ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to the second dimension – that of co-ordination – of the Japanese model previously outlined, which sees it as a co-ordinated form of capitalism. We presented in the Introduction the foundations and the theoretical nature of this concept. Here we shall concentrate on the concrete forms of co-ordination and the ways in which they have evolved, distinguishing principally five: the structure of keiretsu, sub-contracting, the shunto-, ‘bureau-pluralism’ and industrial policy. We should make two preliminary remarks at this point. Co-ordination out-
side the market is not the same thing as government intervention in as far as three of these co-ordination devices (the structure of keiretsu, sub-contracting and the shunto-) are independent of government intervention. As far as the impact of neo-liberal policies are concerned, if it was indirect in the case of firm diversity (Chapter 2), it is here much more explicit, as several of these policies were specifically meant to reinforce co-ordination by the market in place of these forms of extra-market co-ordination.
