著者

海老塚 明

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.51, no.4, pp.111-113, 2015-01-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

著者

渡辺 幹雄

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.44, no.4, pp.41-66, 2008

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In this paper, I'll show that Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) includes a hidden purpose, which is, the purpose to set out the framework of some kind of liberal communism. First, I make clear the failure of his 'moral geometry' and its ideological character. Second, I situate his concept of justice in the history of it. According to this, it turns out that his theory of justice can not be the universal and neutral moral science, but presupposes certain ideology from the beginning. Rawlsian justice does include some communistic aspects ex ante. In section 3, I discuss the distinctiveness of his theory in view of what is called 'a fixed point of our moral judgments.' It is a fundamentalistic foundation of his theory of justice, from which his principles of justice, especially the difference principle, are derived indeed. The original position and veil of ignorance are all the device to disguise that fact. Next, I argue that Rawls intentionally neglects a controversial theme, id est, 'Work-Ownership Thesis.' Despite the fact that Work-Ownership Thesis is a widely accepted belief, he has never discussed it. It's because that thesis sharply conflicts with the fixed point he exposes, and so, its acceptance would make it impossible for him to derive the difference principle. Furthermore, a simple neglect of the thesis means that the difference principle is a highly communistic principle. For it is only in the highly achieved communistic society that the thesis can be perfectly neglected. In section 5, I prove that the difference principle thus derived is both irrational and unreasonable. This is explained as the result of making one fixed point of our moral judgments absolute, and so losing the balance with some other fixed points that Rawls doesn't take up. Upon preceding arguments, in the last section 6, I conclude that it is very dangerous for one to make his favorite moral judgments absolute without thinking much of other ones. His judgments as such are just his own personal judgments, or indeed prejudices, that he expects his readers to accept, and the lack of balance will lead to a political disaster.

著者

藤田 真哉

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論

巻号頁・発行日

vol.41, no.2, pp.80-87, 2004

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The purpose of this paper is to explain how institutional adjustments in the labor market affect the macro-economic stability. We suppose that the institutional adjustments in the labor market consist of three factors: inelasticity of employment, money wage indexation to labor productivity, and money wage indexation to price level. In addition, we shall take into account also the relevance of reserve army effect to the macro-economic stability. In this paper, we adopt a Goodwin-type cycle model. This model, which has its origin in Goodwin (1967), has a characteristic feature in the respect that a business cycle is caused by factors in the labor market rather than those in the good market or in the money market. The model seems therefore to be appropriate for examining the relation between the macro-economic stability and adjustment patterns in the labor market. On the basis of this model, we construct the Goodwin-type model with alternative growth regimes: profit-led growth regime and wage-led growth regime. The former means that large profit share leads high growth, and the latter means that large wage share leads high growth. The difference between these two growth regimes has been analyzed by post-Keynesian economics. According to which growth regime we choose, the effects which institutional adjustments in the labor market have on the macro-economic stability are varied. Some of our results are as follows. First, under profit-led growth the macro-economic system with low elasticity of employment and with low money wage indexation to labor productivity is unstable, but not always so under wage-led growth. Second, either under profit-led growth or wage-led growth sufficiently large money wage indexation to price level destabilizes the macro-economic system. Third, controlling the reserve army effect makes the macro-economic system stable under wage-led growth, but unstable under profit-led growth.

著者

石倉 雅男

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, no.1, pp.85-87, 2012

著者

田中 英明

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.50, no.2, pp.80-82, 2013

著者

小林 陽介

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, no.3, pp.90-95, 2012-10-20

