You're not wrong, but some fraction of the hikikomori could also be treated effectively through tough love. Their behavior is being enabled by parents who allow them to live at home, set low expectations, and fail to enforce consequences. If parents kick them out then they'll be forced to sink or swim. This may seem harsh, but those parents will die eventually and the hikikomori will eventually have to fend for themselves no matter what. Better to learn how to live in society sooner than later.
> If parents kick them out then they'll be forced to sink or swim.
If you've ever lived in or near a US city, the "sink" outcome is actually quite common.
> Better to learn how to live in society sooner than later.
Your approach converts a family struggle into a community problem.
I don't see why society would encourage families that can support hikikomori for some number of years to offload all of them onto society immediately, even if some would successfully "swim".
Yes, eventually, and we will need programs for people in their 40s+ who have been cared for by their now deceased families. I suspect you're going to need hot pockets, video games, cots, showers, and they'll do ok. Maybe by then they'll be happy they're in a community together because they've been community deprived their entire lives. Who knows, this is a new problem.
But if you force them to "sink or swim" now, you're going to have a raging generation of 20-somethings with nothing to lose and contempt for the society and families that abandoned them. Also, did you notice the planet is literally burning?
For personal reasons, I'd like to keep society going a little longer. If we could not start a Joker breeding program, that'd be great.
I don't know about the Japanese, but I'm certainly not willing to pay taxes to provide free food, housing, and entertainment to people who are capable of working but choose not to. Their happiness isn't my concern, and they can go get a job no matter how miserable it makes them.
The vast majority of people eventually figure out a way to "swim" when they're left with no alternative.
By paying taxes to provide free housing and entertainment to people not only do you bribe them to not revolt as you are the one to blame for their "laziness" by working more than you demand in labor, it is also better for the economy and the working people as working to feed or house someone is more respectable than working for the sake of some billionaire that caused the hikkikomoriproblem.
Maybe you should start fixing the problem where most people don't work for their own sake or their fellow people but actively compete over fewer and fewer necessary working hours as productivity keeps going up without the economy growing and everyone insists they need a full time 40 hour job.
Pretty much all unemployment can be explained by the laziness of the financial capitalists rather than the people doing the work. Investors being job creators is ridiculous because saving money destroys jobs so the net job creation is zero and it is actually the opposite, saving forces investment and hence nobody gets moral superiority by creating jobs because if they don't they are massive assholes.
In European countries like Spain the elderly voted in heavy labor restrictions against firing seniors and introduced huge severance packages which means companies fire young people first instead of old people who have more than enough money and would have even more after severance pay. What this means is that the old are hoarding all the income opportunities while simultaneously saving for retirement which decreases aggregate demand and effectively makes it pointless for young people to work for their own money and very profitable for them to just stay at home while their parents pretend they are the productive breadwinners. The sink or swim/tough love idea would require parents giving up their job for the sake of the young and that is unlikely to happen. No, the economy isn't growing faster than productivity, you can't grow your way to a job for everyone.
> for the sake of some billionaire that caused the hikkikomoriproblem.
Who exactly caused the hikikomori problem? Hermits and recluses have existed for as long as society has.
> Maybe you should start fixing the problem where most people don't work for their own sake or their fellow people but actively compete over fewer and fewer necessary working hours as productivity keeps going up without the economy growing and everyone insists they need a full time 40 hour job.
> Pretty much all unemployment can be explained by the laziness of the financial capitalists rather than the people doing the work. Investors being job creators is ridiculous because saving money destroys jobs so the net job creation is zero and it is actually the opposite, saving forces investment and hence nobody gets moral superiority by creating jobs because if they don't they are massive assholes. In European countries like Spain the elderly voted in heavy labor restrictions against firing seniors and introduced huge severance packages which means companies fire young people first instead of old people who have more than enough money and would have even more after severance pay.
That's unions for you. It's not a problem of capitalism but rather the eventuality of state-backed labor. Labor is dominated by those most experienced in labor politics. If the state is what gives them power in the first place, why wouldn't they use it to their advantage? Considering that the elderly would have between 40-50 years of experience in expanding their influence, they would already have every single way to extract as much money as possible long before posterity would reach conception. Pension funds and Social Security, are among the top tools in robbing to young Peter to pay elder Paul.
> What this means is that the old are hoarding all the income opportunities while simultaneously saving for retirement which decreases aggregate demand and effectively makes it pointless for young people to work for their own money and very profitable for them to just stay at home while their parents pretend they are the productive breadwinners. The sink or swim/tough love idea would require parents giving up their job for the sake of the young and that is unlikely to happen. No, the economy isn't growing faster than productivity, you can't grow your way to a job for everyone.
There's no way to "hoard" an opportunity. Opportunities come and go based on circumstances and conditions all of which are bound by time, place, necessity, and ability. If they aren't used, they disappear. Opportunities may be created, but they don't work like participation trophies. Just as you mention that there's no way to grow a job for everyone, there's no way to create an opportunity for everyone.
The sink or swim is eventually going to happen. Neetbux will only delay the inevitable. As far as free housing is concerned, in Japan there are plenty of houses at a very low cost in depopulated countryside towns. They can always move out and get a place of their own.
> but I'm certainly not willing to pay taxes to provide free food, housing, and entertainment to people who are capable of working but choose not to.
Above you suggested that they join the military. Where do you think the money for military food, housing, equipment, training, and salaries comes from?
You're not wrong about parental enablers, but those without that kind of support basically just end up as freeters. Cost of living is surprisingly low for a first-world country if you've got low standards, so life can be sustained by not many hours of a robotic low-wage job. The reality of sonkeigo/kenjougo phrasebook shit means that there's not much risk of authentic human interaction even in a public-facing role, so I think you'd be surprised at how many people who are technically employed resemble the classic hikkiNEET pathologies. I'd call it more of a worldview than a specific state strictly defined by employment status.
I rarely use absolutes, but I don't think "tough love" is the solution to anything, if your goal is to truly help the person you are applying "tough love" to.
As long as there's a thread of trust between the caregiver and the shut-in, you have access/influence with them, and they can be rehabilitated, under the right circumstances.
A safer option might be to completely change their environment, but stay supportive, in order to break any entrained behavior connected to being a shut-in. Might be difficult to achieve this in Japan, though.
If you delete that remaining thread of trust by applying "tough love," they will be forced to face the trauma that they could not before, but without any support.
Perhaps some small fraction might "survive" that ordeal, but it's not exactly setting them up for long-term success.
I do think many parents have no idea how to handle a dependent in that situation. The worst case scenario is when parents have also "given up" on their child ever recovering/improving - those situations need intervention from an outside party.
EDIT: I'd define "tough love" as actions done with the intent of "helping" someone, but with wanton disregard to that someone's health.
It may just be my own misperception, but the "tough love" approach comes too close to the "pull oneself up by their own bootstraps" for personal comfort. It can work, but it doesn't often enough that I would strongly hesitate to propose it as a solution.
Ultimately, I don't think that any set of short-term actions alone can truly solve this. Macro-scale societal changes need to be in place or at minimum in progress before micro-scale efforts with individuals to make sense. Cure the disease, not the symptom.
