Is there hope for a socialist revolution in Japan?

Is there hope for a socialist revolution in Japan?

They have one of the most active Communist parties in East Asia.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karōshi
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Rallizes_Dénudés
youtube.com/watch?v=ch-TDGW-zXs
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/08/yakuza-underground-japan-less-peaceful
en.rocketnews24.com/2015/04/11/25-year-old-neet-running-for-chiba-city-council-seat-partly-on-platform-of-fiscal-responsibility/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soka_Gakkai#Public_Perception
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akiyo_Asaki
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

The Japs are fucking loyal slaves. They're fucked

no

You mean the party which has renounced revolution and is totally down with keeping the Emperor?

Japanese-Burgerman here, I studied for a few years in Fukuoka, and I'll tell you this:

Japan is nowhere near class-conscious. In fact, it has some of the most serious inequality issues in the entire East. People are more than willing to work themselves to death for the boss and for their own success, simply because society tells them that it's upright to do so.

In the southern portions of the country (e.g. everything past Kyoto), classism against Buraku still exists heavily, and is propagated by the right-wing parties and Yakuza. Furthermore, criminal organizations like the Yakuza, who are mostly interested in exploiting big business, are allowed to exist because it's thought that they keep the peace.

They might have the largest Communist Party in East Asia, but that Communist Party has a serious issue with their presence. The Japanese people are SERIOUSLY against revolution, it's almost fucking cultural. In the modern day, it's VERY frowned upon to stick out in modern society.

So no, there won't be any revolution in Japan unless there's a serious cultural change.

Japanese culture revolves around willingly submitting and working yourself to death for your benevolent overlords.
They're probably the least class-conscious country on Earth, and even if they were all class-conscious, they probably wouldn't do anything about it because muh social harmony maymay.

Japanese work culture is spooked as fuck, fam. Taking vacation days or declining to drink past midnight with the boss most of the workweek is seen as a sign of disloyalty and can place your job in jeopardy, and your employers often run the housing unit or resort sites you're expected to reside in much of the time. It makes Protestant work ethic look class-conscious by contrast.

Well there is a sliver lining, if their society keeps on producing more NEETs and Hikkis, that would be good, since their existence is vampiric for capital. They consume but they don't put it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karōshi
they literally have a word for when you die of too much work. Japs are ultra classcucked.
Which is a shame because anarchism in japan was big in the early 20th century

Hobsbawm felt the same way about the british monarchy. Unless you're in the middle east these are usually symbolic m8.

well shit nigger

Aren't they miserable though?

High suicide rates, social bonds collapsing, weird sexual preferences.

10% is a good basis to build one.
Way better than in my country.

The question is, do you focus on strongholds or do you try to expand? You will stretch your resources thin by doing both.

Also of note, Japan is a "democracy" that favours the two strongest parties. And a second one just imploded, leaving the conservative "liberal-democrats" basically free reign. They could ban alcohol, football and eat babies and they would still get elected thanks to the system. Communists could actually establish themselves as the second option.

Also of note is that members of the JCP keep a low profile, due to persecution on non-communists. Same shit as always.

Yes. Although, again, they're also obsessed with telling people whatever they want to hear, so good luck getting them to talk about their emotions.

When you're into music as I am, you keep hearing about those very strong musical scenes in Japan, heavily influenced by western tendencies and the European New Left. They produced some quality artists, but apparently failed to be influential and to change society's norms.

Why do you think that is? In the west you can divide social norms by before and after those movements, but in the East they seem to have died without affecting anything.

Westernu myuziku not yamato enoughu for goodu Japanese salaryman-des.

I'm not just meme-ing here, any Western music besides pop and classical is seen as nothing more than a novelty.

Waiting for next economic downturn will happen…

How hard must it really be to talk them into Leftism, though?

Japan did everything "right". Worked themselves to death - literally in some cases, obeyed customs and tradition, voted for right-wing liberal parties that never gave them shit, jumped into new technologies and infant industries, obeyed international law and here they are, struggling with their economies.

Everything they tell us to do, they did, and yet it seems like they've reached the full potential of the current system.

Kill yourself.

...

Anything that upsets the status quo is extra hard to get the Japanese to swallow.

To them, what is right is what is Japanese, and there's nothing more Japanese than working 80-hour work weeks until you die.
For Japan to change politically, they would have to: 1) Lose their work-till-death obsession, 2) lose at least some of their xenophobia, and 3) lose most of their fear of upsetting the status quo.
Maybe one day those things will all be overcome. But it would take a colossal change across the whole country.

