How would you have voted? Japan

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1936: Shakai Taishūtō
1938: Shakai Taishūtō
1946: Japanese Communist Party
1948: Japanese Communist Party
1949: Japanese Communist Party
1952: Japanese Communist Party
1953: Japanese Communist Party
1955: Japanese Communist Party
1958: Japan Socialist Party
1963: Japan Socialist Party
1967: Japan Socialist Party
1969: Japanese Communist Party
1972: Japanese Communist Party
1976: Japanese Communist Party
1979: Japanese Socialist Party
1980: Japanese Socialist Party
1983: Japanese Socialist Party
1986: Japanese Socialist Party
1990: Japanese Socialist Party
1993: Japanese Socialist Party
1996: Japanese Communist Party
2000: Japanese Communist Party
2003: Japanese Communist Party
2005: Japanese Communist Party
2009: Japanese Communist Party
2012: Japanese Communist Party
2014: Japanese Communist Party
2017: Japanese Communist Party
Next: Reiwa Shinsengumi

In retroperspective, hindsight probably would've only voted for JCP from 1994 onwards, before that Socialist Party of Japan or Leftist Socialist Party when they briefly split, which were both semi-marxist as well. The Democratic Socialist Party was democratic socialist but evolved into a neoliberal party. Japan is pretty dominated by conservative - liberal and neoliberal parties, and we see clearly to what it led in the nation. Mass numbers of suicide and massive unhappiness. It's a busy country in which i assume it's not funny to live in, but it has such a nice culture, and it's so unique and i think i will deepen my interest in Japanese culture & politics.

Reiwa Shinsengumi is basically a left-wing party with ties to JCP, they might form a coalition in the next race, and i think Japan's left will slowly grow. Apparently they have a word for the most extreme form of it: Karoshi.

The first case of karoshi was reported in 1969 with the stroke-related death of a 29-year-old male worker in the shipping department of Japan's largest newspaper company.[1] The term was invented in 1978 to refer to an increasing number of people suffering from fatal strokes and heart attacks attributed to overwork. A book on the issue in 1982 brought the term into public usage.

It was not until the mid to late 1980s, during the Bubble Economy, when several high-ranking business executives who were still in their prime years suddenly died without any previous sign of illness, that the term emerged into Japanese public life. This new phenomenon was immediately seen as a new and serious menace for people in the work force. In 1987, as public concern increased, the Japanese Ministry of Labour began to publish statistics on karoshi.

In 1988, the Labor Force Survey reported that almost one fourth of the male working employees worked over 60 hours per week, which is 50% longer than a typical 40-hour weekly working schedule. Realizing the seriousness and widespread nature of this emerging problem, a group of lawyers and doctors set up "karoshi hotlines" that are nationally available, dedicating to help those who seek consultation on karoshi-related issues.[2]

Japan's rise from the devastation of World War II to economic prominence and the huge war reparations they have paid in the post-war decades have been regarded as the trigger for what has been called a new epidemic. It was recognized that employees cannot work for 12 or more hours a day, 6–7 days a week, year after year, without suffering physically as well as mentally. It is common for the overtime to go unpaid.[3][4]

In an International Labour Organization article about karoshi,[5] the following four typical cases of karoshi were mentioned:

Mr. A worked at a major snack food processing company for as long as 110 hours a week (not a month) and died from a heart attack at the age of 34. His death was recognized as work-related by the Labour Standards Office.
Mr. B, a bus driver, whose death was also recognized as work-related, worked 3,000 hours a year. He did not have a day off in the 15 days before he had a stroke at the age of 37.
Mr. C worked in a large printing company in Tokyo for 4,320 hours a year including night work and died from a stroke at the age of 58. His widow received workers' compensation 14 years after her husband's death.
Ms. D, a 22-year-old nurse, died from a heart attack after 34 hours of continuous duty five times a month.
As well as physical pressure, mental stress from the workplace can cause karoshi. People who commit suicide due to mental stress are called karojisatsu (過労自殺). The ILO also lists some causes of overwork or occupational stress that include the following:

All-night, late-night or holiday work, both long and excessive hours. During the long-term economic recession after the collapse of the bubble economy in the 1980s and 1990s, many companies reduced the number of employees. The total amount of work, however, did not decrease, forcing each employee to work harder.
Stress accumulated due to frustration at not being able to achieve the goals set by the company. Even in economic recession, companies tended to demand excessive sales efforts from their employees and require them to achieve better results. This increased the psychological burden placed on the employees at work.
Forced resignation, dismissal, and bullying. For example, employees who worked for a company for many years and saw themselves as loyal to the company were suddenly asked to resign because of the need for staff cutbacks.
Suffering of middle management. They were often in a position to lay off workers and torn between implementing a corporate restructuring policy and protecting their staff.

