Rhetoric of Young Non-Regular Workers in Post-Bubble Japan: a Genealogical Analysis" (2015)

Wayne State University Wayne State University Dissertations 1-1-2015 Rhetoric Of Young Non-Regular Workers In Post- Bubble Japan: A Genealogical Analysis Noriaki Tajima Wayne State University, Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations Part of the Communication Commons, and the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Tajima, Noriaki, "Rhetoric Of Young Non-Regular Workers In Post-Bubble Japan: A Genealogical Analysis" (2015). Wayne State University Dissertations. 1364. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/1364 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wayne State University Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. RHETORIC OF YOUNG NON-REGULAR WORKERS IN POST-BUBBLE JAPAN: A GENEALOGICAL ANALYSIS by NORIAKI TAJIMA DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate School of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2015 MAJOR: COMMUNICATION Approved By: Advisor Date © COPYRIGHT BY NORIAKI TAJIMA 2015 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work, the work on pain, struggles and hope, has been soulful for me. So I am very thankful to a number of people who have been involved in the process of developing it. First and foremost, I appreciate Dr. Kelly Young. This work is successfully at this point thanks to his careful examination of a number of past drafts. Even though Kelly was not originally my adviser, he has always welcomed students like me and become an important source of insights, inspirations and encouragements. Like many other students of him, I also profoundly appreciate his smart intelligence and fun-loving, warm-hearted personality. Along with his incredible skills of mentoring dissertation, Kelly has been my role model of a debate coach. Time shared with him, Dr. Ron Stevenson, other graduate assistant coaches and debaters is at heart of my pedagogical life as an instructor of debate and public speaking. My knowledge of rhetoric and communication is also indebted to lessons of Dr. Mary Garrett. From the first semester of my doctoral student life to dissertation defense meeting, her comments and suggestions have always been very precious. Especially memorable was her emphasis on humanitarian traditions of communication and rhetorical studies, and this has always been cherished when I do my scholarly works. Also, I feel very grateful to the time shared with Dr. James Cherney. Jim came to Wayne State in my third year, so I had only a smaller amount of time of interactions with him than with other members. Yet it was very fortunate that Jim kindly welcomed my offer of joining the committee and provided me with many discrete comments and meaningful suggestions. From Dr. Heidi Gottfried at Sociology Department, I had a unique benefit. With respect to the topic, I learned a lot both from direct conversations and from her works. Interacting with ii an authority of work, welfare state and political economy in Japan (and beyond) has substantially improved the contents of this work. I also express my appreciation to those who read and commented on an early version of a chapter, which was presented at the Fourth Tokyo Conference of Argumentation sponsored by Japan Debate Association. I appreciate Dr. David Zarefsky, Dr. Kevin Baaske, and Dr. Junya Morooka, for valuable comments. I also thank Dr. Takeshi Suzuki for organizing the wonderful conference. I feel very proud to be a part of the Association now. Also, many people have encouraged me to advance this work. I was blessed to have a time with Mr. Makoto Yuasa and to march with our “brothers and sisters” on national bureau and ministry buildings in 2012. This experience has been a great source of my motivation to advance this project. From WSU alumni currently staying in Japan, Satoru, Naoto, Takuzo, Naoki and Arata, I received a number of warm advice and encouragement. Especially, I appreciate time with Naoto, my favorite debate judge, wonderful teacher, and a good colleague at Kanda University of International Studies. His passion to communication education and rhetoric will live forever at Kanda. I also appreciate other faculty members at Kanda, including Professors Robert De Silva, Yasuyo Sakata, Tomoko Masumoto and Takashi Kosaka, for their encouragement. And, thank you, my parents and Ayako, for your patience, care, and love. This work has been driven by a strong sense of moral obligation for the present and future of Japanese working populations such as you, me and everyone around us. And last but not least, I thank the Town of Detroit for embracing me and giving me a chance to think about manufacturing, welfare and hegemony of capitalism. I thank everything for advancing this work. