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This article explores variations of neoliberal policymaking in the United States and Japan, utilizing a comparative examination of labor-related policymaking under the current Abe Shinzo and Donald Trump Administrations, and focusing on three policy areas: the nexus of wage setting and tax policy, work hours, and public employment. The institutional analysis emphasizes that both countries have histories of neoliberal practice, especially in favoring corporate interests and opposing unions, but are less influenced by neoliberal doctrine per se than other advanced economic democracies. Examination of the two Administrations' policies reveals that they have continued the legacy of favoring major corporations, notably in slashing corporate taxes, and also sought, dubiously, to justify these as benefiting ordinary workers. However, the Abe Administration exhibits the legacy of technocratic policymaking closely influenced by national bureaucrats, while the Trump Administration manifests the populist anti-state anger of neoliberal and right-wing policymaking of recent years. As a result, Abe Administration policies are shown to feature greater balance than those of the Trump Administration, causing less damage to worker interests, and more often proffering at least modest degrees of improvement.

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This article starts from the observation that recurrent economic crises, deepening social divisions, and rising levels of insecurity undermine the persuasiveness of market populism, which had accompanied, and, indeed, contributed to, the rise of neoliberal capitalism. It goes on to explain left- and right-wing populisms that draw on different aspect of liberal ideas, and can therefore be understood as transformations of market populism to some degree. Politically, right-wing populism, the article argues, thrives because the left is divided along several lines that make it difficult to attract much of today's discontent. The article looks at the divisions between globalists and sovereigntists, cosmopolitans and communitarians, and identity and class politics, respectively. It concludes with the idea that these divisions reflect different aspects of the unmaking of old working classes advanced by neoliberal restructuring, but also aspects of a possible making of new working classes. To further this, the left should put identity back into class politics, or highlight the presence of class divisions within identity politics.