>>65
>Past
Japan had a very Scandinavian-esque economic policy until the neoliberalisation during the 80s, though trade unions never had the same focal role. After all, it was the Liberal Democratic Party that held the rains after McArthur purged the government of socialists just before leaving (and giving it back to people who had narrowly escaped trial for war-crimes).
Rather, the LDP (Opposition has only had 2 governments since the war) invoked those changes from the top-down and in return made sure to favour big native corporations - beyond that they also had a tight leash in the form of a state monopoly on yen-dollar transactions. Some policies was worker's having a voice in running the workplace (though I'm not sure how far their influence really stretched) and an insurance of annual pay increase for senior workers.
They also made some pretty hard laws on laying people off, which was however circumvented by the use of labour hire.
In general, the LDP favouring business, business favouring the LDP, and a LDP-loyal bureaucracy making sure the machine run smoothly was called the "Iron Triangle".
Honestly, I've got little problem with this kind of social-democratic/liberal/fascist jingoist corporatism, but of course it's only a temporary solution to the faults of capitalism. As the profits of the high-growth era started to stall, the LDPs bedmates (as well as American influence) forced the party to implement more neoliberal policies - greatly disturbing the foundations of the Japanese model.
It's generally this shattering of the foundations that lead to the "lost decade(s)" - the working and middle class had a nothing to cushion their fall within the newly implemented "new management" (labour hire, outsourcing etc) and thus, even if the economic recession was hardly as bad as it seemed, it damaged the Japanese self-perception and faith in their institutions.