The Japanese Anarchist Communism

The current world socioeconomic situation is still gloomy. In particular, the socioeconomic situation of Japan is indeed depressing. On the top of the multiple decades of the income growth stagnation, the current stagflation (output stagnation + price inflation) perpetuated by the Japanese Yen (JPY) depreciation in the foreign currency exchange deteriorates individual citizens' daily life. The growing mental illness issues as well as the rising suicide rate are worrying as the sign of the moral and social crisis. Is it the problem of Japan itself? Or is it different from how Japan originally was? In the past, there was a political theory introduced as the antithesis of adopting the modern Western industrialisation and materialist ethics to Japan. So, let's evaluate.

In Japan, there were some politicians who were advocated to Anarchist Communist before the World War 2 (WW2). Even though this policy was not put into practice in real, this political movement was influential to the various contemporary rebellious political factions against the contemporary Western capitalist imperialism. This influence is non-negligible for explaining the spiritualism of the contemporary status quo Touseiha administration during the WW2 despite their different political characteristics.

A former Japanese government bureaucrat 柳田国男 (Kunio Yanagida) was inspired by an Anarchist Communist philosopher Kropotkin whereas he was a strong Japanese nationalist at the same time. Yanagida had a unique attitude towards the issue of the Japanese monarchy Tenno system. He attempted to restore the pre-modern traditional Tenno system linked to the original Shinto shamanism while criticising the current modern monarchism strongly tied up with the modern nation state and its modern state capitalism. His own plan was to establish an Anarchist Communist state of Japan based on the decentralised pastoralist environment where all the autonomous individual habitants mutually cohabit together with their own free will.

Yanagida was sceptical about adopting the modernisation to Japan because its nation state and capitalism seemed to have deteriorated Japan and her citizens despite its promise for improving their lifestyle with the materialistic development. The modern nation state capitalism not only prioritise those elites living in the top structure but also discourages the voluntary contributions of individuals and their community aiding individuals together. The free trade which the modern capitalism insists on interrupts an autocratic individual living in their own unique lifestyle by imposing the instant materialist seduction. This seduction to the instant materialistic pleasure has undermined the peaceful pastoralist environment providing individual habitants with the humble but well-secured lifestyle.

The theory of Gaia explains that the centre pole of the world energy flow has already been shifting from London, the U.K. to Awaji Island, Japan (Known as the sacred birthplace of Japanese civilisation blessed by the divine pair of Izanami, the Goddess of creation, and Izanagi, the God of creation, in Shinto mythology). This implies that the political and spiritual domination is shifting from Anglo-Saxon regime to Japanese counterpart. Majority spiritualists describe that this is the drastic shift from the materialistic masculine 陽 (Yang) element to the spiritualist feminine 陰 (Ying) element. This may induce the decay of the modern industrialist characteristic of the modern Japan as well as the reincarnation of the mystic shamanistic matriarchy of the ancient Shinto-ist Japan.

By means of understanding this theory of Gaia, it can be worth off to re-evaluate the Anarchist Communism explained by Yanagida. The material prosperity will be lost furthermore due to Japan's further insolation from the global economic network caused by Japan's loss of its economic initiative. On the other hand, Japan will start focusing more on the non-material beings such as the local community network and the spiritual well beings. The interesting factor nowadays is that the number of Japanese citizens practising some spiritual rituals as their daily habit such as chanting mantra and playing Yoga is increasing. This phenomenon seems to gradually initiate the spiritualist pastoralism introduced by Yanagida.

The totalitarian state communism based on the nation state statism backed up by the orthodox Marxism is an obsolete rebellion countering the modern industrialism and the capitalist ideology. The orthodox Marxism contains an intensive Yang element which is the cohesive paternalistic autocracy inducing a high risk of provoking a war and other excess conflicts. Therefore, this intensive Yang characteristic will not be accepted by the world shifting to more Ying characteristics.

The idea of Communism should not be monopolised by the orthodox Marxists; There is a variety of Communism which actually challenges against the orthodox Marxian style and is compatible with Liberalism. There have been various new political philosophical movements of challenging the combination of capitalism and modern nation state government. Michel Foucault was a remarkable philosopher accusing the oppressive characteristics of the entire modernity. 

Foucault's philosophy is often criticised as an anachronistic because he seemed to romanticise the pre-modern feudalist society to a certain extend. Yet, his theory clarifies how the emerging modernity with its nation state and capitalism has deteriorated individuality of autonomous individuals by forcing the conformity to the ruling class interests and the entire monstrous mechanism of the modern nation state. His idea was to respect each unique characteristic of individuals not undermined by an institutionalised socioeconomic structure, and his policy is often introduced as the postmodern Anarch-Syndicalism. 

Perhaps, this postmodern Anarchist Communism introduced by Michel Foucault might emerge in the future Japan when the aforementioned energy power pole-shift from the Anglo-Saxon Yang to the Japanese Ying is completed. It will be the ideology combination of Foucault and Yanagida to establish a postmodern mutualist socio-economy if it is realised. This will be a synthesis of the pastoral communitarian cooperative virtue and the postmodern individualistic enlightenment challenging against the paternalistic authoritarianism of the modern nation state and capitalism. 

All in all, if Communism rises to counter Capitalism, this might be predicted to be in Japan by referring to both the political science and the theory of Gaia. Perhaps, the current suffering of Japan might be the birth-pang for transforming the current modern nation state capitalist Japan into the new alternative such as this pastoral mutual cooperative state of Anarchist Communist kind.