The isolation from the European influx of traders imposed by the military shogun rulers from 1650 to 1850 had a consolidating and lasting effect on Japan’s ethnicity and culture. Throughout Japan’s modernization and postwar reconstruction, its people maintained traditional culture that encouraged attitudes based on loyalty to the emperor, family, and workplace. The devotion of Japanese workers to their employer’s interests in exchange for jobs throughout their working lives, health care, and social support provided an alternative platform to western motivation for competing in the global economic system.