In my book "Shijo-shugi no Shuen" ("The End of Market Fundamentalism"), which was published about 15 years ago, I wrote: "Those who believe it desirable for salaries to be as equal as possible to all workers regardless of their accomplishments, namely, those who believe in equality of outcome, have now fallen into a sheer minority. Socialists of the years gone by aimed at attaining equality of outcome. While accepting the maxim that 'He who does not work, neither shall he eat,' socialists think that those who work should be remunerated equally."
October 2000, when the book was published, was just before a new administration under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi came into being. "Structural reform" was the principal slogan of his economic policies. It meant that the postulation of neoclassical economists that a free and competitive market will bring about efficient distribution of resources would serve as the fundamental premise of his policies.
The actual situation of the market economy in those days was characterized by various regulations that hindered free competition, and the publicly controlled post office's three services — postal services, postal savings and post office life insurance — were suppressing the banking, insurance and transport sectors. In the mid-1980s, the administration of Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone had privatized Japanese National Railways and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corp., revitalizing the land transportation and information and telecommunications markets.
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