Seven sessions: A Glimpse into the Lifetime Employment system of post-war Japanese companies

"Seven Meetings"

Among the top ten Japanese movies of the year in 2019 rated by Douban, "Seven Meetings" ranked sixth. The word Bunkan Kaihai is sleepy, but the Japanese director actually made a movie about the meeting, and there are seven meetings presented in the film, and judging from the ratings, the plot of this movie is very refreshing.

Admiring the watching, when the movie is nearing the end, I am a little disappointed, the main line of the movie is the safety hazard caused by the screws, the screws are used in the office folding chairs, high-speed rail, airplanes, but the movie does not have large-scale transportation shots, does not show the super engineering material power, the technical excellence of the picture, my heart and the movie plot are as waveless. At the end of the film, employees of companies involved in exposing screw quality problems confess their feelings in front of the government's investigators: in Japan, companies are like feudal states, company employees are like samurai who fight for the domain, samurai may be morally derelict in order to hold the iron rice bowl of the domain, and company employees may disregard their conscience in order to hold the company's long-term meal tickets. This subtle metaphor changed my evaluation of the film.

In 1853, american steamships sailed into the port of Edo, and the huge black ships shocked the Japanese, and Japan, which had always practiced a policy of national lock-up, opened its doors to trade with the United States. Trade with Western society prompted Japan to start the Restoration Movement, take off the hat of the feudal agrarian country, and enter the ranks of modern industrial countries. Until the arrival of the Black Ship of the United States, Japan had been ruled by the shogunate, the emperor was a symbolic being, the place where he lived was called "Yunshang", and the actual power was in the hands of the shogun, who ruled the ruler daimyo of each domain, and within the domain, the rule of the daimyo was maintained by the samurai. Samurai were loyal to the daimyo and gave their lives, and in return, the samurai did not produce anything, and enjoyed the privilege of immunity from killing. After the opening of the Black Ship Cave in the United States, the last shogunate returned to the Meiji Emperor, who led a drastic reform, abolishing the establishment of prefectures and abolishing the samurai system. The county system strengthened the leadership of the central government and was an important part of Japan's transition from a feudal state to a modern state, but counties meant the end of the feudal state, without which the samurai had no hosts to attach. However, what makes people think deeply is that after the arrival of the American black ship in Japan, it was the shogunate that signed a trade agreement with the United States, the conservative samurai were angry at the shogunate's traitorous behavior, the samurai gathered under the slogan of "Honoring the King" and actively fell, and the emperor who lived "on the clouds" came to the actual power center, the real power changed hands, and the new lord decisively abolished the domain. It can be said that the samurai were the founders of the emperor's reign, and on the other hand, they were also the terminators of the self.

Loyalty is a must for the samurai, and the article "Serve the Lord and never be rebellious" is at the top of the ninety-nine Takeda Shinho Family Training. During the Sengoku period of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi tried to recruit Torii Motonaga, a cadre of Tokugawa Ieyasu, torii Motodasa, who refused on the grounds that he "did not know the way of being loyal to the two masters". In ancient times, if the samurai had no foothold in a domain, it was very impractical to maintain their social status and living standards by serving the two masters, and the desperate samurai often had to put down their samurai swords and join the ranks of farmers and merchants they had previously looked down on. In ancient times, when people had almost no ability to prevent and control natural disasters and social, political, and economic fluctuations were drastic, it was a matter of uncertainty to rely on their own agricultural and commercial labor to support themselves. The risk-averse samurai often preferred to risk their lives and kill daimyo for their allegiance. When the United States Black Ship Cave opened japan's national door, Japan, which passively opened the industrialization, established a number of modern enterprises, and the samurai spirit was carried forward within Japanese enterprises, so the modern corporate culture with Japanese characteristics was born.

Back to the rhetoric of "Seven Meetings", which compares the company to a feudal state and the employees to samurai. There is an exchange between individuals such as samurai and employees and institutions such as feudal states and companies, with the former paying time and the latter paying economic rewards. After the Meiji Restoration, in order to accelerate industrialization, the Japanese government supported a number of state-owned enterprises, and at the same time, family-controlled chaebol enterprises also appeared. Chaebol companies are big Macs and often control every aspect of their industries, from upstream to downstream. When Japan completed the initial industrialization at home and continued to expand its ambitions to make Japan's militarist ideology very popular, the chaebol enterprises turned into military enterprises to help Japan colonize overseas. After the end of World War II, the United States fully took over Japan, the United States dismembered many Japanese companies, and interrupted the overseas supply chain of many industries, taking the textile industry as an example, the United States banned the export of commercial textile raw materials and garments to Japan, and Japanese textile companies could not start normally because they could not obtain raw materials, and then the daily supply of clothing for the Japanese was seriously insufficient. With the outbreak of the Cold War, especially after the outbreak of the Korean War in the 1950s, Japan became an outpost in the supply of supplies to the Korean battlefield. The United States has lifted the export ban on Japan, restarted the frozen production capacity of Japanese factories, and re-supported Japan's domestic forces and chaebol enterprises, so that the military supplies produced by Japanese factories can be directly supplied to the US troops on the peninsula. In addition to the early period occupied by the United States after World War II, Japanese companies, especially chaebol companies, were in a dormant period, and in other periods after the Meiji Restoration, chaebol companies were an unshakable presence in Japan, in front of chaebol companies, the individual employees and the trade unions had a weak voice, coupled with the prevalence of loyalty culture within the enterprise, employees only followed the company, and employees served a company for life.

Christopher Gotto Jones, author of Modern Japan, points out that "by the 18th century, the Tokugawa social system began to fall victim to its own success." The samurai maintained a closed society, the closed system was difficult to grow, and when the closed society went into decline, the huge number of samurai troops that only consumed and did not produce became a bomb ready to explode. When Japan undertakes the industrial transfer in Europe and the United States, and the corporate culture that integrates Bushido and is characterized by lifelong employment is conducive to the take-off of Japanese companies, but in a certain period of time, when economic growth falls into a bottleneck, the lifelong employment system will become a victim of its own success like the samurai system. In other words, lifetime employment is a long-term allocation, and in a new situation full of uncertainty, if employees are still obsessed with the sense of security that comes with lifetime employment, the result will only increase their vulnerability.

In October last year, the new season of the longevity Japanese drama "Xiang stick" was launched, and it was originally planned to use the time of the Spring Festival holiday to chase the drama, but because of the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, there was no intention to watch, and the plan to chase the drama was shelved. Today, I watched the 19th episode of the 18th season, and told that this episode, like "Seven Meetings", is also a story about a company employee who chooses between a job bowl and a conscience, and the person who is in close contact with Sugishita Ukyo of the police department often hangs on his lips with the phrase "I will only be attached to the company, I have no ability." This self-deprecating incompetent man had worked in the research department of the construction company, and after the company abolished his department, he was demoted to a miscellaneous post, although his professional skills were completely useless in the new position, but he had no idea of job hopping, and still served the old employer conscientiously, so, the older he got, the more his workplace skills declined, the more he realized his attachment to the company, and the stronger the perception of attachment made him more cautious and more obedient to his superiors. How to be anti-fragile, this question company people must think independently and respond to.

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Resources

Christopher Gotto Jones, Modern Japan

Lou Guishu "History of the Rise and Fall of Japanese Samurai"

W. David Max, "Harajuku Cowboy"