Shifting of Education Cost Burden to Self-Responsibility (1) Formation of Mistrust toward the Government

In a democratic society, policy cannot be executed without broad support from the people. However, as our lifestyles grow more affluent, and when a certain level of living is guaranteed, the things that people wish for from government gradu-ally diversify. Moreover, since politicians try to secure support from the ordinary people, they tend to advocate fiscally unfeasible policies, if not going as far as deliv-ering the big treats. In other words, populist policies become the battleground issues. In actuality, offering only populist policies will not suffice. According to Toshimitsu Shinkawa, politicians must adopt the following kinds of strategies in order to avoid becoming the target of criticism from the public (Shinkawa, 2004):

1) Limitation of agenda. Remove battleground issues that become the cause of criticism from the political agenda.

2) Reformulation of battleground issues. With respect to policies that would cause loss, provide some kind of positive significance and develop compensa-tory policy in place of loss-causing policy.

3) Lower visibility. Two points: first, do not clearly show who is deciding the policy; second, lower the policy effect by introducing it in stages rather than all at once in order to disperse the minus effect.

4) Find a scapegoat. Inflame the antipathy between groups that hold different interests and change where criticism is directed.

5) Form nonpartisan agreements. Form agreements with parties outside one’s own political party and make it harder for criticism to be pointed only at one’s own party.

Currently, Japan is in bad economic shape, and people’s incomes are not grow-ing. Amid this situation, income redistribution policies, in particular, easily prompt an extremely large backlash from those who do not receive any benefit but must share in the expense of the tax burden (especially the middle class), as this is perceived as a one-way outpouring of money from the government (Miyamoto, 2008: 45–46). Recently, even though the rate of people on livelihood protection is low, the media repeatedly cover the issue of welfare fraud, and this strengthens criticism toward the issue. For example, in a representative’s question addressed by Hirohiko Nakamura (LDP, Sunrise Party of Japan, Mushozoku no Kai) in the plenary session of the House of Councilors, he mentioned the following: that the issue of livelihood protection was an urgent one; that the number of welfare recipi-ents was now in excess of 2 million people, the highest number on record; that the initial budget for the fiscal year 2012 had swollen to 3.7 trillion yen; that improper receipt of medical treatment aid was increasing, with particularly deplorable cases in Osaka City; that the city’s public finances were being crippled by livelihood protection; and that the poverty business was rampant.¹ Although a policy of increasing the consumption tax was decided by the DPJ Noda administration, the public’s aversion to increasing taxes is still strong. Under these circumstances, poli-ticians find it difficult to push ahead with cost incurring policies that would easily receive the people’s support. Although the “fiscal laxity” of wasteful public works of the LDP’s years of government had been criticized, the “fiscal laxity” in relation to education, welfare, and social security that was given comparative emphasis by the DPJ Government was also criticized (due to its weak packaging and explana-tion in terms of financial resources and regulaexplana-tions). Moreover, this criticism, far from incurring a public backlash, seems to have to some degree rung a sympathetic chord among the people.

As mentioned in Chapter 3, there are two models of social security, the target-ism model, which extremely narrows down the recipient targets, and opposite to this, the universalism model, which attempts to provide services to all members of society. Japan’s livelihood protection system is a typical example of the former.

This is a service whereby benefits are given only to the people who pass a review called means testing, which verifies whether they are entitled to benefits. Needless to say, in the targetism model, money that has been provided by the middle and higher income classes’ tax-burden is transferred to the lower income classes. As the middle and higher income classes do not derive benefit from this, they develop a critical view toward the lower income classes. Doubts are constantly raised as to whether people are really eligible for benefits and whether the means testing is being conducted fairly. On the other hand, free elementary education is a ben-efit that anyone can enjoy. Specifically, people pay this burden a little at a time, and then children at the eligible aged can all receive the benefit. Fundamentally, the time arrives when all adults have received this benefit in the past. By plac-ing such universalism at the center of policy, the suspicions directed at different people become weaker and it becomes possible to promote solidarity in society (Ide, 2012: 255–260). Of course, with universalism, its fundamental principle is to not select which persons receive merits, which also leads to an increased share of

the burden for everyone. The merit of universalism, however, is that even though members of society must share in the burden, they do it acceptingly as they can receive this service without review, if necessary.

