Economic differences between Japan and America are rooted in cultural differences that resist convergence.

Evidence

What explains the distinctive character of the Japanese economy? Among major industrialized countries, the Japanese economy is unique because Japanese society is uniquely non-Western. Japanese society and culture differ from Western, and particularly American, society and culture. These differences have been highlighted in every serious comparative analysis of Japan and America. Resolution of the economic issues between Japan and the United States depends on fundamental changes in the nature of one or both economies, which, in turn, depend upon basic changes in the society and culture of one or both countries. Such changes are not impossible. Societies and cultures do change. This may result from a major traumatic event: total defeat in World War II made two of the world’s most militaristic countries into two of its most pacifist ones. It seems unlikely, however, that either the United States or Japan will impose an economic Hiroshima on the other.

Economic development also can change a country’s social structure and culture profoundly, as occurred in Spain between the early 1950s and the late 1970s, and perhaps economic wealth will make Japan into a more American-like consumption-oriented society. In the late 1980s people in both Japan and America argued that their country should become more like the other country. In a limited way the Japanese-American agreement on Structural Impediment Initiatives was designed to promote this convergence. The failure of this and similar efforts testifies to the extent to which economic differences are deeply rooted in the cultures of the two societies.

— Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 607

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to readings on how great trauma and total defeat reshape national character (e.g. Germany and Japan’s post-1945 pacifism), and to theories of economic development changing culture as in post-1950s Spain.