Japan's New Middle Class: The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb (41 page)

[6] Indeed, many characteristics of Japanese social structure seem to follow from the surplus of labor: the fact that large organizations have more men than can efficiently be used, that women have no work, that well-to-do boys do not take part-time work in vacations for fear of taking jobs from poorer boys, and that the desire to gain security in place of work is so strong.

Although firmly attached to the new group once a person moves, his original group remains his refuge in times of difficulty. If, for example, a boy is discharged by an employer or if the employer goes out of business and is unable to offer support, the boy must then turn back to his family and to the person who originally helped him find the job in order to obtain a new situation. If a girl has marital difficulties, she must go back to her original family for assistance in finding a new livelihood. Until recently, the same pattern held true even for an older woman who had trouble in marriage or for an older man who had trouble in his work. If the parents who had originally been responsible for making the placement had died, then the person who inherited the family headship would assume the same responsibility. Today, with such group responsibility somewhat diminished, the passing of years and the death of the person who made the placement may mark an effective end of the attachment to the previous group. However, immediately after the war, many people returning from overseas made claims for help on families from whom they had been separated for a generation or two, and, weakened as the claims were with the passage of time, help was often grudgingly given.

Hence, a person must remain on good terms with the group from which he originally came, even after he has been placed elsewhere. To burn one's bridges destroys security in case of difficulty in the new group. To some extent the person sent back to his original group is always regarded as a
yakkaimono
(a dependent and a nuisance), but as long as he has maintained good relationships with his group and has performed diligently in the group in which he was placed, every effort will be made to provide him with new opportunities and to give him proper care in the meantime.

To maintain good relationships with one's previous group one must also perform well in one's present group. If a girl goes back to her parental home as a result of marital difficulties, her family wants to know if she has done everything possible to make the marriage a success. To some extent, she is always regarded as responsible for marital difficulties, but if the evidence shows she really tried her best, the family and go-betweens will make every effort to find her a new opportunity. Hence, she wants to have her family's approval when she first marries so they will share the re-

sponsibility in case of difficulty. Furthermore, she keeps her family informed of the problems to make sure they will be willing to help her in an emergency. Ordinarily, she will not consider divorce or separation unless she has her family's support or at least some assurance that they will help out. Hence, even to leave her present group requires evidence that she has done everything possible to make it a success. The same is true for the young man in relation to his place of employment.

A good relationship with one's sponsors can also be a help in improving one's present situation. Even in the so-called "paternalistic" small shops and plants many employers have exploited the workers. But if the worker had been placed by an influential go-between or if the family of the worker had power and influence, he could rely upon their intervention to improve conditions. Similarly, if a girl were mistreated in marriage, her original family and go-between could bring pressure to bear to insure better treatment. The large firm or government office offers such good working conditions and job security that there is little likelihood that an employee will have to call on the family for assistance, but his original family remains his secondary security system. For the man employed in a small firm the possibility of returning to his original group remains an important consideration, as it does for a girl in her marriage.

The group control over mobility and the mechanism of returning to one's previous group in case of difficulties has contributed to the stability of the social order not only because the movement itself is orderly, but because it has reinforced the power of the group in controlling its members. It insures that a group will neither be ruined nor drastically altered by unexpected departures, and the system of returning through channels insures that a person who has failed in work or marriage may still be integrated into a tightly-knit group.

At least until very recently, the basic cleavages in Japanese society have not been between the different social strata within a given group but between one group and another. The relationships among group members have generally been sufficiently close and humane, and the possibilities for the lower strata to shift their allegiance to

another group have been so limited, that class solidarity going beyond a given group has been relatively weak. The cleavages within the rural village generally have been between one kin group and another or between two prominent families with their respective followers or between several landlords with their respective tenants. In intervillage relationships, instead of poor people in one village uniting with poor people of another village, all residents of one village have generally united to compete with other villages. Workers in a company have a strong attachment to their firm, and even today unions which link workers across company lines are weak.
^[7]
It is precisely this pattern that has led so many Japanese social scientists to criticize their own society as feudalistic. But this feudalistic loyalty has also functioned to prevent cleavages between social classes and between age groups. Even those who complain about elders or upper class generally remain loyal to their own superiors.

Ordinarily Japanese have not been motivated to change their status radically but to rise within the confines of certain groups or through arrangements made by other members of their group.
^[8]
People ordinarily have not seriously considered giving up their way of life for another. Merchants, for example, have not aspired to give up business for another way of life, nor have artisans aspired to give up their crafts.
^[9]
Even though within the last decade large numbers of farmers have turned over the farming to their wives and children while they work in nearby factories or shops, a family with a plot of land rarely expects to leave the farm.

Although Japanese have not been motivated to effect a radical change in their personal status, they have been very much motivated to effect changes within their group. They have been willing and eager to take on new techniques and develop new organizational

[7] Solomon B. Levine,
Industrial Relations in Postwar Japan,
Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1958.

[8] In comparing work that Herbert Hyman did in the United States with Japanese data, Baker finds that even today lower-class Japanese are less likely to have as high aspirations in their society as lower-class Americans do in their society. Wendell Dean Baker,
A Study of Selected Aspects of Japanese Social Stratification,
doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1956.