It is obvious if one thinks about it, but the perceived tax pain is not decided simply by the absolute heaviness (or size) of the share of the tax burden. More than the actual paying of taxes, the thing that the tax payer is more concerned with is the receiving of some kind of benefit from paying these taxes. Hence, an important issue is whether the tax payer feels they are receiving these benefits. In fact, in northern Europe, a region known for its large tax burden, the perceived tax pain is not that high. But in Japan, the perceived tax pain exceeds the average of developed countries (Ide, 2013: 7–9). When one gives logical consideration to this matter, one can easily imagine how an extremely difficult situation arises.

The strength of this perceived tax pain is because of the lack of perceived ben-efit. Thus, the resistance to raising taxes strengthens, and there is even an increase in those who think that this kind of government is just taking taxes for nothing.

In this way, people lose trust in the government (see Chapter 4). As the govern-ment does not have sufficient financial resources, it becomes difficult to enhance services for the residents (and meet their demands). Accordingly, the residents take an increasingly critical view toward the government, and this develops a pervasive mood that raising taxes is outrageous. If the public finance deficit is expanded, it becomes unavoidable to put the scanty tax revenues into fiscal rehabilitation.

When this happens, the taxes that are paid are mostly not returned to the residents’

actual livelihoods. In particular, the tax-paying middle classes call out more loudly to “reduce the excesses.” They direct their criticism to the recipients of services paid to the low income class, and this leads to the raising of misgivings about the fraudulent receipt of benefits and to resentment that, although they are not paying a share of the tax burden, they are unilaterally receiving benefits. This in turn strengthens calls to make review stricter, which means that, in order for the government to appease these voices, even more expenditure must be injected into paying for monitoring. These services for the residents gradually become squeezed, and this gives rise to an “intolerant” society that monitors each other using scanty resources (Ide, 2013).

(2) Discontent toward Welfare Recipients

As mentioned by Anthony Giddens, welfare-state policies have brought about a weakening of the oppositional axis dividing the haves and the have-nots. The problem is, however, that oppositional viewpoints have emerged with respect to procuring the funds required to execute these welfare policies. Increasingly, voters no longer have allegiance to a particular political party, and as this trend strengthens, political parties enthusiastically try to attract these swinging voters.

The progressive tax system, which had previously attracted broad support, also gradually begins meeting resistance. Moreover, as the people of the New Right say, the bureaucratic organizations of the welfare state become inflexible and ineffi-cient while wastefulness can be seen everywhere. As a result, the government gives the impression that they are out of touch with people’s needs. On the other hand,

despite concentrating their interest on economic variables (issues of poverty and affluence), the socialists have a tendency not to consider other battleground issues, including emotions, morality, and cultural issues. In contrast to this, the conserva-tives endeavor to strike a common chord with people by compensating for emo-tions, morals, and cultural issues by protecting traditions (Giddens, 1994, trans.

2002: 100–104).

To begin with, the welfare state was not something won by the working class through revolution. Nor was it introduced by the bourgeoisie to placate the work-ing class. It was born out of necessity to deal with mass unemployment at a time when there were many right-wing governments throughout Europe. Moreover, it becomes necessary to bring together the economy and the society in times of war, and this also increases the function and role of the state.

When there is an established welfare system, people looking to work will be actively incorporated into the labor market. In other words, the people’s indus-triousness is manifested in the form of labor. Moreover, attempts to actively give these people the role of worker inside society are included inside the plan referred to as the welfare state. Furthermore, the welfare state was always a nation state embodying the wishes of the authorities to promote national solidarity. The pro-cess of constructing a welfare system was inseparable from that of constructing a state. Hence, when discussing the welfare state, it is impossible to avoid the concept of the nation state. Moreover, the welfare program is one kind of social insurance, which makes it one kind of risk management. The nation state can be considered to be the structural origins of the welfare state. In particular, through the war experience, the people of a nation state share the risk of uncertainty, and this facilitates solidarity and group efforts (or industriousness). Hence, the past development of the welfare state has a history in which steady growth in emphasis of this industriousness cannot be ignored (Giddens, 1994, trans. 2002: 172–177).

