Japan's labor market practices -- which feature seniority-based wage scales and lifetime employment -- also are having a hard time surviving globalization. It stifles the innovation, entrepreneurship and labor flexibility that helps other economies thrive.
Those wondering what happened to an economy that a dozen years ago was the envy of the world need look no further than globalization. Japan failed to keep up with changes in the global economy, and the bureaucracy that guided its post-war boom -- keeping out foreign goods and ideas -- is impeding growth.
No economy has perfect free-trade credentials, including the US. After all, Washington aggressively protects its farmers and, more recently, its steel producers. Yet it's hard to think of a place that fears globalization more than Japan and, ironically, has more to gain from it.
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