| The paper explores the economic motivations of the Japanese people, presents an overview of the pre-modern evolution of Japan's market economy, and discusses the true nature of today's highly advanced market economy in Japan. Following the introduction, first, this paper explores the proposition that economic motivations should be the fundamental component of economic analyses and that the aggregates of individual economic motivations should be recognized as different from culture to culture and society to society. The next chapter describes the characteristics of Japanese economic motivations using the religion as the primary basis for the analysis. Then the third chapter examines the historical path of the Japanese economy looking for the roots of the identity of today's Japanese economy. The final chapter analyzes the modern Japanese economy. Although the catching up of the Western affluence had been the long Japanese earnest desire, it has not meant the abandonment of Japanese tradition. |
