{"id":18135,"date":"2026-05-06T19:09:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/18135\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T19:09:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:09:20","slug":"as-japanese-employees-work-themselves-to-death-communists-say-look-to-marx-peoples-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/18135\/","title":{"rendered":"As Japanese employees work themselves to death, Communists say look to Marx \u2013 People’s World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"As\t<\/p>\n

Shii Kazuo, chair of the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party, speaks at York University in Toronto, May 4. | C.J. Atkins \/ People’s World<\/p>\n

TORONTO\u2014Legally, the working week in Japan is 40 hours, but good luck finding anyone who puts in less than 46 hours on the job. For workers in some industries, like construction, the double duty adds up to as much as 38 hours a month\u2014the equivalent of a full extra week of labor.<\/p>\n

And the real kicker? Most of that surplus work is unpaid\u2014something Japanese employers call sabisu zangyo, or \u201cservice overtime.\u201d It\u2019s so bad that many workers are literally toiling themselves into an early grave. The Japanese have a term for that, too. It\u2019s the phenomenon of karoshi\u2014\u201cdeath by overwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

Combined with decades of economic stagnation and limited opportunity at home, the lack of anything resembling a work\/life balance is helping drive increasing numbers of Japanese youth to leave the country, with some observers starting to use the word \u201cexodus<\/a>\u201d to describe what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no wonder then that the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) is laser-focused on the question. Shii Kazuo\u2014the chair of the party\u2019s Central Committee and a 33-year veteran of the Diet, Japan\u2019s parliament\u2014has made it the topic of his latest book, Disposable Time and Capital: Learning from Marx, which was recently published in English translation.<\/p>\n

Karl Marx\u2019s 1867 volume, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, sometimes has a reputation for being full of dry calculations of fixed and variable capital ratios or hard-to-follow theorizations about the nature of commodities. But Shii believes such a view of that classic work misses the big picture.<\/p>\n

At the heart of Marx\u2019s analysis of capitalism, he argues, among all the explanations of how surplus value is produced and appropriated, is the demand that workers should have more command of their own time\u2014and thus, of their lives.<\/p>\n

Shii shared his thoughts in a wide-ranging conversation with students, activists, and journalists at an event hosted by the Department of Sociology at York University in Toronto on May 4. The seminar capped off a North American tour by a JCP delegation that started with a visit to the United Nations for the review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and continued with a bilateral exchange with leaders of the Communist Party USA, a presentation to DSA members in Chicago, and various other meetings.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Toronto seminar was one stop on a North American tour by the JCP delegation headed by Shii Kazuo. Previous meetings included a bilateral exchange with the Communist Party USA in New York. At center is Shii, chair of the JCP Central Committee, with Joe Sims, co-chair of the CPUSA. | Photo courtesy of CPUSA<\/p>\n

At York, Shii quoted Marx\u2019s definition of post-capitalist society as one where \u201cthe full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle.\u201d But, he asked, \u201chow can people develop their potential fully and freely when they don\u2019t even have enough free time to use as they wish?\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the central question of his book, which is built around a concept Marx called \u201cdisposable time\u201d\u2014the time left over after workers have completed the labor necessary to sustain themselves and their families. Marx traced this idea back to an obscure 1821 pamphlet he discovered in the British Museum, in which the author argued that a nation\u2019s true wealth lies not in gold or goods but in free time: \u201cWealth is disposable time, and nothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time is money, money is time<\/p>\n

Shii shows in his work how Marx built his entire vision of socialism around this insight. Under capitalism, workers produce far more than they need to survive, but the surplus\u2014both the material goods and, crucially, the time\u2014is captured by capitalists.<\/p>\n

Marx charged, Shii wrote, that \u201cthe capitalist usurps the free time created by the workers for society, i.e. civilization,\u201d meaning that what exploitation really steals is not just wages but the hours workers could have spent learning, creating, resting, and developing as full human beings.<\/p>\n

This, Shii argues, is the moral core of Marx\u2019s critique of capitalism: It is not merely an unjust distribution of money, but a theft of human life and human potential.<\/p>\n

\"\"A few of Shii Kazuo\u2019s many books on display at York University. At center is the English translation of his latest work, \u2018Disposable Time and Capital: Learning from Marx.\u2019 | Photo courtesy of Tang Wai Kiat \/ People\u2019s Voice<\/p>\n

Shii then traces how Marx deepened this argument through his unpublished Economic Manuscripts, written in the 1850s and \u201960s as preparation for Capital. In these notes, Marx put forward the proposition that \u201csocial development depends on the saving of time\u201d\u2014meaning that the less time a society must spend on basic material production, the more time it frees up for science, art, education, and the all-round development of its members.<\/p>\n

This is not just a pleasant side benefit of socialism, Shii says; Marx treats it as the fundamental economic law of a future society. He argued that \u201cfree time transforms its possessor into another subject\u201d\u2014a person with genuine disposable time develops into a fuller, more capable human being, and that developed person then brings higher-quality labor back into production, creating a virtuous cycle of individual and social flourishing.<\/p>\n