被引用文献数

1

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Recently there has been a great deal of research generated focusing on the Financialization-Approach. However, most of the literature on financialization emphasizes the influence of the financial sector, and pays less attention to the real economy. This paper examines how to bring the dynamism of real economy into the Financialization- Approach. Firstly, I investigate the relationship between corporations and finance, focusing on the literature of corporate governance. According to the research by Lazonick and O'Sullivan, the management strategy of U.S. corporations changed from "retain and reinvest" to "downsize and distribute" after the 1980s. U.S. corporations reduced their employment, and distributed cash to stockholders, and increased dividend payments and stock repurchases to raise their stock prices. This change arose from the formation of the "market for corporate control", which is explained mainly from the following: 1) Worsening performance of corporations and agency theory, 2) Increase of the stock holding by institutional investors, and 3) Development of junk bond market. However, this change is explained only from the influence of finance. The activeness of corporations is ignored. Secondly, I investigate the situation that U.S. corporations faced in 1980s to focus on the corporate action. They faced the shift in industrial structure. Key industries, such as steel, automobile and household electronic appliances, lost competitive power, while high-technology, energy and service industries maintained competitive power. Many corporations restructured their business formations to adapt to this shift by mergers and acquisitions. While raising stock prices is a result of financial influence in the literature of financialization, raising stock prices has a positive meaning for companies which perform mergers and acquisitions. Companies can perform mergers and acquisitions advantageously when their stock prices are high. Increase of dividend payments and stock repurchases can be understood to be a result of corporate action which adapts to the shift in industrial structure by mergers and acquisitions. Finally, I discuss the corporate image which should be included in the Financialization-Approach. The corporation should be assumed the active one which pursues profits, not the passive one assumed in the former literature. This is the starting point of an attempt to bring the dynamism of real economy into the Financialization-Approach.

著者

二宮 健史郎

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.51, no.4, pp.83-95, 2015-01-20

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The recent international monetary crisis, triggered by the 2008 subprime loan crisis in the US, still casts a dark shadow over the world economy. Owing to this upheaval, the financial instability hypothesis proposed by heterodox economist Hyman P. Minsky has received renewed attention. Many mainstream economists admire Minsky's keen insight. The financial instability hypothesis and the formal mathematical models on related topics treat the cumulative debt burden as one of the causes of financial instability. In addition, the Kaleckian and stock-flow consistent models, which explicitly consider interest-bearing debt burden, have, in recent years, been extensively developed. Ninomiya and Tokuda (2011, 2012) introduced the concept of "instability of confidence" and examined the structural change of an economy. In this study, we construct macro-dynamic models that consider interest-bearing debt burdens and the instability of confidence. Furthermore, we examine financial instability and cycles based on the financial instability hypothesis and related mathematical models. This study highlights the following items as significant causes of economic instability: 1)cumulative interest-bearing debt burdens; 2)fragile financial structures; 3)and the instability of confidence. In other words, a robust financial structure plays an important role in addressing a crisis of confidence. This study also suggests that the recent policy of quantitative easing may exert harmful side effects on the economy. This study implies that some new policies and institutional frameworks are needed to construct a robust financial structure. Furthermore, we can prove that there are closed orbits in the dynamic systems by applying Hopf bifurcation theorem. Interest-bearing debt plays important role in terms of financial cycles in this study. The degree of the instability of confidence also has an important role for one of the financial cycles in this study. The financial cycles in this study are quite different from the Kaldorian business cycle.

著者

青柳 和身

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.48, no.3, pp.102-104, 2011-10-20

著者

楊枝 嗣朗

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.45, no.2, pp.5-14, 2008

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The thought of independence of central banking was generally accepted during 1990s. And then the relationship between money and state has hardly occupied the interest of monetary economists. Some of them emphasised that the central banking does not have any administrative power. Therefore, the query why the government must ultimately take the responsibility for the stability of financial system and why the central bank must contribute to it through the prudential policy, have not been drked theoretically. In the meantime the Free Banking School has insisted the abolition of the central bank because the central bank-money is state fiat money. And the Cartalists like L. R. Wray, S. Bell, and C. A. E. Goodhart have attached the importance of ties between money and state, and therefore they have been worried about the future of Euro money due to breaking its bond with governments. We understand the ties between money and government are essential; otherwise the capitalistic credit monies could not have been developed. Since private credit monies circulated among merchants and traders in modern times, state monies like coins became just small changes for private credit monies. In consequence governments lost the ability of raising fund to a great extent. There were no way other than accepting private credit monies as means of tax-payment to raise fund. Such an intervention by government assisted private credit monies to circulate all over their country. The central bank currency contributed to reduce the costs of commercial transactions and of tax-collection too. From the above point of view we inquire the relationship between money and state, and why a central bank has "the ambiguous presence as a semi-governmental corporation".

