Social Inequality in Contemporary Japan
In postwar Japan, inequality debates were revived in a peculiar way, so that the blurred divisions of class and Japanese uniqueness were oddly drawn together. Japan was the first Asian country to successfully industrialize. The period of rapid economic growth, which began in the 1950s, transformed the nation’s industrial structure and made Japan a leading economic power. Of particular significance was the book by the American sociologist Ezra Vogel...