Occupation Of Japan

After Japan defeating in World War II, Japanese people had to start over building the economy since everything they had had before the war were completely destroyed. The U.S. Occupation of Japan provided reform policies in order to recover and reconstruct dilapidated country to the economic superpower. The three major reform policies deployed by the American government were detachment of the zaibatsu, labor democratization, and land reform. In my opinion, the reasons why Japan was successfully reconstructed its economy and miraculously experienced the amazing growth are because of the following: ability of Japanese people in that period to apply and imitate the Western countries’ skills and knowledge, import technologies and improved business

Because of the breakup of zaibatsu, Japanese businesses became way more flexible than before, which enabled them to have a complete change of manager system. Instead of managers being people who gained their position from inheritance of zaibatsu, firms were conducted hired and professional managers. As a result, better working condition within firms were established and labor motivation was increased, which enabled not only domestic but also international competition. In addition to this, the other change of business condition was the stable relation of labor management. This means that lifetime employment was implemented. Due to this system, workers began to have loyalty to their company, which made the management of employees

There are two major policies which hugely helped Japanese economy. The first policy was Yoshida Doctrine. Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, who is also called the father of modern Japanese economy, implemented the policy which aimed to set economic recovery and development as nation’s first priority by reducing expenses for military. Thus, Japan was able to concentrate fully on reconstructing economy by spending all of strength and money. Also, the Income Doubling Plan was implemented by Ikeda, who is seen to be the key figure in Japan’s rapid growth. This policy was aimed to double the income and live in the high living standard for Japanese workers from 1961 to 1970 by increasing investment from the government to both public and private businesses. Even though some problems arose such as serious pollution from heavy industrialization, this plan had greatly contributed to later half of Japanese growth with an average of more than 10 percent which brought Japan the second largest economy in the world. There is another government organization that I think which definitely contributed Japan’s economic growth. This is called Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), which is regarded as the most powerful organization during the period of rapid growth.