Unraveling the World of Welfare in Japan

Abstract

If we define a 'welfare system' as a social mechanism that guarantees people's well-being and opportunities to live autonomously, it is the embodiment of a concept integrating four subsystems. In terms of resource distribution pattern, agency and relationship, in that order, these subsystems may be characterized by: (a) family, featuring self-help, love and intimacy; (b) socially related or selective community, featuring reciprocity, solidarity and community; (c) government, featuring redistribution, authority and public nature; and (d) market, featuring exchange, money and reification (Fujimura 2001: 14). In contemporary society, the second subsystem (i.e. community), especially the function of option-based communities such as corporations and nonprofit organizations, assumes increasing importance, and with the rising likelihood of residential environment selectivity, optional 'belonging together' to local community becomes more common. The socioeconomic models, generally associated with the welfare state since the latter half of the 20th century, consist essentially of a 'posture' or 'milieu' as the integration of the four subsystems. Under this posture/milieu, people design and manage their lives in accordance with the existential conditions surrounding them. Most research on the welfare state, however, has focused on subsystem (c), i.e. government.' Emphasizing analysis of the government's active and interventionist role vis-avis private autonomy, previous studies have tended methodologically to treat the other three subsystems as subordinate to the government, either as realms to be regulated by it or supplementary to its role. Of the four subsystems, that of the government, whose resource redistribution is exercised through political authority, is clearly different from the other subsystems, which are founded on the principle of private autonomy. The redistribution role of the former involves the sociopublic and normative goals of resolving monetary poverty and disparities in social opportunities in light of the principle of fairness. Here, a new factor is at play: the authorities' coordination of diverse social interests.