Chapotraphouse

The first signs of an empire's decline are often felt in its periphery and client states. Japan and occupied Korea function as modern colonies. Both now exhibit the severe strains of hypercapitalism, including brutal work cultures, corporations with extraordinary power, weak labor movements, and a legacy of anti-communist ideology imposed to maintain a compliant capitalist class. Japan's own economic trajectory was deliberately undermined in the 1980s when its technological and manufacturing prowess threatened to surpass the United States.