and Europe.I6 The
United States developed with much less government involvement in the economy than almost all other now industrialized countries, making it truly exceptional.

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has continued the tradition of guidance set by the Meiji economic planners.” David Okimoto points out that MITI’s contemporaq approach is “anticipatory, preventive, and amied at positively structuring the market in ways that improve the likelihood that industry-specific goals will
be achieved.” The ministry views the operations of a “pure” market economy as flawed, in part because laissez-faire ideology entails the pursuit of narrow interests, and thus a lack of attention to “collective interests . . . and . . . national goals. Conversely, the classically liberal, laissez-faire, anti-statist ideology is the political tradition of the
Uniled States.” The American polity stands out in resisting state leadership in the economic arena.” In contrast to the Japanese experience, the U.S. government “tends to deal primarily with failures after they have occurred. . . . [It] suggests a preference for lealing the market alone unless there is tangible evidence of a breakdown. . . . Whereas Americans are content to let the chips fall where they may, the Japanese prefer to remoire as much of the element of uncertainty from the market processes” as possible.” In an exaggerated sense, the Japanese economy may be described as a form of market socialism, or, as Shin-ichi Kaakazawa, a popular social critic, comments: “It’s as if Japan has a kind of Communistic capitalism, or state socialism without the socialism.2 Douglas Moore Kenrick, a successful businessman and Japanologist, after thirty-five years of working in Japan, wrote a detailed analysis of the society and economy under the title Where Communism Works. He emphasizes that Japan has developed “an advanced, bureaucratic, economic and social system that is different from, as well as similar to capitalism.”” Chalmers Johnson also describes the system as a ”different kind of capitalism,” one which
operates in “ways that neither Adam Smith nor Marx would recognize or understand,” one which is fundamentally different from the American.

The image of the Japanese economy as operating under qualitatively different rules than the American or other Western ones has frequently been challenged by Western economists.” Two North American economists, Richard Beason and David LVeinstein, examine thirteen sector and conclude that the Japanese bureaucrats, like Soviet ones, fail to pick winners in the economic competition. Basically, they report a negative correlation between government support and growth: the more support to an industry, the slower its growth.” But these findings may only demonstrate that the Japanese planners, like other “socialist” ones, work to keep less productive sectors operative, not that they believe these will become winners.”

As I stated in chapter One, comparative approaches such as this can never produce absolute evaluations. It should be noted that most European countries fall in between the United States and Japan; they are more like Japan than the United States is, but more like the United States than Japan is. As Ronald Dore emphasizes in concluding a book comparing Britain and Japan: “In the dimension . . . which I have ordered ‘individualism -collectivism,’‘individualism-groupism,’ the United States and Japan stand at opposite ends, with Britain somewhere in the middle.”

The group or consensus model of Japanese society, and the individualistic and conflict model of American society, both of which are followed by much of the literature and are employed in this chapter, have been criticized by some scholars. They suggest that other approaches, including the structuralist, stratification, and social exchange (focusing the emphasis on reciprocity and gifts) models, provide alternate to conceptualize the two nations. Harumi Befu has suggested as an alternative model for Japan a social exchange one. He notes correctly that the Japanese stress the need to repay all obligations, indebtedness to others who may have helped out or given favors of any kind, as Americans feel less impelled to act in such ways, especially when to doso may create the impression of cronyism, of special favors in turn for bribes. But these are not mutually exclusive. Nations develop new institutions, patterns of acting which fit into their organizing principles. Receptivity to particular modes of behavior is a funtion of the larger value system. Quality circles premised on group cooperation, which were invented in the United States, took hold in Japan, and America. Clearly, while it is possible to organize the analysis of society along a variety of lines, it is necessary for comparative social analysis to focus on organizing principles or values that encourage it into sources of variation with other systems.

Societies are characterized by both aspects of analytical polarities. A society is not either group-oriented or individualistic or ascriptive or agrarian or consensual or not.” All systems are marked by stratification conflict, and consensus There is considerable individualism in Japan as well as particularism (group orientation) in the United States. Such concepts must be treated in a comparative context, as measured by relative rankings, that is, as more or less. Viewed in such a fashion, Japan appears to be the most group-oriented culture among developed
societies; the United States is the most individualistic. Beyond the data presented in this chapter, these conclusions are documented in Tables 8-1 and 8-2 of chapter Eight (drawn from the 1990 World Values Survey led by Ronald Inglehart), which demonstrate that Americans belong to and are more active than Europeans and Canadians in voluntary organizations, while Japanese are the least involved. Worldwide surveys of fifteen thousand managers conducted between 1986 and 1993 by Charles Hampden-Turner and Alfons Trompenaars on many attitude and behavioral items also produced large differences between Americans and Japanese, ivith the two almost invariably at opposite poles; all other nations fell betiveen them.

