Japan and Communism. How likely?

[ozkai]

One thing I noticed when I first started living in Japan was all the rules that were spelt out.

"You should do this"

"You should do that"

"You shouldn't do this, only when it's that" etc."

Train guards ordering passengers stop emailing on their mobile phones...

My immediate thought's were that it did feel like communism with a large touch of democracy.

How possible is it do you think that Japan will one day fall into the arms of communism?

We now have stories like this:
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Communism on rise in recession-hit Japan

[Yuusuke]

Barely, Japan is a capitalist society plain and simple. Of course they have rules and laws it's what keeps everything order (I hope)
But Japan wouldn't be able the thrive on communism because they wouldn't grow far as a country. They would actually be setting themselves backwards for a country like Japan.

[Ronin4hire]

I doubt Japan will become communist.

While there is an emphasis on group harmony in Japan... Japanese is traditionally a culture which emphasises status and "knowing your place".

[cridgit001]

Post Deleted

[fluffy0000]

BY ERIC TALMADGE • ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 19, 2009

TOKYO — Under a big red flag, the headquarters of the Communist Party of Japan are the center of the most vibrant grassroots movement in the country. The party's ranks are swelling, it has 24,000 branch offices and more than 1 million people read its newspaper. Only one party — the one that runs the country — beats it at fund-raising.

While the Communist Party — which is the fourth-largest party in parliament but has only 16 of the total 722 seats — is not likely to take over anytime soon, it is making . end.

Prior to Japans entry into WW2 the JCP (Japanese Communist Party) founded in 1922 was the only political party to oppose the ruling partys march to war.
Note JCP during WW2 waged a very bloody counter insurgency through a clandestine intelligence operation that penetrated the highest circles of Japanese Elite excerpt- From Richard Sorge probably the greatest spy intelligence operation in history-Sorge arrived in Japan in September 1933. He was warned by his spymaster not to have contact with the underground Japanese Communist Party or with the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo. His spy network in Japan include Max Klausen, Ozaki Hotsumi, and two other Comintern agents, Branko Vukelic, a journalist working for the French magazine, Vu and a Japanese journalist, Miyagi Yotoku, who was employed by the English-language newspaper, the Japan Advertiser.

[james1254]

Haha sounds like you guys are all going to get killed come the revolution

[MMM]

Originally Posted by cridgit001

I think it seems like a caste system with the whole "know your place" thing. But yeah, like Yuusuke said, it would be a step backwards and wouldn't make sense.

This is a great example of jamming a round peg into a square hole. Japan's society is not a caste system. The fact that an individual can rise through the ranks proves that.

"know your place" implies that you cannot change rank, which isn't true. Japanese people are more aware of their place in society and in the community (and in the office). That doesn't make it a caste system, it means they are more aware. A Japanese person might wonder why a Westerner was so blind to their surroundings and only focuses on the personal rather than the community.

[DJnohara]

There is a communist political party in Japan but its very minor in comparison to the DPJ or LDPJ.
I was reading about them and they're NOT like the Soviet communist party. They're actually pretty interesting.

Many people seem to automatically associate communism with dictatorship, brutality and injustice when it wasn't suppose to be that way. It was the corrupt politicians and unstable government that made it that way.

[komitsuki]

The current Japanese Communist Party is no longer a Marxist-Leninist party. It has already become well Japanized to suit the unique political climate.

[komitsuki]

Originally Posted by ozkai

One thing I noticed when I first started living in Japan was all the rules that were spelt out.

"You should do this"

"You should do that"

"You shouldn't do this, only when it's that" etc."

Train guards ordering passengers stop emailing on their mobile phones...

Same as in South Korea and China in different ways.

My immediate thought's were that it did feel like communism with a large touch of democracy.

"My immediate thought's were that it did feel like Confucian social values with a large touch of modern authoritarianism in the disguise of democracy."

There, corrected it for you.

How possible is it do you think that Japan will one day fall into the arms of communism

Not likely.