[9] Marion Levy has compared these factors in Japanese development with the different situation in China. "Contrasting Factors in the Modernization of China and Japan,"
Economic Development and Cultural Change,
1954, 2:161–197.

practices which would improve their group's position relative to other groups. Many of the early pressures for modernization and rationalization came from members of an
ie
or of a firm who were trying to improve their competitive position.
^[10]

For the same reason, groups also desired to take in competent employees. A business family which was to adopt a son or son-in-law regarded the competence of the young man to carry on the business as one of the most important considerations for selection. Because the owner of the small enterprise expected to be in business indefinitely and was concerned with the future of the enterprise, he was ordinarily willing to take in able young people, provide them with training, and give them opportunities to use their talent. In any field the able employee was a recognizable asset and was treated accordingly.

The paternalistic link between a tenant and the landlord or the worker and his employer have generally contained the alienation of the worker.
^[11]
Even after World War I when many tenants and employees were beginning to have a sense of alienation against their superiors,
^[12]
much of it was expressed simply in the form of protesting for better conditions within a given organization. Just when alienation was becoming most severe, the seriousness of the disputes was minimized by the spirit of virulent nationalism which served to unite worker and capitalist in the same effort. Later radical societal changes, especially in the rural areas, were kept in bounds by the control of the Allied Occupation.

As a result of the willingness of groups to make changes in the interest of the group, the containment of alienation by paternalistic patterns and later by nationalistic sentiments, and the introduction of major changes under tight organizational control, it has been possible to have major changes in the society without destroying the power of the local groups. The rural community and the urban business enterprise have remained sufficiently strong to absorb the changes and keep them within bounds. However painful the process

[10] This point has been developed in some detail in an as yet unpublished manuscript by Kazuo Noda.

[11] Cf. John C. Pelzel,
Social Stratification in Japanese Urban Economic Life,
doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1949.

[12] Cf. George O. Totten, "Labor and Agrarian Disputes in Japan Following World War I,"
Economic Development and Cultural Change,
1960, 9:187–212.

of change within groups, massive disorganization and anomie have not developed. Changes have been mediated by group consensus so that the basic social units have remained relatively solid in a time of radical changes in internal organization.

Child-rearing and certain characteristics of personality structure have lent support to the orderly process of change. The child-training techniques make the individual dependent on the group. Even in modern urban society, the concept of expelling a member from a family (
kandoo suru
) or from a village (
mura hachibu
) continue to evoke strong sentiments, and members are motivated to remain in good standing in their own group. The individual is typically group-dependent and is cautious in departing from the wishes of the group; even in moving to a new group he prefers the formality of
o-zen date
(literally, that the table be all set), whereby all arrangements are made previously and he is invited to move in. The value system which stresses the individual's loyalty to the group has given full support to the fundamental allegiance of the individual to the group and has tended to reinforce the ability of groups to control the process of change.

Until recently, social order within a group was maintained primarily by the paternalistic relationship between employer and employee, sponsor and sponsored, benefactor and recipient. With rapid social change and the concentration of power in large organizations, these small units are no longer capable of controlling the rewards and providing the security they once did. Although this pattern of relationship continues to provide some order in the local community, in the urban area it has receded in importance and is being replaced by a new pattern centering on the large organization.

The new order, made possible by the large bureaucratic organization, is most striking among the new middle class. Because of its size, the large organization has had to develop standardized methods of recruitment, salary, promotion, and distribution of auxiliary benefits to the workers. This new order has been subject to rationalizing processes which have made it radically different from

the old paternalistic order. The section chief in the large organization has none of the independence in imposing arbitrary patterns upon his underlings that the old middle-class boss had in his narrow social microcosm.

Yet the rationalizing process in large Japanese enterprises has not resulted in the same patterns of social organization that one finds, for example, in the United States. The basic mode of integration of the man into the economic order is not through his occupational specialty, but through his firm. His commitment to the firm is ordinarily more basic and longer lasting than to any occupational specialty. The individual's security and his sense of identity derive from membership in a particular firm or government bureau. If a man is asked what work he does, he is likely to reply not by giving his occupation but by giving the name of his firm. Within the firm, an individual will be given the necessary training or retraining that the firm considers to its best interests. Employees are not committed to any occupational procedures which would interfere with the practices of the firm, and the firm is able to change them to new positions and provide new training as new technological and organizational procedures require. Just as in the United States men often remain in the same organization, so in Japan people often remain in the same occupational specialization, but, in a conflict, in Japan the deeper commitment is to the firm or government bureau.

The rationality of the Japanese firm derives not so much from specific set procedures and social roles as from the subordination of all to the goals of the group. The members of the firm are highly motivated to take any steps for the group to achieve its goals.
^[13]
The firm cannot ordinarily discharge members for inefficiency and must occasionally make decisions on the basis of personal rather than technical considerations, and considerable energy must be expended in keeping members happy and soothing tensions. Yet the entrance examinations insure that employees have at least a minimum level of competence, the informal system within the firm provides a flexibility for the person of ability to affect policy and its imple-