DUTY AND OBLIGATION

A fundamental difference betiyeen Japan and the United States lies in the fact that the Japanese governing elite has made a conscious effort to merge the traditional with the modern. The Japanese have continued to uphold values and institutions lvhich, from the perspective of Western market economics anal\.sis, make little sense. They maintain a society in cvhich deference and hierarchy are important, in which there is a “continuing ethos of patrimonial relations derived from Japan’s feudal past. . . .” In theory, the person does not exist as an individual, but only as a member of certain larger groups: family, school, community, company, nation. A 1990 Japanese government study of American and Japanese high school students concluded that, unlike the situation in the United States, “child rearing in Japan, the educational system, the style of education plays against individualism. Rote learning is favored over a creative approach to study. In addition, the Japanese do not want to STAND OUT as indvxiduals. The proverb about the nail sticking up which must be pounded down implies that the individual who behaves in an individualistic way is significantly different from the group, will be punished and not rewarded.”

The continuity in the American emphasis on individuality and the Japanese emphasis on conformity to the group may be seen in the cross-national variation in polls taken in 1989, which asked respondents to react to the statement: “It is boring to live like other people.” Over two thirds, 69 percent, of the Americans agreed that conforming is tedious, compared to 25 percent of the Japanese.38 The latter seek to avoid individual responsibility.

The 1990 World Values Survey asked respondents to locate themselves on a ten-point scale running from “Individuals should take more responsibility for themselves” to “The state should take more responsibility to ensure that everyone is provided for.” Seventy percent of the Americans places themselves in the three highest individual responsponsibility categories (45% at the extreme point), in contrast to 17 percent of the Japanese (7% at the top end).”

Notions of duty and obligation constantly come through in conversations with Japanese.40 They feel an obligation to each other and to the institutions of which they are a part. Individuals are indebted to their
students, teachers, employer, and state. They must repay all favors, even casual ones. Gifts are exchanged frequently as a way of maintaining social relationships, of meeting and developing obligations.

The psychologist Janet Spence, in explaining how “the Japanese character differs profoundly from the American one,” notes that considering socialization processes result in sharp variations in ego, with individualism in the United States leading to “a sense of self with a sharp boundary that stops at one’s skin and clearly demarks self from non-self.” For the Japanese, the “me becomes merged with the we, and reactions of others to one’s behaviors gain priority over one’s own evaluations.” These differences are related to the varying values and institutions of the two nations. “These contrasting senses of self in the societies are produced by and lead to differing emphases on rights verses obligations, on autonomy versus personal sacrifice, and on the rarity of the individual versus that of the group-differences that have broad ramifications for the structure of political, economic, and social institutions.”‘’

According to psychological studies, the development of these distinct cultural identities begins in infancy. After noting “sharply different styles of caretaking” in the two societies, William Caudill and Cami Schooler comment: “[I]t would appear that in America the mother views her baby, at least potentially, as a separate and autonomous being who should learn to do and think for himself. . . . in Japan, in contrast to America, the mother views her baby much more as an extension of herself, and psychologically the boundaries between them are blurred. A report on comparative surveys of children age 7 to 11 indicates that when questioned “whether their mothers treated them ‘more like a grown-up or a baby,’ 65 percent of the American children answered ‘more like a grown-up, compared to only 10 percent of the Japanese children.”43 A similar cross-national view of the parent-child relationship is found in the answers samples of fathers gave in 1986 to the question: “Do you try to treat your child like an adult as much as possible?” An ovenvhelming majority of American fathers, 79 percent, replied, “Yes,” compared to less than half, 43 percent, of Japanese.14 The same survey inquired of children aged 10 to 15 years: “When you and your father disagree, does he listen to your opinion?” In tandem with the responses of the fathers, the majority of American offspring, 72.5 percent, said, “Yes, he does,” compared to 45 perce.nt of the Japanese.“ And when asked: “What does your father usually do when you do something bad?” twice the
proportion, 37 percent, of the Americans chose the response, “He doesn’t get upset but tries to talk to me,” contrasted to 18 percent of the Japanese young people. The latter were more likely than Americans ages 10 to 15 to continue the pattern when dealing with younger siblings. Only 36 percent of the Japanese, against 56 percent of the Americans, said they would allow “a younger child [who] wanted to watch some other tv program” to do so even when the older one would like to see another one.‘“

