Learning to Love Japan: Social Norms and Market Incentives

This Article applies Japanese market behavior to Richard Epstein's theories in his book Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination. The author uses Japan to argue that economic incentives need not matter, and that whatever incentives markets and laws may provide, people may still ignore them. This Article suggests that if independent social norms can sustain systematically unprofitable behavior in Japan, then maybe they would have sustained Jim Crow policies in the American south. If Japanese routinely ignore economic incentives to perpetuate social norms, then whites might have ignored the market advantage to hiring African Americans and discriminated against their own best interests.