[Pen-l] work-sharing paradise?

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

The New York Times / April 22, 2009

Hime Island Journal
A Workers’ Paradise Found Off Japan’s Coast
By MARTIN FACKLER

HIME ISLAND, Japan — If [paternalistic & traditionalist] Marxism had
ever produced a functional, prosperous society, it might have looked
something like this tiny southern Japanese island.

At first glance, there is little to set Hime (pronounced HEE-may)
apart from the hundreds of other small inhabited islands that dot the
coasts of Japan’s main isles. The 2,519 mostly graying islanders
subsist on fishing and shrimp farming, and every summer hold a Shinto
religious festival featuring dancers dressed as foxes.

But once off the ferry, the island’s sole public transportation link
to the outside, visitors are greeted by an unusual sight: a tall,
bronze statue of Hime’s previous mayor, rare in a country that
typically shuns such political aggrandizement. Rarer still is that the
statue was erected by his son, who is the island’s current mayor.

In fact, the father, who died in 1984, and the son, who succeeded him,
have won every mayoral election in Himeshima, the island’s village,
for 49 years — without once being challenged by a rival candidate.

And it is not just the cult-of-personality politics that smack of a
latter-day workers’ paradise. This sleepy island, just off Japan’s
main southern island, Kyushu, has recently come under unaccustomed
national media attention for a very different reason: it invented its
own version of work-sharing four decades before the current economic
crisis popularized the term.

Under Hime’s system, village employees earn about a third less pay
than public servants elsewhere in Japan, though they work the same
hours. This has allowed the village to create more jobs: it now
directly or indirectly employs a fifth of all working islanders. Most
of the rest are engaged in fishing, also government-subsidized. In
fact, village officials say, there are few fully private-sector jobs
on the island.

Islanders admit to the socialist parallels, even while proclaiming
themselves political conservatives who vote for the governing
right-wing Liberal Democratic Party. Some jokingly take the analogy a
step further, comparing themselves to a much more repressive
family-run regime in Japan’s geopolitical neighborhood. [or are they
like Mormon Utah?]

“Hime Island is North Korea, just a livable version,” Naokazu Koiwa
said with a laugh. Mr. Koiwa, 32, repairs fishing boats.

Unsurprisingly, the current mayor, Akio Fujimoto, flatly rejects the
North Korean comparison. Rather, he and most other islanders call Hime
a repository for traditional Japanese values, like economic
egalitarianism and social harmony. They say the rest of the nation has
lost these in an embrace of more competitive capitalism, especially
under the prime ministership of Junichiro Koizumi from 2001-6.

“Our thinking is, ‘let’s all share the economic pie and get along,
instead of giving all of it to the rich,’ ” said Mr. Fujimoto, whose
father, Kumao Fujimoto, devised the work-sharing system in the 1960s.
“Avoiding competition is the traditional Japanese way.”

Now, with the current crisis causing a national questioning of
American-style laissez-faire economics, and business leaders and
unions seeking alternatives to widespread job cuts, Hime’s
work-sharing scheme is suddenly being held up as a new model.
Islanders call it ironic that the current crisis has made traditional
values appear progressive, even utopian.

Nor does the island’s penchant for equality stop at work-sharing. At
an annual village ceremony to mark the coming of age of 20-year-old
islanders, women are forbidden to wear traditional kimonos for fear
the differences in quality could reveal their households’ economic
status.

Dismayed by the inconsistent television reception across this
mountainous island about half the size of Key West, the current mayor
installed a free cable TV system that now reaches 97 percent of homes.

Even by clannish Japan’s standards, the island seems a friendly,
close-knit place. Islanders cheerfully greet passing strangers. Roads,
parks and even public toilets are immaculate. Doors are left unlocked,
and the island has only one policeman.

Mr. Fujimoto also cites traditional attitudes to explain his own
political longevity, a claim most islanders seem to accept. He says
islanders shun public elections because of a deep-rooted abhorrence of
confrontation. He said the last time the village held a mayoral
election, in 1955, it split the island, creating ill feelings that
took a generation to heal.

To avoid a repeat of such trauma, he said, the island decided to
choose mayors by consensus, finding someone on whom everyone could
agree beforehand. Last year, Mr. Fujimoto won his seventh straight
four-year term, once again by default in an uncontested election.

“My job is to prevent elections by keeping everyone equal, and thus
happy,” said Mr. Fujimoto, 65, sitting in a modest office in the
village hall. His only visible sign of authority was a buzzer on his
desk that he pushed to summon an assistant.

Mr. Fujimoto said he would resign immediately if a serious rival
appeared in an election. “That would be a sign the village has lost
confidence in me,” he said.

Many islanders say Mr. Fujimoto is able to stay in office partly
because of the reverence still felt here for his father, who lifted
Hime from postwar poverty by turning it into a loyal source of votes
for the Liberal Democratic Party, which rewarded the island with
generous public works.

“We have our own little personality cult,” said Shokai Dozono, a
Buddhist monk who runs one of the island’s two temples.

The island and its mayor also have outside critics. Keizo Nagai, the
ombudsman for Oita prefecture, which includes Hime, calls the island
the least transparent local government in the prefecture. He
criticized it for refusing to make information like detailed budget
records available to non-islanders, which he attributed to a closed
local culture rather than to a cover-up of wrongdoing.

“Hime Island acts like an independent kingdom,” Mr. Nagai said.

Many islanders say they accept the status quo simply because life here
is comfortable. They say rocking the boat would only ostracize them on
an island where everyone knows one another.

“Everyone is basically satisfied,” said Shusaku Akaishi, 29, who works
at his family’s gas station. “This is a conservative place.”

That conservatism is strong enough at times to annoy even Mr.
Fujimoto. His biggest complaint is that traditional attitudes prevent
him from extending family control of the mayor’s office for another
generation, because he has only a daughter.

“Hime Island can’t be run by a woman,” he sighed. “This place is too
medieval for that.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company




-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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