The strength of Japanese group allegiance is strangely and starkly illustrated by the Japanese prisoners of war rvho offered to engage in espionage against their homeland during World War II. “The prisoners became excellent spies. Once they had changed ingroup, having been taken prisoner against the explicit instructions of their superiors, they no longer defined the self as Japanese. This behavior, when compared to the intense sense of‘duty and commitment of kamikaze fighter pilots, seems to indicate that motivating ideology is of secondary importance to the basic fact of group cohesion.

Ironically, the Japanese emphasis on obligation and loyalty to membership groups appears to result in a lonrer level of civic consciousness, a lesser willingness to help individuals or institutions to whom no obligation exists, than in the more individualistic Americam I have been told by Japanese that they are not supposed to assist strangers unless they are in very serious difficulty, since the person assisted will then have a new obligation which he or she does not u.ant. Such reports are congruent with opinion poll findings. Youth surveys (ages 18-24) have
been conducted in different countries by the Japanese Youth Development Office of the Department of Public Affairs. In 1977, 1983, and 988, the Office asked: “Suppose you meet a man lost and trying to find his way. What would you do?”Over half, from 51 to 60 percent, of the Americans chose the answer “ask him if he needs help,” while less than a third, 26 to 32 percent, of the Japanese gave the same response.” Similar cross-national differences were reported in the study of 10-to 15-pear-olds in 1986. They were asked: “If you saw a person with more luggage or packages than he or she could comfortbly handle, would you offer to help him or her even if you didn’t know him or her?” Over three fifths, 63 percent, of the American young people said they would, while only a quarter, 26 percent, of the Japanese would do the same.

American parents are much more likely than Japanese ones to report that they try to teach their children to help those in need and to follow civic rules. A 1981 comparative survey conducted for the Prime Minister‘s Office in Japan, based on interviews with parents of children under 15 years old, reported that over two thirds, 70 percent, of Americans were instructed to “care for the elderly and the handicapped,” compared to one third, 33.5 percent, of the Japanese. The corresponding figures for “not to litter in parks and on roads” were 66 percent for Americans and 33 for Japanese; for “to wait one’s turn in line,” the per­ centages were 44 for Americans and 19 for Japanese.

CHANGE AND STABILITY

Detailed review of the literature on Japanese uniqueness, inherently comparative like that on American exceptionalism, suggests major differences in structures, cultural styles, and values, variations which “are
more or less identical with differences between industrial and preindustrial (feudal) civilization in the West."3 Japanese social scientists have been monitoring their values and national character” through survey research since the 1950s. Their findings indicate that “no change in basic values has occurred in Japan. This evidence challenges evolutionary view which posits the Western pattern as the end point, the culmination of societal development. Alternative patterns of human relations appear to be enduring rather than transitional. The studies stress that the “central Confucian and Samurai values such as seniority, loyalty or priority of the group are still dominant. . . . Tatsuko Suzuki concludes from reviewing the Japanese experience that in spite of “institutional changes . . . in the areas of economics and politics . . . the systems of belief in Japan owe their relative stability to the stability in the structure both of family relations and of supplementary, informal social relations.’’ These findings seemingly reiterate Veblen’s, reached in 1915, that it is “only in respect of its material ways and means, its technological equipment and information, that the ‘New Japan’ differs from the old. . . .”

