This is what was happening with Japan in the 1980s (and the "anime" culture seems to be the residue of all that. Before then, Japanese weren't really on our cultural radar outside of maybe Hashimoto San and karate.) The only thing that stopped the Japanese was the collapse of the Yen, I think. But that's the era that you started to get the myth of the "lazy" North American worker. See the forgotten Michael Keaton movie "Gung Ho!", it's basically about all that.