Japan's welfare state has received much less attention than its industrial policy and rapid economic growth. In this talk, USALI visiting scholar Colin Jones argues that for decades Japan's welfare state was far more substantial than is commonly understood. He directs us to look beyond the familiar set of welfare institutions, as he traces the rise and fall of robust protections for renters that were structured into Japanese property law.

Between the two world wars, reform-minded judges and jurists worked in tandem to create a legal regime that made it exceedingly difficult for landlords to evict tenants or refuse to renew a lease. This regime was anchored in the 1921 Land and House Lease Laws, but its real force came from a vision of society in which housing was understood to be a fundamental need. Landlords were allowed to terminate a lease only if they could demonstrate an immediate and personal need to use the property themselves. Throughout the first three decades of the postwar era, this regime not only impeded evictions but functioned as a form of rent control. Only in the 1980s did it began to come apart. The emergence of powerful real estate and construction interests was a critical factor in the regime's dissolution. So, too, was a new way of thinking about social relations, one that prioritized efficiency and maximizing land value. Reforms that were rolled out during the 1990s significantly weakened renter protections and financialized real estate.

Watch Part 1(23:25)

Watch Part 2 (27:12)