著者

島田 剛

出版者

国際開発学会

雑誌

国際開発研究 (ISSN:13423045)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.27, no.2, pp.69-84, 2018

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<p>This study examines Japan's experience as a recipient of the United States'aid for productivity improvement after World War II. Three points were identified as a result of the research. First, the US assistance was extremely strategic and large-scale. The goal of the US aid was to exclude the Soviet influence over Japan's labor unions because the labor unions were considered sympathetic to the Soviet Union during the cold war. The aid was implemented on an extremely large scale, including the acceptance of 3,986 Japanese trainees into the United States over seven years. Second, prior to the aid, labor-management relations in Japan were adversarial, but while Japan was accepting aid from the US, leaders of opposition labor unions were also invited to visit the United States. The aid gradually changed labor-management relations from conflictive to constructive. In other words, while working on improving productivity, collaborative labor-management relations were developed in Japan, which suggests that <i>Kaizen</i> can be implemented in other countries. Third, it was the private sector that played a central role in receiving aid from the United States, not the Japanese government. Instead, the government provided supplemental support for the active movement of the private sector, very likely an ideal industrial policy. It is also worth noting that while half the budget (132 million yen in half a year) was borne by Japan in accepting the aid, the majority of the budget was borne by the private sector. In other words, the commitment of the private sector was very high.</p>