<story><title>The Case for Degrowth</title><url>https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n16/geoff-mann/reversing-the-freight-train</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roflyear</author><text>There is an obvious way out. Increase immigration. The US does this well. Why doesn&amp;#x27;t Japan? Because of racism and xenophobia. No one talks about it (wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if I got downvoted for mentioning it) but Japan is mad racist. They do not like foreigners.</text></item><item><author>thematrixturtle</author><text>Japan is a living case study of degrowth: GDP has been essentially flat for the past 20 years.  The scale below exaggerates small shifts, but it was $4968B in 2000 and $4937B in 2020.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;japan&amp;#x2F;gdp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;japan&amp;#x2F;gdp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;On the ground, this has translated into flat or deflating prices (until very recently) and an increasing bifurcation of society into salarymen, with low but stable incomes anchored on jobs-almost-for-life, and part-timers on temporary contracts, with groups like single mothers living in poverty.  Population is shrinking by close to 1M&amp;#x2F;year, the rural countryside is rapidly emptying out as young people flock into cities to chase opportunities, and the national pension scheme will sooner or later implode since it can&amp;#x27;t support 1 worker paying for 4 retirees forever.  It&amp;#x27;s frankly depressing and there&amp;#x27;s no obvious way out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>coldtea</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;There is an obvious way out. Increase immigration. The US does this well. Why doesn&amp;#x27;t Japan? Because of racism and xenophobia.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Because the US was created as a ragtag coalition of immigrants from all kinds of countries. Their whole shtick is based on being a melting pot.  Japan is a much more ethnically homogenous nation.&lt;p&gt;Besides, this coming of immigrants didn&amp;#x27;t work so well for the natives in the US (the native Americans that is).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;No one talks about it (wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if I got downvoted for mentioning it) but Japan is mad racist. They do not like foreigners.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Well, if they thought like that for my country, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t like them either.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Not liking&amp;quot; people coming over is not the same as being racist, any more than a tribe in the Amazon not liking tourists or Americans&amp;#x2F;Europeans coming over to live with them would be &amp;quot;racist&amp;quot;. They want to maintain their way of life, and that&amp;#x27;s up to them.&lt;p&gt;Besides, cultures which had seggregation up until the 60s, have a huge majority of blacks in jail even today, and routinely have cops kill them unarmed, shouldn&amp;#x27;t throw stones.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Case for Degrowth</title><url>https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n16/geoff-mann/reversing-the-freight-train</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>roflyear</author><text>There is an obvious way out. Increase immigration. The US does this well. Why doesn&amp;#x27;t Japan? Because of racism and xenophobia. No one talks about it (wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if I got downvoted for mentioning it) but Japan is mad racist. They do not like foreigners.</text></item><item><author>thematrixturtle</author><text>Japan is a living case study of degrowth: GDP has been essentially flat for the past 20 years.  The scale below exaggerates small shifts, but it was $4968B in 2000 and $4937B in 2020.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;japan&amp;#x2F;gdp&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tradingeconomics.com&amp;#x2F;japan&amp;#x2F;gdp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;On the ground, this has translated into flat or deflating prices (until very recently) and an increasing bifurcation of society into salarymen, with low but stable incomes anchored on jobs-almost-for-life, and part-timers on temporary contracts, with groups like single mothers living in poverty.  Population is shrinking by close to 1M&amp;#x2F;year, the rural countryside is rapidly emptying out as young people flock into cities to chase opportunities, and the national pension scheme will sooner or later implode since it can&amp;#x27;t support 1 worker paying for 4 retirees forever.  It&amp;#x27;s frankly depressing and there&amp;#x27;s no obvious way out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>neilwilson</author><text>Immigration is just colonial appropriation. It&amp;#x27;s the solution proposed by city dwellers who think we should live 50 deep in a square mile of massive cities - generally an upper middle class who seem to believe they should have constant access to cheap servants they don&amp;#x27;t have to personally house and look after.&lt;p&gt;Japan already has massive cities. It doesn&amp;#x27;t work.&lt;p&gt;We need economics that doesn&amp;#x27;t assume you can always go around the world taking other nations resources - including the people they have schooled and trained to provide for their own population.</text></comment>