著者

石塚 良次

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.48, no.2, pp.6-16, 2011

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1) Theory of alienation and concept of subject The purpose of this paper is to discuss on how Wataru Hiromatsu's theory of reification contributes development of economics. He conceptualized transition from the early to the late Marx as 'from the theory of alienation to the theory of reification'. This transition isn't just in wording but the change in paradigm. The alienation theory presupposes the subject-object schema, because alienation originally meant the process in which human essence spilled out into object (objectification), and the object turning against the subject as a hostile and alien force (alienation). The whole alienation theory had to be abandoned once the subject-object schema was abandoned, and got relationalist worldview in which the relation is given ontological priority. According to Hiromatsu, Marx's Labor Theory of Value does not presuppose subject/object schema, but reification theory. Traditional Marxian economists insist that each commodity have inherent value because worker (subject) embodied or materialized his abstract labor, substance of value, to commodity (object). But substance of value is not prior to exchange relations, but reification of relationship between persons and things. Value is not just relations (or idea) but reificated relations. Commodity producers treat as if value is something substantial inherent to individual commodity. It is not just illusion, but social fact (Emile Durkheim) with sozialen Macht (Marx). We need to sublate (aufheben) both the 'society substantialism'-'individual substantialism'. 2) The game theoretic approach to Marxian theory of alienation Tadasu Matsuo attempts to reconstruct Marx's theoretical system as the alienation theory, which, in turn, interpreted in terms of game theory, neoclassical framework. Game theory provides a model for social institutions and cooperation between individuals. It assumes that people are rational actors. But we don't think this theoretical framework does explain social norm as it really is. Social norm is not something rationally selected. Rational actors are not real agent but theoretical fictions. Matsuo stand on the side of 'individual substantialism', we mentioned above. 3) Criminal liability and rational agent Criminal law refers a theoretical person in the society who shows average judgment, because only rational person can be liable. If he or she does not intend to do it, he or she is not guilty. Crime is not just a bodily movement but must be voluntary act droved by inherent motivation, criminal intent. But this kind of view is very modern, not historically universal. The reason why criminal law require fictional agent is very similar to economics. One of the basic facts of modern psychology is that ultimate driving force behind human behavior is not free will but involuntary unconsciousness. 4) Economics and evaluational agent Assumption of homoeconomicus received a lot of criticism, because of its unreality. Actually, it is not empirical notion but axiom of neoclassical microeconomics. Economics is not only empirical science but also normative science, making economic policy. So you need theoretical benchmark to judge its adequacy. Subject in the theory of alienation is equivalent of homoeconomics in neoclassical microeconomics. Both theory adopt methodological individualism, so benchmark must be individual, rational agent. 5) Unalienated society? Matsuo considers unalienated society, depending each other with mutual consent, is desirable. But it is not feasible and desirable. We should rather accept minimum level reification.

著者

阿部 浩之

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.47, no.2, pp.64-76, 2010-07-20