I think some movies go in detail about Japan's overstressed environment. They have great cinema.
  

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190726/p2a/00m/0na/019000c

Key opposition parties are wooing fledgling political party Reiwa Shinsengumi after it swept two severely disabled candidates into House of Councillors seats in the July 21 election.

Opposition parties hope that embracing the rising party will help boost the opposition bloc's profile in the next general election.

The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), the Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) are among those eyeing collaboration with Reiwa Shinsengumi, which achieved its electoral success just months after its launch in April.

However, differences remain over policy measures put forward by the key opposition parties and Reiwa Shinsengumi, headed by actor and politician Taro Yamamoto.

While Reiwa Shinsengumi advocates abolishing Japan's consumption tax and immediately banning nuclear power plants in Japan, it is unlikely opposition parties would easily align themselves with the new party on those policy lines. There is also wariness within the opposition camp that Reiwa could whittle away votes from other opposition parties.

In a TV Asahi program on July 25, Yamamoto suggested he was open to collaborating with the opposition camp in the next nationwide election.

"We'd like to aim for a regime change by joining hands with other opposition parties," he said.

As he lost his seat in the upper chamber in the July 21 election, he announced his intention to run in the next House of Representatives race, and even declared his ultimate aim of becoming prime minister.

Behind his confidence lies Reiwa Shinsengumi's strong showing. The party earned 4.55%, or 2.28 million votes in the proportional representation bloc in the upper house election, which allowed it to clear the 2% mark necessary to acquire political party status. Even though Yamamoto himself was defeated, he collected 990,000 individual votes, the highest among all proportional representation candidates.

In an apparent bid to jump on the bandwagon, most opposition party leaders mentioned collaboration with the new party. At a July 21 press conference, CDP leader Yukio Edano said, "We hail Reiwa Shinsengumi's achievement as proof that forces supported by those critical of the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have prevailed. We'd appreciate it if we could collaborate with the party in the Diet and in the run-up to the next lower house election."

DPFP leader Yuichiro Tamaki also told a July 24 media conference, "Mr. Yamamoto was in the same parliamentary faction as our party before the upper house election," underscoring the DPFP's proximity to Reiwa Shinsengumi. Tamaki suggested he would like to consult with Yamamoto over ways their parties could cooperate.

While the major opposition parties jointly fielded candidates in constituencies where only one seat was up for grabs in the July 21 upper house election, the opposition bloc managed to win only 10 of those seats, conceding 22 seats to the ruling coalition. This marked a setback from the previous upper house contest in 2016, in which the opposition bloc garnered 11 seats in such constituencies. If Reiwa Shinsengumi were to join the united front with the opposition parties, it could work as a catalyst for their success in the bloc.

There remain some difficulties, however. In a TV program on July 25, Yamamoto pointed out that merely fielding joint candidates "would be weak" as a campaign strategy. He insisted that the consumption tax should at least be lowered back to 5% from the current 8%, and that he would do his utmost if his party could align with other opposition parties on that 5% sales tax platform. While the CDP calls for freezing the government's plan to raise the sales tax to 10% in October, Yamamoto remarked, "I'd like to see tax reductions absolutely guaranteed. Freezing a policy runs the potential risk of it being unfrozen."

A cautious Tetsuro Fukuyama, secretary-general of the CDP, told reporters on July 25, "Once the Abe administration raises the sales tax to 10%, the most we could say is that it should be returned to 8%."

JCP leader Kazuo Shii gave a positive response to the prospect of working with Yamamoto's party, saying, "We have policy measures lying in the same direction."

There are strong views within the opposition bloc that a fairly large number of votes that were originally intended for the CDP and JCP were snapped up by Reiwa Shinsengumi in the July 21 election.

"Our handling of Yamamoto is crucial," commented a senior CDP legislator.

DPFP leader Tamaki, meanwhile, said, "It may be possible to abolish the consumption tax," but added, "If the tax were to be scrapped, we would also have to think about alternative revenue sources."

[LAKISYLVANIA]

I would like to see an opposition bloc consisting out of Reiwa Shinsengumi, the center-left liberal Constitutional Democratic Party and the center-right pacifist, ecological and anti-nuclear party Democratic Party for the People and the small Social Democratic Party against Abe's neoliberal bloc.