Various reports on Japanese values indicate, however, that while many attitudes and values appear stable, a number have changed considerably between the 1950s and the 1990s. Some of these changes seem to involve an acceptance of Western values. For example, the proportion of Japanese who would “adopt a child to continue the family line” (traditional behavior for those without children) declined steadily over eight National Character surveys taken between 1953 and 1993, from 73 to 22 percent. Those who say the prime minister should visit
the Imperial Shrine annually moved down from 50 percent in 1953 to 17 percent in 1993.” Asked repeatedly what sex they would choose to be if born again, the percentage of women who would prefer to be men fell off in linear fashion from 64 percent in 1958 to 29 percent in 1993. The proportion of men, however, who opt for a masculine rebirth has been constant at 90 percent from 1958 on. In three American polls taken between 1946 and 1977, the same and unchanging percentage, also around 90, of American males preferred to be born in the same sex. American women, however, have consistently shown a much greater desire to retain their gender than Japanese women, with the percentage wanting to be of the opposite one going donm from 26 in 1946 to 17 in 1958 and 9 in 1977.’’

Conversely, respondents to the National Character surveys, as well as to the youth studies, have become more traditional and less Western in their answers to many other questions. The varying patterns have been brought out in a review of the National Character studies by Japanologist Scott Flanagan of the six survcys taken betbyeen 1963 and 1988. Flanagan summarized the patterns of change for seven items, classifying responses as being “traditional,” “modern,” or “unclassifiable.” I have not used one of the items due to difficulties I have with
coding which response is modern and which is traditional. The unit of measurement is the percentage difference between modern and traditional responses. In four of the six items, the change from 1963 favored the traditional response, while the remaining tn-o items changed in the modern direction. Five of these six changes were relatively small, from 6 to 12 percent. Flanagan’s results also indicate that the fen. early postwar shift toward modernity began “to halt or reverse in the 1970s, as a result of several factors”:

The 1973 Arab oil boycott sent shock waves through the Japanese economy; the oil crisis diverted attention from the environmental, quality-of­ life, and participation issues that had come to the forefront in the 1960s and refocused national attention on economic issues, leading to a resurgence in conservatism. This period also coincided with a renewed interest in Nihonjinron (essays on what it means to be Japanese) as the Japanese
began to reassess the enduring aspects of their culture in light of the previous three decades of massive importation of goods, ideas, and practices from the West. Toward the end of the 1970s this renewed interest in the enduring traditions of Japanese culture was reinforced by a growing nationalism and cultural self-satisfaction with Japan’s new international standing and dramatic economic success.

In Flanagan’s analysis, as well as in results from other studies, I find further evidence for the continued strength of traditional values. An increasing lack of confidence in science, certainly a modern institution, appears to characterize the Japanese, while Americans retain their confidence. The belief that there is a loss in “the richness of human feelings as a result of the development of science” increased from 30 percent in 1953 to 51 percent in the National Character studies of 199.3. These results are supported by the findings of 1980-81 and 1990
World Values Surveys, ivhich asked: “In the long run, do you think that scientific advances we are making will help or harm mankind?” They both found the majority of Japanese critical or fearful of science, while most Americans reacted positively. Fifty-six percent of Americans replied in the first World Values Survey that advances would “help,“ increasing to 62 percent a decade later; Japanese who responded this say increased from 22 to 26 percent. Similar cross-national results with comparable magnitudes of difference in response rates were
obtained to a number of questions seeking to evaluate benefits or damages from the development of science and technology in cross-national surveys conducted in 1991 by the Japanese Science and Technology Agency. For example, 83 percent of Americans, compared to 54 percent of Japanese, agreed that “Scientific development makes my daily life healthier, more safe and comfortable.” The Agency also reported much higher interest in “News and Topics on Science and Technologies” in the United States in 1990 than in Japan in 1991.62 Interest by Japanese young people in science and technology is declining. It fell from 67 to 41 percent between 1977 and 1991. Studies of the occupational aspirations of Japanese high school students found that in spite of the fact that “the employment rate for science and engineering [university] graduates is very high. . . . High school students are steering away from the science and engineering discipline.

Other responses in the National Character research also suggest a revival of traditionalism. Thus, when asked to choose the “two most important values,” those answering “respect individual rights” fell off from 48 percent in 1963 to 38 percent in 1993. Those listing “filial piety,” being dutiful to one’s parents, increased from 61 percent to 69 percent over the same period, while “respect freedom” increased slightly from 40 percent in 1963 to 42 percent in 1993. And on “the rather delicate question of whether or not the Japanese feel they are superior to the Westerners . . . those who believe they are superior increased from 20% in 1953 to a massive 47% in 1968 . . . [and then went down somewhat to a lower 41% in 19931. The pattern observed here indicates the renewed self-confidence of the Japanese. . . Perhaps the best example of the strength of traditional practices even when they appear dysfunctional for an economically developed society is the nation’s refusal to adopt the system of street names and consecutive numbers on buildings that exists in the West. Japanese streets are not named or numbered in the same systematic way, and house numbers refer to the order of construction in a given district. Strangers are expected to find their way with local maps or by directions from a nearby landmark, such as a train station. The Japanese had an opportunity to change after the war when the American occupation forces assigned alphabetical or numerical names to streets. But this system, apparently so much more functional for commerce in a large city like Tokyo, was largely discarded as soon as the occupation ended.

