Kinder Capitalism

I’ve written before about how, although Japan is a capitalist country in which companies complete with each other to win customers, somehow things are done in a way that’s cooperative, too. Panasonic never goes out of their way to kill a product that’s important to Sony, and when Mitsubishi enters a new market, they don’t try to undercut customers of a competing product from Fuji Heavy Industries. When we find a new distributor whose products we want to carry, we assume they’ll be happy to sell to us, but instead they ask us if we’re already being served by another distributor to avoid the appearance that they’re “stealing” us away from a competitor. This “kinder, gentler” Capitalism takes other forms as well. When we finally got a fast fiber Internet connection at J-List, I was ready to get a dedicated connection installed although it cost more. But the technician at NTT recommended that I try the cheaper shared line option first, and only upgrade later if I needed more speed, saving me lots of money and making me very grateful.

Companies in Japan are run in a kinder, gentler way.