I think what makes hikikomori unusual (and the pattern is certainly spreading beyond Japan, into Europe post-2008 as well) is that it doesn't fit the traditional shut-in pattern.
Being a shut-in is nothing new, but most of those are either very old people (who are shut in for partially physical reasons) or people with severe agoraphobia (who can't leave their houses without having panic attacks) or biologically-rooted mental illnesses.
What's happening now in many countries is that people without anything physically wrong with them are becoming shut-ins at very early ages-- 20s instead of 80s.
I feel like corporatism is cultural alcohol (alcohol was more devastating to Native Americans than Europeans, who built up a tolerance over millennia) whose psychological effects are probably somewhat worse in East Asia. Corporatism is everywhere, but when it fails us in the U.S., we don't internalize it. Compared to people in Japan or Korea, we laugh it off, work odd jobs, take a couple night courses, and maybe move to another part of the country. We're used to the industrial-corporate economy melting down every couple of generations (1929, 1973, 2008) and we know that it can be awful, but we don't take it personally. We'd rather pull up stakes and move across the country. In East Asia, there seems to be much more shame to not finding a place in the salaryman system.
Hikikomori is the response, on a large scale, to the decline of a system (world corporatism, which reached peak employment in 2008) in a world where the resulting negative impacts are internalized and personalized to a much larger degree than here.
The modern conceptions of the Japanese, and the German, as efficient work machines, is one born of recent economics. I hesitate to describe the cause as specifically "corporatism", but I think you're onto something there:
I don't think corporatism is the right word as it has distinct political connotations. I think you're just talking about mass industrial employment.
I think the important dynamic you're hinting at is the failure of the Protestant Ethic.
The Protestant Ethic brings material achievements into measure of your value as a human. This was generally warned against in Catholic and Orthodox theology.
Being a shut-in is nothing new, but most of those are either very old people (who are shut in for partially physical reasons) or people with severe agoraphobia (who can't leave their houses without having panic attacks) or biologically-rooted mental illnesses.
What's happening now in many countries is that people without anything physically wrong with them are becoming shut-ins at very early ages-- 20s instead of 80s.
I feel like corporatism is cultural alcohol (alcohol was more devastating to Native Americans than Europeans, who built up a tolerance over millennia) whose psychological effects are probably somewhat worse in East Asia. Corporatism is everywhere, but when it fails us in the U.S., we don't internalize it. Compared to people in Japan or Korea, we laugh it off, work odd jobs, take a couple night courses, and maybe move to another part of the country. We're used to the industrial-corporate economy melting down every couple of generations (1929, 1973, 2008) and we know that it can be awful, but we don't take it personally. We'd rather pull up stakes and move across the country. In East Asia, there seems to be much more shame to not finding a place in the salaryman system.
Hikikomori is the response, on a large scale, to the decline of a system (world corporatism, which reached peak employment in 2008) in a world where the resulting negative impacts are internalized and personalized to a much larger degree than here.