The idea of hierarchy is actually completely contrary to American egalitarianism. The structure of Japan and the entire manner in which etiquette, office politics, school and family life is derived from hierarchy and that is inseparable from authority. If the Japanese don’t “respect” that hierarchy (culturally speaking, not speaking for 100% of Japanese, and all other painfully unnecessary “I’m not an idiot and neither are you” disclaimers included) they sure as hell are good at obeying it anyway…

I’m sorry, but I never imagined that Japanese society’s hierarchical structure was a controversial proposition. As a result, I’d made the assumption and observation that authority is also (at least in a pretend capacity) respected/obeyed, with rebellion and protest being the exception and not the norm. I’ve heard that I’m wrong from some people in the comments, but I don’t see it. Agree to disagree, but I have to say, most of my observations on Japan are probably not going to be of interest to anyone who thinks Japan isn’t centered on hierarchies.

Also, it doesn’t take the whole economic system to collapse in order for a revolution to occur. The French, Russian, and American revolutions didn’t emerge out of economic collapse, they emerged out of persistently poor living conditions and/or in response to an antagonistic government.

Lastly, there is a difference between a child mouthing off at a teacher, and a group of workers becoming militant and organizing a wild-cat strike, for example. The former is a transient and ultimately harmless act that doesn’t seriously threaten the existing hierarchy between teacher and student or parent and child. The latter is a real threat to the existing economic hierarchy.

Respect for authority is predicated on a decent standard of living, of which employment is probably the biggest factor, and we all know Japan has kept one of the lowest unemployment rates in the capitalist world. But this means that respect for authority isn’t inherent in the culture, its a byproduct of socioeconomic factors. Japan, in fact, has a long history of rebels (anarchists, the Zengakuren, and the persistent group of Communists in elected to the Diet to name a few examples). The reason they haven’t gained much of a toehold is that since WWII, the society has been too stable and the economy has delivered the goods to the bulk of the population so that there isn’t much interest in rebelling. It was the same case in the US in the postwar years among whites. The only people drawn into rebelling in the US were those that were systematically denied the dignitiy of food, housing, and especially jobs- black and latino people (with a few poor white allies) in the cities. But if the socio-economic system stopped working, the respect for authority would begin to evaporate in Japan, as it has in the past:

http://libcom.org/library/1918-rice-riots-strikes-japan