You know capitalism is struggling when one of the system’s greatest beneficiaries — Japan — starts calling for its renewal.
“New capitalism” was the slogan Fumio Kishida ran on in his successful bid to replace the unpopular Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga , who resigned last fall. The defenders of neoliberalism warned that “Kishida’s new capitalism is in fact plain old socialism.” The Japan Communist Party, on the other hand, dismissed the concept as nothing but a “continuation of a bankrupt neoliberalism.” So, which is it?
Although all the details are not fully finalized, Kishida’s new capitalism is definitely not socialism, but not quite neoliberalism either. In fact, one of the remarkable aspects of Kishida’s young premiership is his blunt criticism of neoliberalism. It is remarkable because his Liberal Democratic Party is the very party that brought neoliberalism to Japan in the late 1990s and early 2000s.