I think they don't exist because there are minimum wage laws and it simply doesn't pay off to employ someone for ~8.50 (EUR or USD) an hour to do this because it generates less than it costs. Combine that with labor laws, unemployment benefits, food stamps and other "poverty fighting schemes" and no one is ever incentivized to take such a job for such a pay.

Summing up, my conclusion is the opposite of yours - those jobs would probably exist in pure capitalism.

Japan has undergone massive changes in the last ~20 years due to their "missing decade." But their culture for forty years before that included employment practices that would surprise many USians.

For instance, until recently ir was unusual for a person to have more than one employer in their lifetime. You entered the workforce just after high school or college and stayed with that employer for the rest of your career. People didn't quit and get a different job. And employers didn't fire people.

The elderly person standing in front of the construction fence warning people to be careful because of the danger used to be construction worker. Maybe they worked their way up in the company until they bumped into the Peter principle or until they physically or mentally couldn't do the job. Then then moved over, around, and down as their abilities declined. The folks who made it high enough to earn a retirement retire. The folks who didn't build a nest egg or spent their egg on Grandma's hospice care, or whatever, depend on the company to keep them in the mail room or sweeping the front lobby or something that will pay the rent and buy groceries.

I have seen many US companies that created Mission Statements and formalized a list of Corporate Values that included Loyalty. But I have seen very few US companies that are loyal to their employees. I suppose there are a lot of ways to be disloyal, but Japanese companies have generally been loyal in maintaining some level of employment to even the least competent of their employees.

Posts like yours are why I come to HN. Thank you.

If you liked that, you probably really want to read this blog post by HN user patio11 regarding his experiences doing business in Japan. It touches on this salaryman culture in way more detail.

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/

I have to say I enjoyed how you guys argue wether or not something would exist in a pure capitalist economic system, that itself could not possibly exist outside of an Ayn Rand novel

>Combine that with labor laws, unemployment benefits, food stamps and other "poverty fighting schemes" and no one is ever incentivized to take such a job for such a pay.

Such laws subsidize automation research. As I think this research is undersupplied by a market with access to cheap labour, I'm all for them.

It generates less than it costs at the point of delivery. On the other hand everyone agrees that Japan is a lovely civilized country so this low-efficiency work seems to be generating a very large positive externality, just one that's a bit harder to measure.

Japan has minimum wages.

I'm having a hard time imagining how a significantly below minimum wage job would allow a person to exist and not starve in a 'pure capitalist' system. Minimum wage jobs only make sense now because those people have their expenses heavily subsidized by the state.

I mean, sure, I'll do whatever if it keeps me and mine alive; but if I'm gonna starve either way, I'm gonna starve hanging out in the sun reading a book.

Minimum wage is a destructive force

I agree, but you're getting a lot of downvotes. Perhaps explain why minimum wage is a destructive force.