For most workers Japan and Japanese politics are remote: therefore a quick reminder of the situation. The Liberal Democratic Party has been in power in Japan for the most part since WWII…sometimes ceding power to other bourgeois parties, but the fundamental policies of capitalism have remained the same after crushing the general strike of 1947. More recently, PM Shinzo Abe’s reign of power as one of the longest Liberal Democratic Party’s Prime Ministers came to an end when he stepped down for health reasons. His successor Suga, little known in the West, stepped down because of his poor record on COVID-19. This made him very unpopular in Japan.
The present leader of the LDP and now Prime Minister after the election on October 31st is Fumio Kishida, from a well-known family of conservative politicians. The election was a bit of a gamble, intended to brush up the image of the LDP after the COVID crisis. It is a little bit like trying to sell a 1955 Datsun model as the latest answer to the environmental problems of 2021. Although maintaining its majority, the LDP lost 17 seats, including that of LDP Secretary-General Akira Amari, who has been subject to allegations of corruption. Turn-out was the third lowest since WW2.
The elections take place against a background of decline of Japanese capitalism that has already lasted 30 years. Since the collapse of a property boom in 1991 Japanese capitalism has known only very limited growth. Shinzo Abe, when he came to power for a second time in 2012 tried to kickstart the economy by increasing government spending, particularly on the infrastructure and cutting taxes for the rich. These policies however did not have a dramatic effect, except increasing inflation and leading to a growing wealth gap.
Growth was already struggling before Covid hit, as it was under pressure from the environment, the setbacks in nuclear strategy following the Fukushima disaster, the decline in the population of Japan. The survival strategy of the Japanese bourgeoisie is to slowly sell off the technological advantages gained in the previous period of expansion and to stay within the framework of US imperialism in order to stay safe. Covid has led to an acceleration of inflation, and increasing dissatisfaction with inequality.
The phase in which the economic rise of China played a positive role, like it did for the US and Europe, in the sense that it offered cheap labor and investment opportunities, is now over. Japan is now in the first line of defense, the first line of islands around China for the US and a vital part of the latter’s strategy. This means that Japan is under pressure to increase its defense expenditures.
These are the issues that dominated discussion during the short election campaign. The ruling LDP concerned at the growing power of China, but also having been partly sidelined by the signing of the AUKUS agreement wants to increase defence expenditure, potentially to double its current level. Economically it will continue with limited increases in state expenditure and promises tax relief for companies that increase wages. It wants to shorten supply chains by developing the domestic production of semiconductors, batteries and pharmaceuticals. It also wants to expand nuclear energy use. Kishida talks of a “new capitalism” for Japan’s middle class, although quite what he means by this remains unclear.
These policies are not meeting with enthusiasm. Even until the last days over 40% of the electorate had not decided who to vote for. To a large degree this is explained by the lack of a serious, particularly working-class opposition. The four main opposition parties — the Constitutional Democratic Party, Japan’s ‘Communist Party’, the Social Democrats and Reiwa Shinsengumi, a smaller left populist party formed a block to oppose the LDP, the main part of which was not to oppose each other in the single seat constituencies. The CDP, the main beneficiary of this maneuver has policies that differ little from those of the LDP — it too fears the growth of Chinese assertiveness in the region. Although the JCP in theory does not, it has sacrificed any independence, and will likely see a further erosion of its support. Both the CDP and the JCP lost seats — 13 and 2 respectively.
The surprise winner was the Osako based Ishin or Japan Innovation Party — a right-populist party that supports neo-liberalism, ‘less government’ and the revision of Japanese history. Its policies do not dramatically differ from those of the LDP, but won 40 seats as its seems voters wanted to oppose the LDP, but had no confidence in the policies presented by the CDP led block.
Following the election, Japan will remain afloat, but a new government will not be in an easy position with a stagnant economy, a declining population and increased demands on its military apparatus. It is absolutely unthinkable that the bourgeoisie will change course under the present circumstances. It is expected that Koshida has now had his hands freed to step up defence spending, with, as one commentator remarked, “a lot of stimulus” in the economy.
This does not mean however that there is no dissatisfaction particularly within the potentially very powerful working class. According to one of the main daily papers ‘The Asahi Shimbun’, the employers are having to succumb to increased pressure from the workforce to increase wages, even though the main trade union federation has ignored the increased hardships caused by Covid and restricted its claim to an increase of 2%. There has also been an increase in trade union membership in 2020 — even though the numbers in work fell by almost a million, the number of union members increased by 30,000. Particularly marked has been the unionization of part-time and precarious workers.
The outlook for the workers remains bleak. But Japan has always had pockets of resistance, strong resistance even against environmental pollution for instance. The increasing precarious working conditions also cause frictions. At this point in time workers’ resistance is mainly passive and the elections will not change that. There are no political channels for the workers and the large unions remain bureaucratized. But as activism in small work places broadens and a wider environmental movement will take hold in Japan, the situation will start to change. Workers, youth, women all those who need to fight for their interests will turn to organized struggles, restoring the best traditions of the post-war Sanbetsu unions, and in turn to establish a genuine workers’ party, based on revolutionary socialist policies.