Seemingly, in spite of the tremendous strides Japan has made toward technological modernization, higher self-esteem is leading toward a regained “confidence in tradition,” to a “return to traditional values.”6i These developments in turn should enhance the differences between Japan and the United States and other Western countries. The variations which have been suggested in the literature between the Japanese and American belief systems are summed up in Table 7-1, a modified version of one presented by Peter Dale.

TABLE 7-1. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AMERICA AND JAPAN

Source: Adapted avnd modified from Peter N. Dale, The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness (New York
Martin ’s Press, 1986), pp. 41,5I.

Many Japanese tend to agree with the stereotype that they are a less universalistic and more particularistic society than America. Thus, when asked by the Nippon Research Organization in 1990 whether Japanese are more “intolerant of other races,” 40 percent said they were, while only 13 percent thought Americans were more intolerant than Japanese. A plurality of Japanese (35.5%) replied that their countrymen are more disposed to “put priority on [matters concerning] one’s own country” (nationalistically self-centered), compared to 22.5 percent who believe the Americans are more nationally oriented. More Japanese, 33 percent, see themselves as “selfish,”while only 12 percent identify Americans this way. In each case, Americans, answering the asme questions for the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, were more likely to give the converse response, to think themselves more tolerant other races than the Japanese (by 46 to 40%), less nationalistic (by to 24%),and less selfish (by 44 to 33%). Analysis of the 1990 World values data indicates that the belief that the Japanese are much more tolerant and xenophobic than Americans is true. Americans are more opposed than Japanese to believe it important to encourage their children to exhibit “tolerance and respect for other people,” by 72 to 59.5 percent. Asked to react to various groups, as neighbors, Japanese are much more likely than Americans to reject “immigrants/foreign workers,” as well as Muslims, Jews, and Hindus. They object even more strongly to homosexuals, people who have AIDS, and drug addicts. When the issue is presented in terms of employment, when “jobs are scarce,” only 14 percent of the Japanese disagree with giving priority to their fellow citizens, while an astonishing 43 percent of Americans would deny such advantages.

CONFLICT AND CONSENSUS

The United States is a much more discordant society than Japan and, to a lesser extent, much of Western Europe. The combination of capitalist and Protestant sectarian values, to be found dominant only in America, encourages conflict and moralism. As the purest example of a bourgeois nation, America follows the competitive norms of the marketplace in union management and other relationships. Actors seek to win as much as they can and will ride roughshod over opponents if possible. American unions have been reluctant to cooperate with executives on management problems or to take responsibility for corporate welfare. They are described in the comparative labor literature as “adversarial,” as distinct from the behavior of unions in postfeudal, more social democratic, corporatist nations. The American unionists have pressed to secure as much from management as their strength permits. (In recent years, of course, their loss of membership, as detailed in chapter Three, has hampered their ability to gain concessions and they are much less militant.) Unionists among the Japanese belong to companywide labor organizations which show concern for the company’s needs, not natiomvide ones which include all in the same trade or industry, as in America. American unions historically have not been concerned about the welfare of specific companies. Japanese workers have been much less prone to strike than American unionists. The proportion and number of workers engaged in work stoppages have declined in both countries, but the United States remains far ahead of its trans-Pacific rival. Thus in 1980, one million work days were lost to strikes in Japan, as compared to almost 21 million in the United States. By 1991, the Japanese figure had fallen to
96,000, while the American was close to 4.6 million.6‘ A “de facto incomes policy has grown organically out of a routinized set of norms, procedures, and institutions developed over years of interaction between labor and management.” Okimoto points out that the cooperative and “self-regulating nature of labor-management relations has spared the Japanese government from being engulfed by the consuming task of binding up economic and social wounds following outbursts of labor unrest.”