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Today, as the market economy progresses, fields such as family care, nursing care, medical care, and childcare are transacted as interpersonal service labor in the market, and wage laborers are becoming increasingly in charge of such services. With regards to this trend, the concept of emotional labor was proposed by Hochschild as something that expresses a feature of interpersonal service labor in contemporary capitalism. Emotional labor aims to create an appropriate mental state in the targeted people (Hochschild). In interpersonal service labor, emotional labor is used for smoothly performing the work concerned, and it is often an essential factor. Emotional labor can be discussed as a series of labor processes consisting of three phases: (1) the emotion of the laborers toward customers; (2) acting as a visible expression of emotion; and (3) the emotion of customers that receive the service concerned. In discussions that focus on emotion, emotion management has often been considered a skill in emotional labor, and it is necessary to pay more attention to (2) acting as a visible expression of emotion. In a wide sense of general labor, emotional labor is performed in the form of nursing care or the like as part of household work. When it becomes associated with commodity economy, interpersonal service takes the form of article of commerce, and it may be provided in the form of selfemployment (for example practicing psychiatrist and psychological counselor), or it may be provided as wage-labor. Even in the same wage labor, there are qualitative differences between emotional labor in standardized customer service that is regulated by a manual, as is represented by fast food restaurant service (type A) and emotional labor by nursing/care personnel or the like (type B). In type B, it is difficult to complete service just by combining surface acting; instead it requires deep acting, unlike type A. In emotional labor by nursing/care personnel or the like (type B), it is necessary to consider the situation in which laborers and customers face each other in the form of multiple laborers versus multiple customers; and group-to-group, instead of one-to-one or individual-to-individual. Since Hochschild's proposal, emotional labor, which has tended to be discussed from the viewpoint of individual-to-individual, needs to be reevaluated from the viewpoint of group-to-group, with capitalistic labor organizations in mind. In emotional labor performed by a labor organization, acting becomes rather theatrical; or in other words, emotional labor is performed cooperatively. While taking a theatrical structure, emotional labor progresses qualitatively. Discussions on emotional labor are considered to have abundant possibilities to elucidate what kinds of features are possessed by labor power that is a commodity closely related to character, and how labor power commodities are formed and function in capitalism.

著者

佐々木 啓明

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.47, no.4, pp.19-29, 2011-01-20

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This paper explains short-run, medium-run, and long-run analysis by using a Kaleckian model of growth, distribution, and employment. The three runs are classified depending on what variables are adjusted in the run in question. Many studies do not deal with the three runs consistently, and as such, the main purpose of the paper is to expound the interrelations among three runs in the Kaleckian model. In the short run, the rate of capacity utilization (and the profit share in some cases) becomes an endogenous variable, in the medium run, the rate of employment becomes an endogenous variable, and in the long run, the normal rate of capacity utilization and the expected rate of capital accumulation are endogenous variables. The paper shows that not only in the shortrun equilibrium but also in the medium-run and long-run equilibria, we obtain typical Kaleckian results such as the paradox of thrift, the stagnationist regime, and the wage-led growth regime: the paradox of thrift means that an increase in capitalists' propensity to save lowers the rate of capital accumulation; the stagnationist regime means that an increase in the profit share lowers the rate of capacity utilization; and the wage-led growth regime means that an increase in the profit share lowers the rate of capital accumulation. Moreover, the paper shows that in the long run, different initial values of the endogenous variables produce different long-run equilibrium values. Therefore, the long-run equilibrium exhibits pathdependency.

著者

高田 太久吉

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.55, no.1, pp.4, 2018 (Released:2020-04-13)

著者

松尾 匡

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.41, no.1, pp.57-62, 2004-04-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

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This paper critically deals with an Analytical Marxian Professor Yoshihara's two critiques against the Fundamental Marxian Theorem. One is the possibility of positive profit without positive exploitation, under the condition of joint production and laborer's consumption choice. The other is so-called Generalized Commodity Exploitation Theorem, which claims value and exploitaion concept can be defined for all commodities not only for labor and thus positive profit is identical with exploitation of any commodity not only of labor. I shall show the former demonstration is wrong because it needs negative net production. If we limit net production to be non-negative and permit disposal, then the exploitation of his case turns to be positive. To answer the latter critique, we shall examine the dual system of the value equations and their corresponding optimization problem or utility function. Then we can confirm that if we define net production as the commodities disposable for human being or if we define utility function as that of human being, then the value concept consistent with the presupposition must be labor value and exploitaion concept must be that of labor.

