| Abstract: | In the early years of the twentieth century Japanese employers, like their counterparts in the various Western countries, experimented with programs of firm-based social welfare and social insurance, often collectively identified as welfare capitalism. This essay examines these programs, focusing on those operated by the national railroad system. It argues that these programs were neither a distinctive emanation of traditional values nor simply a result of mimicry of Western-inspired programs. They were instead an instance of a global effort by employers everywhere to cope with rapidly changing conditions and the challenges of modern economic development. The essay also argues that these Japanese programs, like those in Western countries, influenced and helped to set the parameters of state-based health and welfare systems that emerged in the first half of the century. |