Related to the emphasis on obligation (exchange relations) is the ideal of a consensual society. “The ideal solution of a conflict . . . [is] not a total victory for one side and a humiliating defeat for the other, but an accommodation by which winner and loser could co-exist without too much loss of face.” Labor relations reflect the more general patterns. “Japanese dispute processing structures tend to minimize adversarialness. . . . They parallel Japanese social structure in the sense that they tend to treat people as connected rather than separated, and to encourage solutions that minimize conflict and reduce the probabilty that relations between disputants will be permanently severed by the dispute. When conflict occurs, persons and groups linked by institutional relationships seek agreement. Majorities do not simply out vote minorities in parliament. Those who can win the vote (pretend to) allow their opponents to influence the final outcome. Japanese politicians, as one once told me, deliberately introduce sections of legslation which they do not want so they can yield them in the final negotiations with the minority opposition. In American election con tests, the minority is voted down. The electoral system invariably prouces a recognizable Vinner and loser even when the difference in votes between them is small. The traditional Japanese method, on the other hand, now in the process of being modified in the mid-l990s, has encouraged minority representation by a number of parties via the election of members of parliament representing disparate groups in the same multi-member constituency. But the myth of consensus, the rituals of agreement, remain dominant.

In America, as we have seen, Protestant sectarian moralism helps to produce adversarialness, since political and social controversies are more likely to be perceived as non-negotiable moral issues than as contests of material interests which can be compromised. Japanese religious traditions reinforce the need for consensus and compromise. They are synchronistic rather than sectarian. Many Japanese who are both Buddhists and Shintoists pray at the temples of the former and the shrines of the latter. Unlike America, “Japan never possessed a dogmatic religion which makes a sharp distinction betkveen right and wrong. . . . None of . . . [Japan’s] religions had a stern, omnipotent God. . . . In a situation where no one fought for God or against Satan, it was easy to reach an accommodation once the fighting was over.’’

The varying consequences of a society which stresses obligation to groups as a major virtue and one which emphasizes individual success and rights are also reflected in the sharply different rates of crime. In America, as noted, the emphasis is on winning, by fair means if possible and foul if necessary. The Japanese crime rate is much lower than the American on a per capita basis. As a result, Lvhile Americans worry about walking the streets of their cities, “Japan is one of the few major nations-perhaps the only one-where one can walk the streets of its large cities late at night and feel in no danger.”’3 The serious crime rate in the United States is over four times the total crime rate of Japan. Only .98 per 100,000 of the Japanese population Ivere murder victims
in 1994, compared with 9.3 Americans; for rape, the variations were 1.5 and 42.8. The data were even more strihng for robbery: 1.75 cases per 100,000 population in Japan, contrasted with 255.8 in the United States, while for larceny the differences were much less, 1,526 and 3,103. As with other measures, European crime rates fall in between.” As Hamilton and Sanders note: “Japan and the United States occupy the opposite poles in the distribution of violent and property crimes among the major capitalist countries.”

The trans-Pacific rates are not converging. Between 1960 and 1995, they increased greatly in the United States for homicide and larceny, while in Japan they fell for murder and remained constant for larceny.” In 1995, in proportionate terms, thirteen times as many Americans were in prison as in Japan, a gap which has been groLving. Japan has a much smaller police force, about 68 percent the size of America’s in per capita terms, and many facer lawyers.

There is a frequent and much exaggerated reference to the enormous difference between the number of lawyers in the two countries, allegedly 13,000 in Japan and around 800,000 in the United States. The second figure is correct. America has one third of the world’s practicing attorneys; but the first refers only to bengos?zi, who are the licensed litigators (barristers) handling ”only a small part of Japan’s lawyering.” In fact, the country has about “125.000 suppliers of legal services,”including all sorts of specialized persons dealing with particular aspects of law, and “in-house corporate legal staffs filled with law graduates who never bothered to pass the bar exam.”” Adjusting for these results shoivs a difference of three to one, 312 lawyers per 100,000 for the United States and 102 for Japan.” There are many fewer tort cases in Japan. As 2.. ca result, the “tort tax” on business and the professions is much lower across the Pacific. It is estimated that “liability-loss payments in America totalled $117 billion in 1987, about 2.5% the GNP. Japan’s cost was eight times less, about 0.3%.”

