Japan as the Future of Rentier Capitalism: How Monetary Policy Enriched Asset-Holders and Impoverished Workers

This article argues that contemporary Japan represents the most advanced case of rentier capitalism among major developed economies. Drawing on classical political economy, Keynesian theory, and the recent rentier capitalism literature, the article identifies four interdependent structural mechanisms that have consolidated this regime over three decades of unconventional monetary policy: monetary-policy-induced asset inflation, corporate financialization through the accumulation of retained earnings, the institutionalization of wage growth suppression, and the socialization of rentier profits by the state. While asset prices have soared, real wages have stagnated, productive investment has declined, and household consumption has weakened. By situating Japan within the broader trajectory of advanced capitalist economies, the article contends that Japan is not an outlier but a harbinger of the structural tendencies of twenty-first century capitalism, contributing to heterodox debates on secular stagnation, financialization, and the contradictions between capital accumulation and social reproduction.