The Expressive Functions of Japanese Paternalism

In Arakawa Ward at least (perhaps to an embarrassing extent for Japanese Marxist theorists), one does not find the kind of social alienation or class consciousness among Japanese industrial workers that one quickly recognizes in contact with Italian or French workers;^[7] nor does one find the less ideologically tinged but equally strong hatred of management that is characteristic for American industrial workers. The reasons for this difference between the Japanese industrial situation and that of Western Europe and the United States can be found in the cultural, historical continuities of Japanese social organization. Especially pertinent is the way individuals within Japanese families are socialized to fit into the pervasive, usually hierarchically structured social networks within which they spend their later lives. Reasons are also found in the consequent expressive satisfactions of Japanese paternalism—both in the way one plays the superordinate role as a boss, or the subordinate role as either an apprentice or a long-term, faithful, factory employee. One has to examine more carefully, therefore, the cultural forms of secondary socialization into occupational roles, which follow upon the primary socialization occurring within the family.

In the traditional Japanese social system, a youth was usually introduced into a network of occupational expectations around the time of puberty as an apprentice who would be taught a particular skill. The apprentice role was defined in quasi-familial terms and became part of a network of mutual expectations—both instrumental and expressive in nature. Since some of the apprentice's expectations could be actualized only in the distant future as part of his work role, he was also being trained to develop a future-time orientation. He had to maintain sufficient faith in his future gain to forego immediate material or emotional payment. He was resigned to what an outsider might consider harsh, exploitative treatment for the sake of the future promise of continuing paternalistic support. This sense of reciprocity through time was reinforced generally by the social attitudes of his own family and others.

In Japan today this type of apprenticeship role is being redefined as the social atmosphere affords less reinforcement for the sanctions that maintain the individual in his subordinate role. Youth are increasingly

[7] Cole, Japanese Blue Collar .

more apt to quit than to put up with constrictions of sustained discipline. We found in Arakawa Ward, however, that the external social sanctions of the society were still applied in the person of the police and with general social approval. One of the police functions in Arakawa was to arrest apprentices who had absented themselves from work. The apprentice role, therefore, was socially defined in terms similar to that of a student in school. The police, in both instances, were expected to enforce required attendance.

By degrees the individual is expected to gain a sense of pleasure from his increasing competence, as he gradually internalizes the standards of excellence related to his craft. Ideally, he would also be increasingly rewarded with signs of appreciation for his growing skill. Hence, there is a gradual socialization of inner satisfactions to be gained by approximating the standards of skill set by the master or teacher within any given tradition.

In this secondary period of occupational socialization, socially expected attitudes of gratitude and repayment were turned from the parents onto occupational mentors in the quasi-familial master-apprentice situation. The boss or master was not free to ignore the dependent expectations of his former apprentice. His own sense of actualizing his master's status derived from a capacity to meet some of these expectations and to do well for those who had been depending on him.

In sum, the Japanese were socialized to gain certain reciprocal expressive satisfactions on all levels of dependency or interdependency. Such gratifications act as a counterforce against the potentials for alienation in an industrial society. One finds evidence that this attitude of mentorship on the part of older men toward younger workers continues even in industrial units. The Japanese working in modern industry still seek out relationships with some nurturing paternal figure with seniority. The bonding together of nonage-graded "brothers" in labor organizations does not seem to satisfy many Japanese the way it does workers elsewhere.

One reliable index of social alienation is delinquency among youth. After a fifteen-year postwar surge in youthful delinquency among lower-class youth in Japan, the overall rates are going down rather than up.^[8] Instead of finding restive alienation among the lower-class youth in Japan today, one finds that it is the youth from relatively higher-status backgrounds in the universities who express more social criticism and feelings of social alienation. There is an obviously increased malise about the impersonal, albeit vastly expanded, system of advanced formal education. College students are exhibiting more signs of personal social

[8] George A. De Vos, Socialization for Achievement (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972), especially chaps. 13 and 14.

stress than the youth who go to work in either large- or small-scale industries. The students from middle-class families seem to lack integrating personal interaction with occupational mentors. The teacher's role has become not only distant but much more impersonal than in the past. In contrast, industrial workers, or college youth after they enter business concerns, quickly become part of an organization and take on a sense of personal belonging.

