It has almost become a truism that it is due to the forces of globalization that the welfare state has been restructured at the national level. Furthermore, this restructuring has rendered Keynes' original vision of the Keynesian welfare state almost unrecognizable. This book explores the varying fortunes in the privatization of welfare and the dismantling of welfare states across the world, based on critical understandings of neoliberal globalization.

This book explores the anatomy of Japanese welfare in the context of the constellation of modernity and capitalism, with a focus on the normative status of welfare and the sources of its legitimation within civil society. Drawing on a neo-Hegelian understanding of the constitution of subjectivity within political economy, the book uncovers a distinctive pattern of welfare provision in modern Japan: the generous provision of goods that meet production-related social ends in contrast with the relative paucity of goods that satisfy individuated want. The historical mapping of this pattern - from the early modern period in the Meiji era to the contemporary neoliberal turn in recessionary Japan - illustrates the idea of the 'social limits of the market', central not only to understanding the distinctive nature of welfare in contemporary Japan, but also to rethinking the notion of welfare under conditions of late capitalism at a global level.

Challenging conventional thought on the nature of welfare and civil society in modern Japan, Ritu Vij offers an original theoretical and historical interpretation of both. Drawing upon a neo-Hegelian understanding of the formation of modern subjectivity in political economy, this book uncovers a specific pattern of welfare provision in Japan.

It has almost become a truism that it is due to the forces of globalization that the welfare state has been restructured at the national level. Furthermore, this restructuring has rendered Keynes' original vision of the Keynesian welfare state almost unrecognizable. This book explores the varying fortunes in the privatization of welfare and the dismantling of welfare states across the world, based on critical understandings of neoliberal globalization.