Also, Japanon

can you please expand on this? Maybe give us something related to read?

The downfall of capitalism is inevitable. The question is simply whether it will happen sooner, due to a working class movement, or later, due to the emergence of a post-scarcity economy.

Japan is stuck at Glam Metal stage.
Visual Key is pretty much fujoshit bait.

What they need is a Grunge scene. Problem is, you can not market it as good, because it demands a certain amount of independence and integrity, which the big labels don't want to grant.

being miserable because of capitalism does not automatically translate into being anti-capitalist.

It's not going to happen, you're average person doesn't even know what socialism is. Things aren't going to change until the shit hits the fan, another great depression or something alone those lines.


That's not going to happen in my life time. And we already live in relative post scarcity, things seem to only get worse seeing that porky finds innovating ways to keep himself at the top.

That would still fit my criterion. What I mean by sooner or later is this: capitalism will fail, due to automation and technological progress. The question is simply whether we can achieve a better socioeconomic change before that inevitable technological change arrives.

No, we aren't.

And the answer is clearly a, no.


Yes, we are. There's material, food, water, and energy abundance; the problem being capitalism and it not being profitable to end poverty.

Like everywhere, it's all about objective and subjective conditions.

In japan, same as in US, objective conditions are now formed.

Crisis of Capitalism, big corps failing, environment going down, people getting fed up…

Now, forming the subjective conditions is the hard part.

I'd like to add the lack of generation renewal to that.

People don't have as many children. The previous generation is too spooked. Ideology is more stable.

I can assure you that a crisis does make the younger people care about "politics". But if there are no young people to care… or not enough… then what? Old people mostly care about stability and pension. Also in Japan they live to work.
This is no revolutionary matterial!

If you think that, then why are you on Holla Forums?

A post-scarcity economy is one in which it takes no labor (or a trivial amount of it) to produce the necessities of life (for a given cultural standard). We are not at that point; if the people who grow my food, make my clothes, and produce and delivery my energy suddenly stopped working tomorrow, I'd be fucked.

I remember reading somewhere that Japanese people treat homeless people like CHUDS and japan has a lost cause narrative from ww2 about how japan needs to be great again

Tfw every country on earth is turning fascist

You're thinking a fully automated economy, not a post-scarcity economy. Post-scarcity means we are fully capable of meeting every person's needs. The other guy is right.

could be worse. it could be like south korea

Also if you want to know about a leftist Japanese musician look into les rezillis denudes, the japanese consume more music than america and have really interesting music when you dig into it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Rallizes_Dénudés


youtube.com/watch?v=ch-TDGW-zXs

Why wouldn't I be?


We are at the point, I literally just explained it to you. There's an abundance of material, food, water, and energy to meet the needs of the human population. It's why I said, "relative post scarcity." What we have today is artificial scarcity, I hinted at that when I said, "porky finds innovating ways to keep himself at the top."

Revolution would be impolite, and the emperor is a god-king. You can't just dethrone the church there any more than one could within the Papal State.

Not to mention we haven't had one in the West since Alexander III of the Achaeans claimed Persia. So we have a poor concept of just what their emperor means to them.

Well, if you think the only path forward for communism is to let history and technology run their course, then you've basically abdicated any kind of stake in it, so discussing it would seem pointless.

And the bass player took part in a JRA plane hijacking

To be fair, the emperor hasn't been more than a mostly powerless figurehead for several hundred years.

As if discussing communism on an imageboard will change the course of history.

I'm not saying it will, you retard, I'm saying what's the point of talking about something that you clearly don't give a shit about.

I find that "political music" isn't very popular in Japan itself, just like politics itself. While there are certainly large portions of New Left musicians, you'll typically find them to attract impotent liberals rather than hardcore Communists.

I also think that the pressure that society puts on them to conform is much more effective than the message of the music, if that makes sense.

The Guardian (yes, I know) did a pretty expansive opinion piece on why the Japanese government "tolerates" the Yakuza.

The Yakuza are going the way of the Bosozoku these days, they're dying out. They're viewed as a relic of the past by Japanese youth, and an effective tool for controlling crime by the government.

In short, the Japanese government allows the Yakuza to exist because they believe that they're keeping crime under wraps in the criminal sphere through organization.

theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/08/yakuza-underground-japan-less-peaceful

Even with an economic downturn in Japan, the means of production will probably not be seized. In Japan, the corporations involvement in your personal life is insane. You live in the corporation's houses, you socialize with the corporation's bureaucrats, and you drink with the corporation's managers.