Freedom = More time for ourselves<\/p>\n

Shii emphasizes that this dimension of the critique of capitalism hasn\u2019t always been given its due by those who came after Marx. There\u2019s been a lot of talk in the Marxist tradition about how material plentifulness will define socialism, but not enough attention was spent on the question of workers\u2019 time. \u201cIncreasing the free time that people can use as they wish,\u201d he told the crowd in Toronto, \u201cis the central goal of the future society.\u201d<\/p>\n

His book culminates with Marx\u2019s famous passage in Volume III of Capital, where he distinguishes between the \u201crealm of necessity\u201d and the \u201ctrue realm of freedom.\u201d The realm of necessity refers to the labor time all human societies must devote to material production\u2014growing food, building shelter, meeting basic needs\u2014which Marx saw as unavoidably constrained and externally driven, no matter how humanely organized.<\/p>\n

The \u201ctrue realm of freedom,\u201d by contrast, begins only on the other side of that necessary labor: It is the time in which human beings develop for their own sake, with no external compulsion, pursuing knowledge, creativity, and connection as ends in themselves. Marx concluded this vision with a single blunt sentence: \u201cThe shortening of the working day is its basic prerequisite.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Shii, this is why the fight for shorter working hours is not a narrow trade union demand but a civilizational one\u2014it is the struggle to expand the space in which genuine human freedom can actually exist. A socialist society, in his reading, is not solely defined by who owns the factories, but by whether ordinary people have time to live as full human beings.<\/p>\n

\"\"Japanese Communist Party leader Shii Kazuo, center, leads a demonstration in defense of Article 9, the part of Japan\u2019s constitution outlawing war. | Koji Sasahara \/ AP<\/p>\n

\u201cCapitalists suck up so much of the free time of workers,\u201d Shii told his Toronto audience. \u201cIf exploitation were abolished, disposable time would belong to everybody.\u201d Communists need to be talking about socialism in these kinds of terms, he believes. \u201cThe realm of freedom is the time when humans are free of constraints and become the masters of our own lives and things other than paid employment become the ends for human experience.\u201d It would be \u201ca world where capital no longer expropriates all our time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Japan needs its May Day moment <\/p>\n

Having just spent May Day in Chicago\u2014birthplace of the movement for the 8-hour day\u2014Shii was eager to draw the connections between his study of Marx and the immediate needs of workers back home.<\/p>\n

Japan hasn\u2019t had its May Day moment yet, according to Shii, referring to the 1886 Haymarket struggle. Asked by People\u2019s World why that\u2019s the case, he was blunt in his assessment of the labor movement in his country. Japanese \u00a0trade unions \u201clack a modern tradition of fighting to reduce working hours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at France with the Popular Front government of the 1930s that limited working hours. In Chicago, in 1886, the workers demanded it and won it. But in Japan, the unions aren\u2019t showing that kind of strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Communist Party has good working relations with the main union federation in Japan, he said, but organized labor is not developing in a good direction right now. \u201cThe whole movement is shifting right,\u201d he told People\u2019s World, \u201cand collaborating with capital.\u201d That\u2019s why the JCP sees \u201craising class consciousness and democratic management demands in the workplace among workers\u201d as its key task.<\/p>\n

\"\"Emblem of the Japanese Communist Party.<\/p>\n

Taking control of time is not a challenge for Japanese workers alone, though, Shii said. He cited a study released by Sen. Bernie Sanders showing that the adoption of artificial intelligence by corporations could rapidly annihilate 100 million jobs<\/a> in the U.S. within the next decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe countermeasure to that is an immediate reduction of the working week to 32 hours,\u201d Shii advised. \u201cAI can bring useful benefits to society with its increases in productivity, but it also has war applications and is part of companies\u2019 effort to dispose of labor.\u201d Turning again to Marx, he said, \u201cWhen productivity increases, unemployment increases as capital tries to grow its industrial reserve army.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, when will capitalism\u2019s breakup finally come? \u201cThe development of the working class as its own agent is key to the system\u2019s demise\u201d\u2014in other words, it comes back to raising class consciousness. \u201cThat\u2019s key to changing the world,\u201d Shii said, \u201cand in this sense, Capital is a message of transformation and struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

We hope you appreciated this article. At\u00a0People\u2019s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading\u00a0People\u2019s World\u00a0and the stories we bring you, please\u00a0support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today<\/a>. Thank you!<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCONTRIBUTOR<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"C.J.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shii Kazuo, chair of the Central Committee of the Japanese Communist Party, speaks at York University in Toronto,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14400,14401,14402,14403,1395,2704,8,17,14404,14405,14406,14407,180,10324,257],"class_list":["post-18135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-capitalism","tag-class-consciousness","tag-class-struggle","tag-communist-manifesto","tag-communist-party","tag-economics","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-marxism","tag-marxist-education","tag-overtime","tag-political-economy","tag-politics","tag-toronto","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}