In Japan, among the social policy and the social welfare, there are elements that are historically inseparable from war-time structures (for example, Tomie, 2007).

Putting aside these elements, let us narrow down the focus of debate to the con-struction of the postwar welfare state system.

It is sometimes pointed out that Japan does not have the type of social democ-racy that is referred to when looking at northern Europe, such as the type embod-ied by the Labour Party of the U.K. (Miyamoto, 2008: 90–94). Actually, the debate surrounding welfare policy in Japan has not been characterized by ideologi-cally opposed positions (for example, the existence of the option of whether or not the state has responsibility for welfare). Instead, real ideological opposition has been limited to discussions about defense, diplomacy, and historical recognition, and a stronger motivation for the LDP has been to use welfare policy (not entirely successfully) as a policy to appease the left and win the hearts of the masses. On the left, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) of course took the ideological stance of placing importance on welfare. Accordingly, in Japan, there have practically been no political parties outspokenly opposing or calling for the reduction of welfare policies. In particular, from the 1960s, there were resident movements concerning pollution problems and a corresponding

strengthening of citizen awareness. This steadily gave rise to reformist local gov-ernments, particularly in urban areas. The spectacle of a reformist political party gathering support from the masses by implementing so-called welfare policies was a threat to the LDP (Shinkawa, 2005: 73–84; Takegawa, 2007: 123–125). Against this backdrop and that of unprecedented high economic growth, the history of postwar Japan was defined by a dramatic improvement in people’s living standards and the blurring of any ostensible differences in social stratification (classes).

However, even if they were considered to be insufficient, expansion of the wel-fare measures naturally led to an increase in government expenditure. The issuance of Japan’s long-term government bonds in the postwar era really began to rise in 1965. According to Masaru Mabuchi, the later increase in fiscal deficits can be summarized as follows. In 1965, the year following the Olympics, tax revenues considerably dropped due to a slowing of economic growth. As a result, when performing the revised budget, the decision was made to issue deficit-covering government bonds to cover for this shortfall in tax revenue. When following fis-cal equilibrium, because the size of expenditure is fundamentally decided by tax revenues, requests that are not relevant to this are not recorded. However, this means that issuing deficit-covering government bonds creates the vulnerability of not being able to limit fiscal expenditure. The MOF, fearful that there was no way of applying the brakes to fiscal expenditure, set limits on the use of government bonds (construction government bonds). It further made sure that the govern-ment bonds were absorbed on the market and that there was no re-issuance under-written by the Bank of Japan. However, the target of the construction government bonds was ambiguously defined, and in the end, their function as a supplementa-tion for expenditure was maintained. In other words, setting limits on the use of government bonds did not really serve the function of putting the brakes on expenditure.

Finally, when the economy shifted from high to stable economic growth, the government strengthened its efforts to cover the lagging development of social capital by more actively directing public finance expenditure into public works. As large-scale development cannot be completed in a short timeframe, once a project had been started, long-term and constant expenses were generated. Moreover, as the LDP held government for a long period, we saw the emergence of the “tribe Diet members,” who maintained close relationships with specific interest groups;

and they further spurred the government on a path of aggressive fiscal expenditure.

The percentage of expenses falling under the category of “natural appropriation increase on a committed basis” rose, and due to the loss of fiscal elasticity, the public finance authorities no longer had effective mechanisms of control. This is referred to as fiscal rigidity. To break free from this rigidity, the MOF attempted such measures as adopting the unified budget principle.² However, these measures did not last. As the economic conditions once again entered an upturn, the MOF’s sense of crisis also faded.

Furthermore, the MOF at the time adopted a technique referred to as budget revival. As part of the budget revival negotiations it was carrying out with various ministries, it gave out funds, bit by bit, by entering them into the budget under the

names of various jurisdictional arms of the MOF. Consequently, the total budget-ary amount was unchanged even after the budget revival negotiations. However, the MOF disclosed what funds were available for these budget revival negotiations in advance, thereby making the process of budget compilation more effective.

