The Relationship between Political Stability and Business Reputation
When a restaurant or a retail shop advertises itself topic to the general public, one of more common method used is to emphasize its long tradition of operations. The term "Since (insert year of founding here)" is frequently placed right next to the company name and logo. The logic goes that if customers recognize just how long the company has been in operation, with no change in business or name, they can have the assurance that the products being sold are of high quality. After all, those same products have been satisfying generations of customers, and if there were not satisfied, there is no reason the company still exists.
And the same strategy often does work, even without the companies themselves working hard to emphasize how old they are. The general public and media outlets often talk about manufacturers, especially in everyday items such as food, in terms of how long they have been in business, creating a narrative of continued tastes that span generations and companies that have been in business just as long to satisfy those customers. The businesses in question, in these cases, are no longer just purveyors of certain products, they have become integral part of the locale's cultural norms as their products become part of the culture.
But it is often overly simplifying to say that the quality and likeability of the products is the only, or even the main, factor of the product and the manufacturer still being in business decades, if not centuries, after being established. For these products to stay strong in the market, there also need to be a stable political environment that foster a large and stable enough consumer class to support the products. These consumers cannot suddenly see change in their tastes, beliefs, and wealth if the products are to be continuously patronized across generations.
Unfortunately, the past century of political volatility means that such stable consumers are hard to come by in many places of the world. Massive wars have led to decades-old businesses and their royal consumers stripped of purchasing power, and sometimes also their homes and lives. The ongoing war in Syria is illustrative in this respect. Political revolutions have made continued production ideological and economically impossible. State appropriation of assets used to manufacture some "bourgeoisie" products after the 1949 Communist Revolution in China can be considered an extreme example.
The fact that such political upheaval takes place at the country or regional level means that more often than not, there is widely different concentration of traditional, long-time-in-operation companies across different geographies. Countries that have been spared political disorder, and at the same time have a strong traditional consumer class and consistent traditional products, have the large majority of the world's most long-running companies. The correlation between the number of really old companies have nothing to do with the size of the market or the very nature of the business itself.
Japan is a classic case of such a stable country. The country hosts thousand-year-old hotels and restaurants, as well as manufacturers who have weathered centuries of lifestyle changes to keep the public interested in their products over the course of centuries. The author's impression is only cemented by a recent visit to the country's perhaps oldest maker of handmade paper, located on the same land plot on the same street in Tokyo since it was founded 364 years old. The shop's museum proves the age of the firm with original documents and artefacts showing the company's success during the early Edo period.
The company, like Japan itself, did go through plenty of dangers along the way to make its survival difficult. Earthquakes and wars have flattened buildings and killed many valuable customers over the years. However, because the country was able to stand back up, with favorable economic policies supporting resestablishment of private businesses and consumer confidence, age-old companies like this particular handmade paper shop was able to not go bankrupt, instead drawing upon its sense of connection with the country's glorious past to re-establish high reputation among consumers.
In other words, the success of centuries-old shops is not simply due to economic continuity that lack of political upheaval can provide. It is perhaps much more due to the lack of political finger-pointing, the demonizing of traditions and heritage, both making consumers fearful enough to stay away from the makers of traditional products. The ideological and economic changes ushered by political changes can easily sink traditional shops just by tearing them down. But the fragility of these shops belie their inherent value at the repository of a locale's cultural treasures and collective conscience to preserve traditional identity. The loss of connection with the past due to destruction of such firms is a massive cultural loss that hundreds of new shops selling the same thing can provide an adequate substitute for.
And the same strategy often does work, even without the companies themselves working hard to emphasize how old they are. The general public and media outlets often talk about manufacturers, especially in everyday items such as food, in terms of how long they have been in business, creating a narrative of continued tastes that span generations and companies that have been in business just as long to satisfy those customers. The businesses in question, in these cases, are no longer just purveyors of certain products, they have become integral part of the locale's cultural norms as their products become part of the culture.
But it is often overly simplifying to say that the quality and likeability of the products is the only, or even the main, factor of the product and the manufacturer still being in business decades, if not centuries, after being established. For these products to stay strong in the market, there also need to be a stable political environment that foster a large and stable enough consumer class to support the products. These consumers cannot suddenly see change in their tastes, beliefs, and wealth if the products are to be continuously patronized across generations.
Unfortunately, the past century of political volatility means that such stable consumers are hard to come by in many places of the world. Massive wars have led to decades-old businesses and their royal consumers stripped of purchasing power, and sometimes also their homes and lives. The ongoing war in Syria is illustrative in this respect. Political revolutions have made continued production ideological and economically impossible. State appropriation of assets used to manufacture some "bourgeoisie" products after the 1949 Communist Revolution in China can be considered an extreme example.
The fact that such political upheaval takes place at the country or regional level means that more often than not, there is widely different concentration of traditional, long-time-in-operation companies across different geographies. Countries that have been spared political disorder, and at the same time have a strong traditional consumer class and consistent traditional products, have the large majority of the world's most long-running companies. The correlation between the number of really old companies have nothing to do with the size of the market or the very nature of the business itself.
Japan is a classic case of such a stable country. The country hosts thousand-year-old hotels and restaurants, as well as manufacturers who have weathered centuries of lifestyle changes to keep the public interested in their products over the course of centuries. The author's impression is only cemented by a recent visit to the country's perhaps oldest maker of handmade paper, located on the same land plot on the same street in Tokyo since it was founded 364 years old. The shop's museum proves the age of the firm with original documents and artefacts showing the company's success during the early Edo period.
The company, like Japan itself, did go through plenty of dangers along the way to make its survival difficult. Earthquakes and wars have flattened buildings and killed many valuable customers over the years. However, because the country was able to stand back up, with favorable economic policies supporting resestablishment of private businesses and consumer confidence, age-old companies like this particular handmade paper shop was able to not go bankrupt, instead drawing upon its sense of connection with the country's glorious past to re-establish high reputation among consumers.
In other words, the success of centuries-old shops is not simply due to economic continuity that lack of political upheaval can provide. It is perhaps much more due to the lack of political finger-pointing, the demonizing of traditions and heritage, both making consumers fearful enough to stay away from the makers of traditional products. The ideological and economic changes ushered by political changes can easily sink traditional shops just by tearing them down. But the fragility of these shops belie their inherent value at the repository of a locale's cultural treasures and collective conscience to preserve traditional identity. The loss of connection with the past due to destruction of such firms is a massive cultural loss that hundreds of new shops selling the same thing can provide an adequate substitute for.
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