He said he toured an American office and he saw some guy drinking canned soup out of a coffee cup And he got super excited "This is why America came to rule the world! They don't even leave their desk to eat lunch! He doesn't even have a bowl, he's drinking it from a cup!"
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"No more elaborate long lunches and contemplative tea breaks! Eating will now be done while working! Food will be instant and prepared as quickly as possible, served to the consumer by an automated machine!"
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This whole manic rant about smashing a much-beloved element of Japanese culture to pieces in order to resurrect the country's postwar economy and drag it kicking and screaming into the modern world of 1950s America
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Fast forward a generation and a half and now they're lecturing American workers in the 1980s that we're the ones who waste too much time shooting the shit and lollygagging at work and we need to learn from the robotic insectlike efficiency of the Japanese salaryman
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Buying food out of machines and everything being freezedried or canned or whatever is now a "Japanese thing" that America needs to learn from Lazy Americans with their coffee breaks and shit will be out-evolved by the zaibatsu So the machine consumes us all
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Now it's shifted over and they're telling American workers they're obsolete compared to the Chinese, who were the ones in the '80s demanding everyone learn to be like the Japanese and the Americans under the new Dengist regime of "market socialism"
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Replying to @arthur_affect
It's worth noting I think that Japanese capitalism was taking on practices from the US in particular before WW II, and Germany as well. The very word for part time work is German - arubaīto (arbeit).
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Replying to @Mad_Science_Guy
Yeah it was a process starting with the Meiji Restoration
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Replying to @arthur_affect
I was thinking also, corporate culture wise, that the vaunted Japanese "work ethic" wasn't what it was cracked up to be. There's a huge cultural thing in Japan about attention to details, and craftsmanship, but at the same time there's a partying streak that was kind'a nuts.
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Replying to @Mad_Science_Guy @arthur_affect
Like, these are the same people who basically instituted benders on Thursday.
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Well that's the natural result of this Taylorism gone mad demanding that you be as efficient as possible with every waking minute of your work day It naturally demands that the moment you get off work you "blow off steam"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Mad_Science_Guy
I've seriously been thinking about how awful a motto "We work hard, we play hard" is Like -- if you do *everything* hard you guarantee you'll be dead by 50
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Mad_Science_Guy
Why not work soft and play soft Why crunch 80-hour weeks just so that after you ship you get to go to an all-night party where you snort cocaine off each other's nipples Why not be normal
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