It would be a fundamentally different way of life for the Japanese if we got rid of corporations, but I think it would certainly be a better one. However, chaos would certainly follow.

People do quite like the Imperial family, I think that it'll be a hard pill to swallow if someone tries to get rid of them. I think it would be better to allow them to be useful idiots rather than to get rid of them wholly.

This is only *partly* true. Most people don't revere the Emperor as a god anymore, but they certainly see him as a symbol of "heavenly hierarchy." As such, they'd be willing to bow down to him tomorrow if he announced that he'd like his powers back.

The Church doesn't have much of a sway in Japanese society. Most people are irreligious or only participate in religious ceremonies because of the culture. I think the Catholic and Protestant Churches in Japan would be a major source of trouble though, their congregations are growing.

In a way, Japan only rejects Korean corporatism because it's Korean. In another way, Japan is already like Korea.

Yes, very.


A majority of students are very ashamed of Japan's warmongering past. It's mostly the old people that propagate this lost-cause narrative.

Seconding. LRD manipulates feedback into such gorgeous soundscapes and it's made them one of my favorite bands. For those looking to get into them I'd recommend Flightless Bird, '77 Live, Mizutani, and Blind Baby Has Its Mother's Eyes.

There's literally nothing you can do to to advance communism in any meaningful way, why do you think we're here you retard? Class consciousness will be forced via natural law.

Yeah, even in a communist future I imagine the Imperial family would still exist as some kind of cultural figureheads.

They did have this guy so it's at least possible for them to get involved
en.rocketnews24.com/2015/04/11/25-year-old-neet-running-for-chiba-city-council-seat-partly-on-platform-of-fiscal-responsibility/

I think that the situation will be similar to when the Shoguns took over in history. They will allow the Emperor to live in the palace, have his nice things, and live out the rest of his days undisturbed as a cultural icon. However, the Emperor will have no real power, and Japan's power will reside in the hands of the working class. Given enough time, the working class will realize that it's not within their self-interest to give up the power to the Emperor, and if he ever tries to propagate a counter-revolutionary attitude, it will then be possible to remove the family from the picture.

I think you're wrong. When people act collectively, they can move mountains.

If communism comes about solely through the development of technology, it will have arrived without class struggle, and thus without class consciousness. You have no clue what you're talking about.

This is olympic mental gymnastic tier of reasoning.

kek

Holla Forums proved that shit backfires

It's actually not as outlandish as you might think, though it really depends on the context.
A good example is red-light districts. Historically, even when prostitution was illegal, it was tolerated–as long as it was within a certain, clearly marked area. That way, the prostitutes were guaranteed some measure of safety (since they didn't have to wander the streets) and regular people out for a stroll wouldn't have to see them.

...

Get real, look at the world around you.


I didn't say that. I said things will only change when the shit hits the fan. Progressing towards communism isn't going to happen because the population suddenly got enlightened on the matter, it's going to happen because they were forced to. Either we perish or we change, it's as simple as that.

economic downturn/natural disaster -> class consciousness -> class struggle -> communism

I agree that the only way communism can come about is after an economic downturn.

If you look at the circumstances that led to the revolutions in Cuba, Russia and China, it goes to show nothing happens in one fell swoop. Something really drastic has to happen in Japan, but it seem they're taking the route of voluntary extinction a.k.a. just let's not produce any babies, as opposed to try to overthrow the system.

You can't seem to decide whether people are capable of implementing communism on their own, or whether they'll have to wait for technology to hand it to them. I get that you're saying it can't happen now, but the things you're saying imply that some hypothetical future group of people will do it–which contradicts this "natural law" stuff you're spouting.

Japan sounds like it's I'm the starting stages of a literal cyberpunk distopia

It is though.
Corporation = Religion
NEET = Bad
Tech uber alles.
Coffin hotels.

NEOTOKYO WHEN?

I never said anything about technology, you just put that in my mouth. I said civilization will have to change due to environmental pressures or it will obviously destroy itself; That was one of my first replies:

And I'm using natural law in the environmental, scientific sense, as in, our understanding of nature (the physical world) and what its boundaries are. Essentially, the laws of nature will force class consciousness.

Christians will always be a problem in East Asia, especially with those fucking bible thumping South Koreans.

Unless of course said country has an Islamic boarder or an Islamic population over 2%; those regions are already dealing with worse.

Well, Japan does feature heavily in Cyberpunk culture.

