I asked him if he's read about colonialism and he said he had and he likes to study about this stuff. So then I'm like, do you know imperialism and he said yes. And we started talking about that. But then I'm like okay the real question is... what do you think about capitalism?? And he's like "It's not perfect but it's better than what we had before." So I say monarchies, and he's like "What Japan had with the Emperor was slightly different."

His reasoning was that the Emperor was viewed as literally divine, as an extension of the gods himself. Idk I think with British/European monarchs it was like long ago they were chosen by the gods but towards the end how much did the people actually believe that? Anyway the nuance with the Japanese emperor was diff.
But he acknowledged capitalism wasn't all good and I'm like THIS IS MY CHANCE!!! I try to start explaining all the ways the system has failed&why it's bad.

The town we live in is very small, the population is aging hardcore, there's not many young people and the infrastructure is outdated. But it has a lot of small, family owned businesses. Including his own business, which he runs and inherited from his father.
I said how under capitalism big businesses, like McDonald's or JR (Japan Railway) take over a sector and run out all the smaller ones. Or how smaller countries that grow produce or materials put in all the work&barely get paid.

It wasn't the most intricate analysis mind you cause this was half in broken English, half in broken Japanese. So there was only so much the two of us could articulate.
Anyway he was receptive to the ideas and agreed. However, he did say that in Japan the big companies like JR are more respectful (his words) of small businesses and the individual cultures of each town/prefecture. So the wouldn't necessarily buy out/take over small businesses like in the US.

Which is a really interesting point. I wonder if that's true somehow - Japan is definitely capitalist, but it's so much more socialist than the US. It has national health care, etc. Japan's culture is already primed to lean more socialist, even communist, because of the community, group-minded thinking. Everyone has to do their part to help society.
This would be such an interesting research topic to do further study on.

@thegudtam I read that the Japanese Communist Party was growing in popularity during the 50s before the US suppressed it.