A study on the structural change of Japanese Society under the full-fledged economy

本研究的目的是研究日本社会在高度增长时代结束后所经历的各种变化。我们从经济、社会结构和文化的几个角度对它们进行分析，并用它们的共同点“我主义”来考察它们之间的相互依存关系。日本经济通过将增长动力从内需转向国外，在发达国家中达到了最高的繁荣。在这一过程中，日本社会也从“城市化社会”向“成熟的城市社会”转变。这意味着工厂的生产系统已经从福特主义系统转向柔性制造系统。这与学校的变化是同步的，在学校，晚选拔制度被提前选拔制度所取代。与此同时，整个社区在经历了城市化社会阶段后，进入了城市社会时代，“后现代家庭”取代了家中的“现代家庭”。于是，工厂和学校看到了“合作竞争”的结束，社区和家庭经历了互助习俗的崩溃。其结果是，维持文化传统运转的机制已经停止运作，我们的日常生活文化(贫穷文化)本身已经被令人眼花缭乱的富裕文化所掩盖。因此，他不能独自生活在任何社区之外。那么，“中继拨号”或“聊天”就是今天留给他的东西，作为真正的拨号的替代品，当然，他不能指望获得只有真正的友谊才能提供的那种令人满意的交流。

The purpose of this study is to research the various changes which Japanese society has gone through after the epoch of high-degree growth ended. We analyze them from several view points, i.e.those of economy, social structures and culture and investigate their inter-dependence with "Me-ism" their common denominator.Japanese economy has attained highest prosperity among the advanced countries by shifting the motor of growth from domestic demand to foreign one. In this process, Japanese society has also changed from "urbanizing society" to "full-fledged urban society". This means that the system of production in factories has turned from Fordism system to Flexible manufacturing system. This runs parallel with the change in schools where the late selection system is replaced by the early selection system. At the same time, the community at large has entered upon the age of urban society after it went through the stage of urbanizing society and "postmodern family" has taken the place of "modern family" at home. Thus, factories and schools saw "the cooperative competition" come to an end and community and home has experienced the collapse of the custom of mutural aid. As a consequence, the mechanism which kept the cultural traditions functioning has ceased to work and our daily-life culture (the culture of poverty) itself has been eclipsed by that of dazzling richness.But man is a social being. So he cannot live alone outside whatever community it may be. "Relay dial" or "Chat" is, then, what is left to him today as a substitute for real one, though, of course, he cannot hope to secure the kind of satisfactory communication which only the real comminity can provide.