Nevertheless, as there was room for negotiation for these disclosed fiscal resources, this also meant that there was room for LDP intervention in the process of budget compilation.

As soon as the Kakuei Tanaka Cabinet was instated, they pursued an active fiscal policy under their Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago, but they gradu-ally lost popularity due to events such as the first oil shock and the remarkable rise in land prices. Meanwhile, the reformist parties such as the Japan Socialist Party and the Japanese Communist Party continued to build their popular-ity in the urban areas. And the route of aggressive fiscal spending was, for the most part, transferred from public works to social welfare without much change.

Compounding this issue, Tanaka pushed through 2 trillion yen in tax reductions in the 1974 budget in an attempt to gain more popularity with the people. The fiscal debt became decisive, and this was the basis for fiscal curtailment and a course of fiscal rehabilitation without increasing taxes starting from the late 1970s (Mabuchi, 1994).

In a public opinion poll by Jiji Press in 1982, there was a growing interest in public finance among the people, and support for “fiscal rehabilitation without increasing taxes” had increased. When asked how to address the revenue short-fall, 37.1% supported spending cuts, while only 2.5% advocated a tax increase.

Putting the supporters of increasing taxes together with those advocating both temporary expenditure cuts and the issuance of debt-covering government bonds, they made up 14.7%, while the percentage of respondents resolutely opposed to increased taxes was as high as 52.9%. Among the respondents, there were 51.1%

that, while advocating reductions in expenditure for the defense budget and Official Development Assistance (ODA), which the government had removed from the ceiling, thought that the government should maintain social security and the education expenditure to which it had applied the ceiling (Kato, 1997:

154). In other words, the people did not want any new burdens. As social security was insufficient and education costs were soaring, however, there seemed to be an assertion that social security and education could be covered if the funds were redi-rected from the defense budget or the ODA.

As mentioned in Chapter 5, Japan’s public finance and its policy emphasis on public works cannot be discussed without mentioning fiscal investment and loans.

While keeping the tax burden low, the government promoted a fiscal policy of consumer spending and savings, making these savings the resource for public works’ investment. These means were used not only to advance the maintenance of social capital but also to maintain a constant level of progress in local area devel-opment. The striking disparities that had once existed between regions were no longer as big an issue. Of course, the relative economic disparities still remained.

Considering that even food was a problem directly after the war, however, in only a few decades, everyone owned the basic lineup of electrical appliances and led an

ordinary life, and one could feel a real sense of economic affluence. On the other hand, people were derided as economic animals, and death by overwork was a common societal problem. Lifestyles that gave priority to work (or the company) became established as matter of fact among Japanese.

There were undeniably positive aspects that were brought about (such as improvement of the standard of living, economic development, and so forth).

However, as mentioned in Chapter 1 the problems of differences emerging in Japanese society, which had propensities for homogenous and group behavior, and expectations of the same remunerative treatment were not related to “inequality of opportunity” but rather to “individual effort” and “personal drive.” Therefore, the problem of inequality of traditional social hierarchy and classes was removed from society. Also removed was the consciousness that the existence of economic disparity was unfair. This even led people to propose that it was necessary to have new analytical frameworks and problem establishment concerning inequality in an “affluent” society (Hara and Seiyama, 1999). Social stratification theories now have wide circulation. But as seen with the bashing of livelihood protection and similar concerns, while society reaches out to the socially vulnerable with one hand, there is also a welling up in society of discourse advocating that it is up to each person to look after themselves; that such persons are lazy or selfish; or that what comes to them is what they have brought upon themselves. For the middle class who carry the tax burden, their lifestyles are not necessarily pleasant, and their discontent is directed at the vulnerable who are the welfare recipients.

(3) Expectations of Individual Burdens by Parents

As has been seen in Chapter 6, the private burden of education costs rapidly increased in Japan. While the grievances over the pain of such burden were often heard, rarely would this lead to calls for a social solution to be provided. Outside the arena of theories, the reality for the parents is that the burden of education costs is a natural matter of course, and the scale and awareness of “it is the parents’

responsibility” has been deeply established (Suetomi, 2010: 106–107).

