One of the standard criticisms of the free market point of view is that it treats individuals as isolated atoms who view other people only as means to the pursuit of their selfish ends.
The highly regulated, protectionist Japanese economy, and an overall collectivist culture, leaves little room for flexibility in executive pay. This makes Japanese businesses less competitive, and work life more miserable.
Whatever happens with the virus, the real story, the real historical change, is probably economic. Abenomics—Japan's ultra-Keynesian experiment—seems to be dead.
The popular narrative is that demographics are driving Japan's declining worker productivity. But the real culprit is government regulations and a lack of entrepreneurship.
Real wages in Japan have been declining thanks to decades of expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. Now "Japanization" increasingly looks like a fate that awaits Europe.
John Rawls claimed "justice" demands governments use their power to benefit the least well off in a given society. But then he arbitrarily restricts the scope of these programs to particular nation-states. This betrays a fundamental problem with his idea of inequality.
In the blurry world of conflicting economic indicators and forecasts and policy surprises, activist policymakers at the Fed do not know exactly what the “right” monetary policy is today. Neither do their activist critics.
