" (Smith, Page9).
Soon after the First World War, Japanese economy was that of a dual structure. This still holds true of Japan today. What does a dual structure mean? It is when you have companies that are capitalized and have access to the best available foreign technology. Their workers are very well skilled and receive high wages. Yet, opposite to that, Japan also has a different side to their economy structure. This side of the economy is small and medium sized enterprises. Their duties are more then likely subcontracting for more advanced companies. They are not able to have the latest technology that the larger companies have because they do not have large amounts of capital. The jobs they .
provide are low skilled jobs so workers receive low wages also. The majority of worker in Japan today works in small and medium enterprises. Patrick Smith describes this as a satellite manufacturing system. He says it was invented to maximize production. Smith displays a good picture of how the system runs. He says that beneath corporations are subcontractors and beneath them "are front parlor factories - households where parts are assembled, stamped, or cut and packed off up the production ladder." (Smith, Patrick, Page 114).
In 1929 to 1930 the world was in a depression. This threat set off yet another change in the Japanese economy. As a result of the depression Japan became a more militarized state. The economy soon began to shape around miniaturization. As a result "the growing demand for goods and services from the military stimulated a growth in manufacturing industry, both in the production and in technology." (Smith, Page 11). Yet over half of the manufacturing was in heavy industries. This would later have negative effects on Japan. New zaibatsu developed in this period (one of them being Nissan). However there were many flaws to this economy as I said earlier. Most noticeable of them was the fact that it was based so largely on military expansionism.