摘要：In this essay we deal with one important, perhaps even dominant tendency within the 'progressive competitiveness' movement, namely the framing of policy proposals in terms of the superior competitiveness of certain national capitalisms in whole or in part. We focus on a particular case of national-capitalist 'success' which has become a common reference point for many progressive policy platforms in the U.S.: that of Japan. Our concern with Japan stems partly from its influential status as an 'economic superpower' and as one of the main 'competitors of the U.S.' Another source of concern is the extreme discordance between the true exploitative, socially-irrational and imperialist character of Japanese capitalism, on the one hand, and the relatively sanguine characterizations of some or all elements of the 'Japanese model' often encountered in U.S. left and liberal writings, on the other. Perhaps our most important reason for examining the use of Japan as a model, however, is that the recent plethora of non-holistic, undialectical, and a-historical references to the Japanese experience in left-liberal writings reveals quite a bit about the analytical and political dangers of using capitalist criteria as a positive reference point for the formulation and articulation of progressive priorities. More specifically, it reveals that those who advocate using Japanese capitalist practices and institutions as guides to progressive change offer a distorted, strategically disastrous perspective on capitalism's exploitative underpinnings and historical tendency towards maturation and stagnation, and thus of the objective and subjective conditions shaping working-class politics.
其他摘要：In this essay we deal with one important, perhaps even dominant tendency within the 'progressive competitiveness' movement, namely the framing of policy proposals in terms of the superior competitiveness of certain national capitalisms in whole or in part. We focus on a particular case of national-capitalist 'success' which has become a common reference point for many progressive policy platforms in the U.S.: that of Japan. Our concern with Japan stems partly from its influential status as an 'economic superpower' and as one of the main 'competitors of the U.S.' Another source of concern is the extreme discordance between the true exploitative, socially-irrational and imperialist character of Japanese capitalism, on the one hand, and the relatively sanguine characterizations of some or all elements of the 'Japanese model' often encountered in U.S. left and liberal writings, on the other. Perhaps our most important reason for examining the use of Japan as a model, however, is that the recent plethora of non-holistic, undialectical, and a-historical references to the Japanese experience in left-liberal writings reveals quite a bit about the analytical and political dangers of using capitalist criteria as a positive reference point for the formulation and articulation of progressive priorities. More specifically, it reveals that those who advocate using Japanese capitalist practices and institutions as guides to progressive change offer a distorted, strategically disastrous perspective on capitalism's exploitative underpinnings and historical tendency towards maturation and stagnation, and thus of the objective and subjective conditions shaping working-class politics.