In contrast to the American society with its more stringent forms of age segmentation and peer-group orientation, and its high rate of unemployment among all youth but especially minority youth, the more hierarchically organized Japanese society still, to some degree, bridges the generation gap induced by rapid social change. It is the Japanese upper-middle-class youth, during their time spent as noncommitted students, that manifests crises related to occupational choice. The period of worker apprenticeship, whatever its hardships and strain for the individual, is not a period of protest or alienation for most. In brief, to the degree that it is still maintained in Japan, the apprenticeship system remains a force for maintaining social cohesion in modern Japanese society. The same cannot be said for the university.

Let us consider certain organizational and psychological features of Japanese culture in turn. They are inseparable aspects of observed social behavior. Nakane Chie in her recent volume, Japanese Society , distinguishes between two types of belonging: "attribute" and "frame."^[9] Attribute groups include both those entered by ascription through birth and those entered by acquiring an occupational specialization. In the first instance, the groups may take the form of clans or kinship lineages; in the second instance, the individual enters a group designated by class position or some given occupational definition such as plumber, carpenter, or professor. In contrast to all such attribute groups is the second major type of group of identity produced by "frame." For Nakane, a frame is a situational-historical definition of belonging such as what happens to you when you join the Ford Motor Company or become a member of the New York Times staff, regardless of the actual position. In this sense, partially at least, the U.S. labor movement might serve as an illustration: the CIO organized industrial unions on the basis of frame, whereas the AFL organized workers on the basis of attribute.

The strongest sense of occupational commitment or loyalty found in Japan is in a frame group. One joins such a group for life. Within a frame organization of one kind or another, Japanese subjectively experience working together on common objectives as satisfying to their own inner sense of purpose. These groups, by definition, are internally cooperative; no overt displays of competition are permitted. Any existing competitive-

[9] Chie Nakane, Japanese Society .

ness, such as seeking some special recognition or advancement, must be disguised in terms of overall group objectives. Fixed ranking is used to minimize competition, and the principle of seniority is often exercised as the major criterion of precedence. Nakane's principal contention about Japanese social organization, past as well as present, is that frame interpersonal organizations have been more important within Japanese culture than attribute organizations such as kinship structures. This is despite the fact that kinship terminology is used to indicate the familylike atmosphere that is supposed to unite groups. In fact, individual Japanese do characteristically identify themselves as a permanent member of some group like the "Asahi family" rather than as a janitor or newsman who happens to be working for the Asahi press. A sense of belonging with other members of the Asahi is more important than maintaining some formal occupational-class cohesion with other janitors or reporters working elsewhere. Nakane further cogently analyzes how cooperation is emphasized in team efforts shared by all members in a hierarchically defined frame cluster such as a manufacturing company, or even the university, which tends to function in direct competitition with other similarly constituted social units.

From a psychocultural standpoint, I contend that the propensity to join a frame organization, whatever its compelling organizational features, is integral with Japanese socialization experiences that continually emphasize the interdependency of individuals within the primary family. The family is also organized around a sense of precedence in time by seniority among branches and within sibling relationships. The sense of order in precedence or seniority learned within familial relationships is transmuted into one's occupational role.

The traditional sense of tragedy in Japan involves conflicts of loyalty between that accorded one's occupational status and that felt toward the primary family. The acceptable moral resolution of this quandary has usually been structured in favor of the occupational role. In this respect, too, Nakane's analysis makes good sense.

Nakane's description of the vertical structures in Japanese social organizations helps spell out why there is so little evidence of class alienation in Japan compared with Western and even Soviet industrial societies. It is my contention, however, that this cohesiveness must be further explained in the special features of Japanese paternalism as it is experienced in an emotionally satisfying way by Japanese. The expressive satisfaction to be gained sets behavioral limits on the superordinate role. It mitigates against the more widespread appearance in Japan of alienating and exploitative abuses of workers as impersonal objects; workers in the West can deal with such abuses only through the formation of conflicting organizations, which exercise a protective power reinforced by legal contracts.