著者

田中 宏

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.52, no.2, pp.31-41, 2015-07-20 (Released:2017-07-03)

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Does Hungary, one small EU member country located in the Central Eastern Europe, metamorphose into state capitalism? To study his topic is a main task of this paper. This task makes us, however, realize that almost any one did not recognize in the 1990s where Hungary would arrive at through the systemic transformation and preparing for joining the EU, with becoming aware that Hungary had four systemic change tasks to be solved: restoring the national independence and sovereignty, political democratization, joining the EU and transforming into a market economy. More than two decades of transformative struggles show us that capitalisms in Central Easter Europe seem to have been converted into a diff erent type of capitalism from those in Western Europe and that Hungarian capitalism becomes a different type among Central East European countries in many terms. The unorthodox economic reforms and policies implemented by Fidesz governmental party and its leader Victor Orban after 2010 are not only called 'Orbanomics', but also criticized as state capitalism both inside and outside of Hungary. This paper sheds light on whether and in what terms Hungary is turned into state capitalism. The second part of this paper, following the introduction, first, conducts book and literature reviews, second, discusses state capitalism in the 19th century and 20th century, and then defines state capitalism 3.0 in the 21st century, characterizing its particular features of newly and successfully entering into the world market, and multi-nationalizing of firms with the various helps and supports by the state organs and institutions. The third part describes actual historical processes of the systemic transformation in Hungarian economy from the end of 1980s till the beginning of 2010s, focusing on significant influences upon Hungarian economy exercised by the EU integration, Global Financial and Economic Crisis, and Euro Crisis along with the results of national election every four years. And then the fourth part, uncovering emergent relationships between the state and economic-business circles, examines activities of Hungarian emerging multinationals and re-nationalization movements of firms and public services. Finally, the fourth part reaches conclusions and considers some implications for further studies concerning on this topic. The conclusions summerize characteristic features of Hungarian economy as state capitalism in terms that the state has changed and expanded its role in economic development and interventions, like suspending functions of checks & balances on the state activities, giving (un)preferential treatments to specific groups, increasing the state ownership's share, increasing influences of the state upon newly emerging sectors, abolishing decentralised decision-making, centralizing decision-making and thier competences, changing institutional frameworks of regulations, increasing state-regulations of prices, increasing state regulations and state-capitals especially in the financial sectors, and moving public service activities from under market norms to under the state management and regulations. It reveals legacies of state socialism and traces of neo-liberal type of privatization and market liberalization, providing the evidences to show state capitalism 3.0 in Hungary. In addition it includes new unconventional features of taking special tax measures and regulations on bank-financial sectors. And finally, the paper reconfirms the necessity to look at Hungarian capitalism not only from the state capitalism perspective, but also from the mixed multiple perspectives.

著者

村上 弘毅

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.55, no.2, pp.26, 2018 (Released:2020-07-13)

著者

斎藤 幸平

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.57, no.2, pp.6, 2020 (Released:2023-01-10)

著者

和田 幸子

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.48, no.2, pp.111-113, 2011-07-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

著者

足立 眞理子

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.47, no.3, pp.6-21, 2010-10-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