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii List of Tables v List of Figures vi Chapter 1 “A Rhetorical Study of Young Non-regular Workers in Recessionary Japan: An Introduction” 1 Chapter 2 “Stability in the Absence of Equality: A Review of Companyism in Post-WWII Japanese Economic Culture” 35 Chapter 3 “Young Non-regular Workers as an Inferior Species: A Description of a Derogatory Subject” 72 Chapter 4 “Challenges Against the Oppressive Power: Rhetorics of Two Activists” 147 Chapter 5 “Young Non-regular Workers Abandoned in Recessionary Japan, and Their Future: A Conclusion” 191 References 213 Abstract 242 Autobiographical Statement 244 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Wage System in Post-WWII Japan 46 Table 2: Legislation of Non-regular Working Status, 1985-2008 106-07 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Unemployment Rate of Fifteen Years Old or More Male Labor Force by Age, 1984- 2004 100 Figure 2: Change in the Percentage of Japanese Employees Engaged in Non-regular Work by Age, 1982-2007 101 vi 1 CHAPTER 1 A RHETORICAL STUDY OF YOUNG NON-REGULAR WORKERS IN RECESSIONARY JAPAN: AN INTRODUCTION One day, over a beer at a fireworks-viewing party in Tokyo suburb, I spoke of my concern about Japan’s social dislocation with a journalist recently retired from a powerful Japanese newspaper. He confided that he, too, was deeply anxious about the nation’s passive acceptance of failure; its bankrupt banks and corporate malfeasance, rampant political corruption, and the rising pessimism of its people. “Half the people don’t know how bad things are,” he told me. “The rest are in denial.” Michael Zielenziger. Shutting out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation. New York: Vintage, 2006. Print. 13. David Harvey comments that Japan was “the powerhouse of the global economy” in the 1980s (“Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction” 33). In that time, the Japanese economy, known as Japan as number one, was said to be more vigorous than any other industrial nation with its robust growth rates, top-notch manufacturing technologies, and thought-out human resource management. Due to these factors, Japan was a good economic partner with the United States; however, for the same reasons, Japan in the 1970s and 1980s became a far more important threat to America’s preeminent position in the global market than it is now. While Japanese people were once ironically called economic animals in this time, they were also said to have a strong sense of egalitarianism. For instance, British business magnate Bernard Eccleston notes in 1989 that “for over 25 years opinion surveys conducted actually by the EPA [Economic Planning Agency] and the Prime Minister’s Office show that between 80 and 90 per cent of respondents considered themselves to be middle class” (162). Also, the 2 Japanese public once recognized its society as classless because it has fortunately avoided major discussions or conflicts over class, poverty or capital distributions. However, Japan’s stable economic growth ended about two decades ago when the asset and estate bubble burst in 1991. Most notably, the burst firstly plummet the Tokyo average stock price from 38915 yen to less than twenty thousand yen in a year, triggering a number of economic consequences. For instance, the asset prices fell significantly; several major bank companies playing speculative businesses went bankrupt; and many companies have turned down their aggressive growth policies to defensive safeguarding ones. Since then, the slow economy has eroded companies’ and investors’ capitals, causing industrial bases to escape to foreign countries and a number of domestic citizens into poverty. The New York Times, for instance, describes that those under the poverty line—those living under twenty two thousand dollars a year as outlined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development— amounts to twenty million, occupying 15.7 percent of the nation now, many of which are among young generations (Fackler A6). Their low living standards are most directly due to particular types of employment contracts. Since the end of the World War II (WWII), Japanese working culture has clearly standardized regular full-time status, and discerned it from other non-regular statuses. Called seishain, a regular working position has been assumed to be for male breadwinner husbands in nuclear families, whereas a variety of non-regular positions was assumed to be for auxiliary income earners—that is, other family members such as housewives, seniors and students. As such, a seishain, a combination of sei or formal and shain or company member, is assumed to stay in the same company for the long term, most likely an entire working career from age eighteen or twenty two to fifty five, or now sixty or sixty five. Accordingly, seishain workers 3 have enjoyed very good benefits such as ample job-training opportunities, employment stability and (almost) promised salary increases; the legacy that Japanese companies were collectivist, egalitarian and with high coorperative spirit was established in this particular culture.1 On the other hand, non-regulars are usually paid hourly- or daily-based wages with no employment securities or welfare and with little chance of promotions.

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