The vast differences have been explained by variations in structures, values, and culture, though the first two are in large part an outgrowth of the third. As a postrevolutionary new society, the United States has picked the traditional mechanisms of social control and respect for authority that mark cultures “based on traditional obligations which here, or had been, to some extent mutual.” The American emphasis on individualism has therefore been associated with the universalistic ish nexus and legally enforceable contractual agreements, a pattern which in comparative terms has continued to the present. Agreements long business firms are spelled out in much less detail in Japan than America. Contracts are not written in anticipation of possible future litigation. It is assumed that if conditions change so as to benefit one party against the other, the two will modify the agreement, including adjustments in price. The Japanese “prefer mediation. Even when suits are brought before a court, the judges prefer to use conciliation in order to avoid humiliating the loser.” Legal informality, rather than
siousness, characterizes the Japanese approach to law. On the other hand, the United States’ legal-rational culture has resulted in a much higher rate of litigation. Tocqueville stressed the contractual litigious character of Americans in the 1830s, and over 150 years author John Haley writes: “In no other industrial society is legal regulation as extensive or coercive as in the United States or as confined and weak as in Japan.”

Japan has relied much more than the United States on informal mechanisms of social control-the sense of shame or loss of face, not for individuals but for their families and other groups with which are closely identified, including business. An Australian criminologist. Jch- Braithwaite, explains the uniquely low rate of crime in
Japan as a product of the “cultural traditions of shaming wrongdoers, noting an effective coupling of shame and The anthropologist George DeVos concludes that “most social evidence points toward the greater contlnuing influence of informal social confict and social cohesion within the Japanese groups than is found in their western counterparts.” As a 1995 Net17York Times article notes: “The value of good behavior, of fitting into a common society is drummed into [Japanese] children from the moment they set in first grade in identical school uniforms.” Should someone exhibit criminal behavior, the judicial system emphasizes making the offender feel remorse, fostering a societal environment where crime is not to be tolerated. In prisons, offenders are “sometimes kept in tiny, individual cells, and at times they are barred from tallung to one another or even looking at one another.”And even after completing their sentences, paying their debt to society, Japanese criminals typically face ostracism from their families and friends. An earlier 1983 survey of the opinions of national samples of 10-15-year-olds, which inquired about various socially disapproved activities, found only 28 percent of the Japanese children admitting to such behavior, in contrast to 80 percent of the Americans.

Behavioral as well as attitudinal data show that Japanese’have been much less prone to violate traditional norms with respect to marital continuity than Americans, even though the proportions voicing discontent with the relationship are similar. Opinion poll data from the 1980s show japanese much more opposed to divorce than Americans. The cross sections of mothers of teenagers ivere asked whether they believed that “a man and a wife, even if they want a divorce, should consider their children’s future and remain married.” The question yielded overwhelming majority responses in both countries, but in opposite directions. Almost three quarters of those in Japan said they should stay married, cvhile three fifths, 61 percent, in the United States chose the option of divorce. The divorce rate, as of 1992, was much lower in Japan, 1.53 per 1,000, than in the United States, 4.80.per 1,000.”’ As William Goode emphasizes, “by Western standards, it remains low.

Comparative surveys indicate that the Japanese are much more consciously committed to follo\i.ing the rules or customs than innovating, while Americans take the opposite tack. In 1978, cross sections interviewed for the Japanese National Character studies in both countries were asked to respond to the following question:
If you think a thing is right. do you think you should go ahead and do it even if it is contrary to usual custom, or do you think you are less apt to make a mistake if you follow-custom?
1. Go ahead even if contrary
2. Depends
3. Follow custom

Fully three quarters, i6 percent, of the Americans replied “go ahead” even if you have to violate traditional custom, as compared to less than one third, 30 percent, of the Japanese. Even when the issue hoes not involve illegitimate or socially disapproved activities, Japanese prefer to adhere to the rules, while Americans will innovate. Americans are much more likely than Japanese to say they will do anything necessary to get ahead individually. A majority of the former, 1 percent, agreed in 1989 that “I will do whatever I can in order to
icceed,” compared to only 14 percent of the latter. Comparable differences were reported for the responses to thestatement: “I want to successful no matter how much pain might be involved in doing so.” Fully three fifths, 63 percent, of the Americans and more than one third, 36.5 percent, of the Japanese agreed.’3

(Because this article is a bit long, this article continues in two other sections.)

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