ABSTRACT
The laissez-faire policies recommended by Dodge began to be modified after Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) departed, and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, or MITI, began to play a greater role in guiding the nation's economic growth. In 1990, Japan produced over one-fourth of the passenger cars manufactured worldwide, over 9.948 million—and more than the 6.069 million produced in the United States. Since the early Meiji years, the Japanese economy had undergone steady and significant growth. Because of the militant labor tactics adopted by the Communist-led unions, SCAP and the Japanese officials moved to revise the Trade Union Law of 1945 in order to curb the militant groups. In 1950, a few years after the war's end, 48.3 percent of the workforce was engaged in agriculture. The Japanese economic engine began to slow down in the late 1980s, and in the early 1990s, it appeared to enter a period of recession and stagnation.