被引用文献数

1

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This paper takes a Marxist Feminist perspective to consider how the newly established field of Feminist Economics of the 1990s extended into labor theory. The debate on S. Himmelweit's 1995 extension of feminist economics to labor theory rested on three conditions defining the concept of labor: the generation of opportunity cost, the social division of labor, and third party substitution. According to Himmelweit, if all three conditions are present, one can define the situation as "labor." This serves as the basis of today's feminist economics. The debate, however, centers on the concept of "caring." The concept of caring is in itself a critique of the modernist dualist system of economics that poses "labor" against "non-labor." At the same time, only the concept of care contains the possibility of alienation from the concept of labor because the condition of third-party substitution is not necessarily satisfied. However, this method means simultaneously specified regardless of the criticism to capitalist market economy which the Marxist feminism mainly described. This argument takes the feminist concept of unpaid labor as socially necessary labor to social reproduction. Today we have reached a new concept of reproductive labor. But this concept was arrived at by cutting off the critique of the capitalist market economy which is the source of Marxist Feminist thought. The reason is because the concept of labor was influenced by the English Rubin School's interpretation of labor theory, which was the standard for Marxism in the West. In this paper I will newly elucidate the concept of labor by including the critique of the capitalist market economy which has long been the theme of Marxist Feminism. I do this by clarifying the points of difference in "value" of the labor force for Marx and the classical school's regular equilibrium theory, especially considering the contrast with Ricardo. And, as a response to questions raised by Marxist Feminism, I further argue that unlike classical economics which takes the family unit for its basis, the Marx model is non-converging, based on 'the individual and his/her own child' what one might call the 'single parent model.' I open the argument by a broad discussion of what the Uno School terms as 'muri' in the commodification of labor power in relation to the Marx model. That is, I clarify a theoretical contribution of Marxist feminism, the relative autonomy and articulation between the productive sphere and the reproductive sphere. That is, I argue that 'muri' exists not only in the commodification of labor, but also in the pre-commodification stage as well as in the stage after commodification. One could say that the theorization of history in Marxian analysis is analogous in value to feminist and gender analysis of contemporary globalization.

著者

渡辺 雅男

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.41, no.2, pp.3-14, 2004-07-20 (Released:2017-04-25)

被引用文献数

1

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The welfare state, which was one of the major characteristics of the "Golden Age" of post-war prosperity, implied more than a mere hotchpotch of various social policy measures. It embodied the universal right of citizenship, the ideas of social justice and the moral post-war reconstruction as well. It also achieved a unique pattern of combination of welfare production and distribution, which altogether were the genuine hallmarks of the welfare capitalism. By trying to overcome deeply embedded class-division, market nexus and political extremism or barbarism, it made every effort to facilitate the social integration and to raise the living standard of the people. It was indeed what Marx called the great, though still quite limited, civilising influence of capital. In today's global integrated open economies, however, many of the assumptions that guided post-war welfare capitalism seem no longer to sustain. New drifting waves of socalled globalization challenge traditional social policy thinking. What, then, is the prospect for the welfare capitalism as we step into the highly competitive market-oriented stage where we eventually come full circle into the original image of market capitalism. We can identify, against this general backdrop, the clear symptoms of crisis in such four fields as class, employment, gender and generational relations. It has also become evident that three distinct welfare regimes are responding to this general and historic crisis in more or less regime-specific ways. Then, not only the general crisis but also each of the regime-specific dilemmas should be shed more light on. For example, the social democratic regime, though it is of relatively universalistic nature, still suffers the substantial degree of gender segregation, with women concentrated in public sector and low-skilled jobs. The liberal regime, in contrast, tries to confront its own dilemma, economic decline and domestic unemployment, by pursuing greater market and wage flexibility, and seeking to reduce the social costs and taxation. Deepening inequality and rising poverty rates are the necessary and associated result of the low wage strategy. The conservative regime, finally, epitomizes the gendered "insider-outsider problem" in which a small, predominantly male, "insider" workforce is enjoying rather privileged working conditions with other half or growing population of "outsiders" depending either breadwinner's pay or the relatively less favourable conditions. If we pick up another characteristic of this regime, highly gendered job segregation as well, we can also find the solid fact that this welfare regime tend strongly to stress the family as the core unit of social care and the woman as full-time housewife. Both tax policies and social services in this conservative regime firmly based on the particular ideological framework, which points the family, rather than individual, as the locus and the women, rather than men, as the main providers of the care. Evidently the percentage of the elderly living with their children is quite high in this regime. Interestingly this familism, which is quite strong among the Mediterranean countries, is also shared by Japanese welfare capitalism. In this whole context, we would like to conclude that our prime target for the policy change must be the familism as the ideology of the persistent cultural and social policy framework in Japan.