Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T12:57:23.637Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

CHAPTER XVI - Aspects of economic and social policy in Japan, 1868–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Seymour A. Broadbridge
Edited by
Peter Mathias  and
Sidney Pollard
Seymour A. Broadbridge
Affiliation:
University of London
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Japan entered a new era in its economic history in 1868, when the Tokugawa regime ended and the Emperor Meiji was installed as the head of state. This is not to say that the Tokugawa period (1603–1868) was one lacking in economic and social change. There had been substantial population growth in the seventeenth century, considerable urban development, growth in agricultural productivity, industrial growth on a domestic system basis, and, most spectacular of all, the rise of the merchant class, whose economic power had increased greatly relative to that of the samurai and the peasants. At the end of the Tokugawa period, from the 1840s, there had also been efforts to introduce modern naval armaments industries, and also, after Perry forced Japan open to international intercourse in 1853–4, negotiations to conclude commercial treaties with the great powers, treaties which from 1858, brought Japan into the network of foreign trade. But Japan remained in 1868 an economically and politically backward nation compared with the industrial nations of Europe.

What was needed was a new government determined to introduce modern economic and political structures; this government was provided by the lower and middle samurai of, principally, the Choshu and Satsuma han, or domains, which had led the fight to overthrow the Tokugawa regime. These domains had already made substantial progress in reforming their own financial and economic organization and in introducing new strategic industries for their military and naval forces.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire , pp. 1106 - 1145
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akamatsu, Paul. Meiji 1868: Revolution and Counter Revolution in Japan. London, 1972.Google Scholar
Allen, G. C.Modern Japan and Its Problems. London, 1928.Google Scholar
Allen, G. C.Japan: The Hungry Guest. London, 1938.Google Scholar
Allen, G. C.Japanese Industry: Its Recent Development and Present Condition. New York, 1939.Google Scholar
Allen, G. C.A Short Economic History of Modern Japan. London, 1972.Google Scholar
Allen, G. C. ‘Factors in Japan's Economic Growth’, in Cowan, C. D. (ed.), The Economic Development of China and Japan. London, 1964.Google Scholar
Asakawa, K. ‘Characteristics of Finance in the Meiji Period’, Developing Economies, vol. V, no. 2 (1967).Google Scholar
Ayusawa, I. F.A History of Labor in Modern Japan. Honolulu, 1966.Google Scholar
Beasley, W. G.The Meiji Restoration. London, 1973.Google Scholar
Beasley, W. G.The Modern History of Japan. London, 1973.Google Scholar
Bergamini, David. Japan's Imperial Conspiracy. London, 1971.Google Scholar
Bisson, T. A.Japan's War Economy. New York, 1945.Google Scholar
Bolitho, Harold. Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan. New Haven, 1974.Google Scholar
Broadbridge, Seymour. Industrial Dualism in Japan. London, 1966.Google Scholar
Broadbridge, Seymour. ‘Technological Progress and State Support in the Japanese Shipbuilding Industry’, Journal of Development Studies, vol. I, no. 2 (January 1965).Google Scholar
Broadbridge, Seymour. ‘Shipbuilding and the State in Japan since the 1850s’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. XI, no. 4 (1977).Google Scholar
Cameron, Rondo (ed.) Banking and Economic Development. London, 1972.Google Scholar
Cameron, Rondo, Crisp, Olga, Patrick, Hugh T. and Tilly, Richard. Banking in the Early Stages of Industrialization. London, 1967.Google Scholar
Chambliss, William Jones. Chiaraijima Village. Tucson, 1965.Google Scholar
Cowan, C. D. (ed.) The Economic Development of China and Japan. London, 1964.Google Scholar
Craig, Albert M.Choshu and the Meiji Restoration. Cambridge, Mass., 1961.Google Scholar
Crawcour, E. Sydney. ‘The Tokugawa Heritage’, in William, W. Lockwood (ed.), The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1965.Google Scholar
Crocker, W. R.The Japanese Population Problem: The Coming Crisis. London, 1931.Google Scholar
Crowley, James B.Japan's Quest for Autonomy: National Security and Foreign Policy, 1930–1938. Princeton, NJ, 1966.Google Scholar
Crowley, James B. (ed.) Modern East Asia: Essays in Interpretation. New York, 1970.Google Scholar
Dore, R. P.Education in Tokugawa Japan. London, 1965.Google Scholar
Dore, R. P.Land Reform in Japan. London, 1959.Google Scholar
Dore, R. P. ‘Agricultural Improvement in Japan 1870–1900’, in Jones, E. L. and Woolf, S. J. (eds.), Agrarian Change and Economic Development. London, 1969.Google Scholar
Dore, R. P. ‘The Importance of Educational Traditions: Japan and Elsewhere’, Pacific Affairs, vol. XLV, no. 4 (Winter 1972–3).Google Scholar
Dore, R. P. ‘Japan as a Model of Economic Development’, Archives Europeennes de Sociologie, vol. V (1964).Google Scholar
Dore, R. P. and Ōchi, Tsutomu. ‘Rural Origins of Japanese Fascism’, in James, W. Morley (ed.), Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1971.Google Scholar
Emi, Koichi. Government Fiscal Activity and Economic Growth in Japan, 1868–1960. Tokyo, 1963.Google Scholar