This has actually been backed up by research. According to Kazuhisa Furuta,³ relatively speaking, it is common in Japan for people to think that parents would naturally be expected to bear the cost of education (with more than 60% of respon-dents thinking it natural to pay the full amount). Careful examination of this mindset vis-à-vis the burden of education costs shows that the wealthy class, who believe in impartially providing opportunities to enter university, have a strong tendency to think that it is natural to bear the full costs. However, for society as a whole, the mindset concerning this education cost burden does not correlate with specific academic histories, types of employment, or other such strata variables (Furuta, 2007).

The Japanese households are in the predicament of individually making do while giving priority to education costs. The situation may not be so bad while the children are small, but once entering higher education, the household burden suddenly increases. Understanding this situation, child-rearing households will naturally attempt to accumulate savings. However, the time when it is perhaps

feasible to save is during the period of the child’s compulsory education. Yet, as that is a time when the parents’ incomes are inadequate, there is a limit to the amounts that can be saved. Moreover, in recent years, the Japanese employment system has broken down, and it is no longer possible to expect income to rise with age. Under these circumstances, it is obvious that the birth rate will decrease.

Moreover, because of the declining number of children, we see a structure of pour-ing money even more resolutely into education costs (Yano, 1996).

With public services, there is a benefit versus cost relationship. Concerning the benefit, there is the question of whether the recipient of this benefit is only the individual or whether the society also benefits, and based on this, whether the cost burden should be considered a private one or if there are grounds for receiving funds from tax revenues. Moreover, Yano (2013) calculated the percentage share of social revenue and that of fiscal revenue to show that public finance expenditure in universities is an efficient public investment. Nevertheless, the popularization of university brought into question a deeply rooted issue in ordinary Japanese society, namely, doubts concerning the social benefit of university education. In particular, according to Yano’s research, about 70% to 80% held the opinion that it should be the individual’s or the family’s burden. Moreover, the distribution of opinion showed no significant correlations with any particular social strata. In fact, post-war higher education in Japan has relied on private schools, and this system has been supported by family budgets that have prioritized education. It is probably due to these circumstances that this mindset toward education has come to be considered as matter of fact. Moreover, the government has positioned university education very low in its order of priorities. This issue is really not about the choice of whether it should be the household budget or the government that bears the entire burden; rather, it is ultimately about establishing a realistic mindset that is accepting of an appropriate balance between the two (Yano, 2013).

In Japan, where there is a low awareness of the social benefit provided by educa-tion, only the private investment side is emphasized. If one’s view on education is to emphasize equal treatment of students at school, and almost oversensitively to make demands on the selection methods for entrance examinations, etc., such as that they must be based on equity, then ultimately one’s view will also regard the responsibility for academic performance to lie with the individual. The unsuc-cessful person must be content with reflecting in hindsight that his or her own efforts were not enough, while the successful person can consider the result to be that of his or her efforts. What is lacking here, however, is the perspective that asks whether it was a fortunate learning environment (whether there were significant differences in the actual learning environment between people), and that acknowl-edges that there are various social support mechanisms at play here that are not in plain view. It is not unnatural to think that education is deeply established in society and raises the people’s intellectual level, which in turn has some kind of overall positive effect on society. However, this is not something that can be easily measured, and the reality of the situation can be difficult to grasp. Consequently, the current situation arises in which only households burdened with education costs call for a reduction of the burden, while other people lose interest in the issue

of education. This would then likely become reflected in the view (incidentally, one based on individualism) that under the currently difficult fiscal situation, “if there is such financial leeway in public expenditure to spend on education, then I want it diverted to my own post-retirement social security,” (Hamanaka, 2013:

228–232).

The remaining two chapters, including this one, focus on opinions and percep-tions of the government, the state, and policies implemented by the government.

Under the current system of indirect democracy, the most common method of realizing the policies one would wish for is the act of voting. Moreover, the bodies that present these policy options are the political parties. Let us look back at how the political parties have been involved, or not been involved, in the issue of educa-tion costs, and how the people have reacted to these policies.

2. Campaign Pledges and Manifestos