/cyber/ was actually what brought me to Holla Forums, since it moved from 4/g/

I don't know anything about Japan so this is conjecture but I reckon it's educated conjecture.

Japs like to talk about fascism like fundamentalists or reglefts/ripsters do. Capiche? They haven't actually seen fascism in practice, and as soon as they did they would hate it unless they were incredibly, super naive. It's fun to say shit like "speaking against our nation should be outlawed" without actually examining what that implies. Eventually the libdems are going to come out with their new constitution and either people are gonna go ape and vote them out en masse or let them carry on, and after the new constitution has been in effect long enough they'll go ape and vote them out en masse. They style themselves as a big tent party (they're not) so there's no reason to take a big objection to them and vote them out en masse and they've built the country's operations around themselves to the point that when they lost power for a term everything went to shit and they blamed it on the Libs and people came running back to them. The libs are pretty shit but I feel like without the libdems Japan would be a largely two party system between them and the Communists- the Communists are basically the only relevant third party. Hell, the libs are almost a third party.

It's funny. All the shit about X country being controlled at the highest level by a religious, fascist, entryist clique is actually true in Japan, and it's called Soka Gakkai. It's not just a conspiracy theory over there, it's fact as far as anyone paying attention is concerned.

I'm trying to remember where I saw this video that had like a chalkboard with the Japanese transcript of what someone was saying in an anime girl voice and English subtitles below it and it was basically explaining all the crap about Soka Gakkai and how they have an entire political party dedicated to purveying their interests that's mysteriously allied with the majority government and Shinzo Abe, who went to venerate war criminals. I think it was around the time of Gamergate, people were trying to compare it to Jaydubs or something. Not so much the government stuff, because the video was actually mostly about the cultish psychological tactics SGI employs on its membership like gaslighting and scamming and even alleged murder. This is also relephant-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soka_Gakkai#Public_Perception
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akiyo_Asaki
It Really Makes You Think

I can tell you almost certainly that the controversy over Soka Gakkai is treated with the same reverence as conspiracy theories in Japan. Soka Gakkai ceased to be relevant to the population of Japan in the 1960s after the end of their aggressive proselytizing.

It is a fact that Soka Gakkai is linked with the Abe government, however, it isn't suspicious to me that coverage of Soka Gakkai stopped when they aligned themselves with the majority party. Why? They ceased to be relevant. Their craze came and went. The conspiracy theory was a trend in Japanese society.

Soka Gakkai is only relevant to tabloid papers these days.

Then your newspapers are missing out. It's quite clear to me that Soka Gakkai has wanted to form Japan in their own image for a very long time, and they are foolish enough to think Nippon Kaigi is an adequate vehicle for this- and quite likely, vice versa; the Lib Dems had to have something to gain from the alliance to accept it. They're, as Zizek would say, "ideological" fundamentalists, and like idealistic fundamentalists they're willing to adopt fascism by any other name. They don't seem openly malicious to me, just misguided, and they definitely seek money and growth with claims of how the Lotus Sutra will make God rain puppies into your life. Of course, the real enemy here is Nippon Kaigi- I imagine even the person who made that video realizes that by now.

Also, reading the Akiyo Asaki case, I can't tell exactly what was going on, but it sounds mostly like government drama. They wanted to defame her, and when lying about her doing X and lying about her alibi didn't work, they decided killing her would be easier. She lived right next to the fucking police station, it's a connection begging to be drawn. Something about getting SG or the clothing store owner some money to pay back for something. If anything she was probably getting in the way of the preliminary stages of the Komeito-LDP alliance.

So, in the event of a socialist revolution, all the counter-revolutionaries would need to do is ask/intimidate the Emperor into reassuming his "rightful" position? Haha oh wow.

Then I guess I misunderstood you.


Japan is prominent in cyberpunk from the '80s and '90s because most Westerners at the time thought that it was going to become a rival economic powerhouse. It was an expression of economic and cultural fear. Nowadays that isn't really a thing, since Japan's economy has been so stagnant. That's why China is now the go-to "scary foreign economy."

I agree that they're by far the real threat when compared to Soka Gakkai, especially because Shinzo Abe is their "special adviser," it's a disgusting display of power.

Yes, this is extremely suspicious, I agree. However, I don't think that a murder propagated by the organization is convincing evidence that they're in control of the government. As far as I'm concerned, Soka Gakkai is like Japan's Scientology.

Yes. In the event of a violent revolution, it would be vitally important to ensure that the Socialists secure Tokyo and ensure that the Emperor doesn't make any address from his Palace.