The Growth Of Japan In The 1980's

The human race is the jewel of our world. As a collective we have power unbounded. With the intellectual advancements we make every day, it isn’t unreasonable to say we may one day live perfect lives.

The history of human civilization has been characterized by advancement, that strive towards more power and perfection. Society has moved from nomadic hunters to farmers and onto governed citizens of nation-states. We have embraced microchip technology and a capitalist structure which advocates personal gain and material above all else.

So what happens when humans stop advancing? What if, some place in the world, the people that ran a country stopped caring, and that country stagnated? What could cause it, and what would the consequences be?

Japan became the second largest economy in the world as they took control of many aspects of the world economy. The specialization and monopoly of certain sectors of the world economy led to a decrease in priority on a number of other economic sectors, leaving very few people involved in the agricultural sector.

The extensive growth of the 1980s led to a population boom in Japan, in which millions escaped from poverty under a semi-socialist system which used its world monopolies to inject high amounts of money into its own society. This exasperated Japan’s already serious overpopulation issues, as Japan, a relatively small island nation with a majority of its environment comprised of mountains, was now expected to house more than 130 million citizens.

During the 1990s, Japan’s incredible rise to the top tier of world economies experienced a catastrophic blow as the effects of an economy based on a weak backbone drove the country into a decade long depression. Without agriculture or low-level high-output manufacturing such as toys or textiles, Japan’s money-makers had no where to turn to make money as countries such as the United States and China began large-scale production of microchip technology with enough resources and manpower to easily outcompete Japan in the international

As a result, a large portion of the remaining agricultural laborers moved their way to the cities, where living was cheaper and work more productive. Japan had given up on self-sustenance, and was now completely reliant on other countries for food as they attempted to once again advance ahead of the crowd in the technology sector, believing their old economic safe-house could once again lift them beyond the onslaught of the world’s economies.

As people moved into cities looking for work and cheaper living than the farmlands, the smaller houses once again encouraged smaller families. Many couples began not having families, which soon led to a destruction of the family ideal altogether. Houses were built en-masse with room for only one person, including the infamous pod-hotels, where citizens could buy a small pod big enough to lay down in and sit up when needed in order to live cheaply due to over-spacing in the major