Frost, Peter. The Bakumatsu Currency Crisis. Cambridge, Mass., 1970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuji, Bank. Banking in Modern Japan. Tokyo, 1967.Google Scholar
Fujihara, Ginjiro. The Spirit of Japanese Industry. Tokyo, 1936.Google Scholar
Gleason, Alan H. ‘Economic Growth and Consumption in Japan’, in William, W. Lockwood (ed.), The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1965.Google Scholar
Hackett, Roger F.Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan, 1838–1922. Cambridge, Mass., 1971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, John W. ‘The Tokugawa Bakufu and the Merchant Class’, University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, Occasional Papers, no. I (1951).Google Scholar
Halliday, Jon. A Political History of Japanese Capitalism. New York, 1975.Google Scholar
Harootunian, H. ‘The Economic Rehabilitation of the Samurai’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. XIX, no. 4 (1960).Google Scholar
Hauser, William B.Economic Institutional Change in Tokugawa Japan: Osaka and the Kinai Cotton Trade. Cambridge, 1974.Google Scholar
Havens, Thomas R. H.Farm and Nation in Modern Japan: Agrarian Nationalism, 1870–1940. Princeton, 1974.Google Scholar
Hirschmeier, Johannes and Yui, Tsunehiko. The Development of Japanese Business, 1600–1973. London, 1975.Google Scholar
Hirschmeier, Johannes. The Origins of Entrepreneurship in Meiji Japan. Cambridge, Mass., 1964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishii, Ryoichi. Population Pressure and Economic Life in Japan. London, 1937.Google Scholar
Ishii, Ryosuku (ed.) Japanese Legislation in the Meiji Era. Tokyo, 1969.Google Scholar
Islam, Nurul. Foreign Capital and Economic Development: Japan, India and Canada. Tokyo, 1960.Google Scholar
Jansen, Marius B.Sakamoto Tyoma and the Meiji Restoration. Princeton, NJ, 1961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, B. F. ‘Agricultural Productivity and Economic Development in Japan’. Journal of Political Economy, vol. LIX, no. 6 (1951).Google Scholar
Kelley, Allen C. and Williamson, Jefferey G.Lessons from Japanese Development. Chicago, 1974Google Scholar
Klein, Lawrence, and Ohkawa, Kazushi (eds.) Economic Growth: The Japanese Experience since the Meiji Era. Homewood, III., 1968.Google Scholar
Kuznets, S. et al. Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan. Durham, NC, 1955.Google Scholar
Landes, David S. ‘Japan and Europe: Contrasts in Industrialization’, in William, W. Lockwood (ed.), The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan, Princeton, NJ, 1965.Google Scholar
Lockwood, William W.The Economic Development of Japan: Growth and Structural Change, 1868–1938. Princeton, NJ, 1954.Google Scholar
Lockwood, William W. (ed.) The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddison, Angus. Economic Growth in Japan and the U.S.S.R.. London, 1969.Google Scholar
Marshall, Byron K.Capitalism and Nationalism in Prewar Japan: The Ideology of the Business Elite, 1868–1941. Stanford, 1967.Google Scholar
Mathias, Peter and Postan, M. M. (eds.) The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. VII: The Industrial Economies. Cambridge, 1978.Google Scholar
Minami, Ryoshin. The Turning Point in Economic Development: Japan's Experience. Tokyo, 1973.Google Scholar
,Mitsubishi Economic Research Bureau. Japanese Trade and Industry: Present and Future. London, 1936.
Morley, James W. (ed.) Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1971.Google Scholar
Nakamura, James I. ‘Growth of Japanese Agriculture, 1875–1920’, in William, W. Lockwood (ed.), The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1965.Google Scholar
Nakamura, James I.Agricultural Production and the Economic Development of Japan, 1873–1922. Princeton, NJ, 1966.Google Scholar
Nakamura, James I. ‘The Meiji Land Reform’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. XIV, no. 4 (1966).Google Scholar
Ohkawa, Kazushi, Johnston, Bruce F. and Kaneda, Hiromitsu (eds.) Agricultural and Economic Growth: Japan's Experience. Princeton, NJ, 1970.Google Scholar
Ohkawa, Kazushi and Rosovsky, Henry. ‘A Century of Japanese Economic Growth’, in William, W. Lockwood (ed.), The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1965.Google Scholar
Ohkawa, Kazushi and Rosovsky, Henry. Japanese Economic Growth. Stanford, 1973.Google Scholar
Ohkawa, Kazushi and Rosovsky, Henry. ‘The Role of Agriculture in Modern Japanese Development’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. IX, pt II (1960).Google Scholar
Ohkawa, Kazushi and Rosovsky, Henry. ‘Recent Japanese Growth in Historical Perspective’, American Economic Review, vol. LIII, no. 2 (May 1963).Google Scholar
Ohkawa, Kazushi. Differential Structure and Agriculture. Tokyo, 1972.Google Scholar
Oshima, Harry T. ‘Meiji Fiscal Policy and Agricultural Progress’, in William, W. Lockwood (ed.), The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1965.Google Scholar
Passin, Herbert. Society and Education in Japan. New York, 1966.Google Scholar
Patrick, Hugh T. ‘The Economic Muddle of the 1920's’, in James, W. Mor'ey (ed.), Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1971.Google Scholar
Patrick, Hugh T. ‘Japan 1868–1914’, in Rondo, Cameron (ed.), Banking in the Early Stages of Industrialization. London, 1967.Google Scholar
Patrick, Hugh T. ‘External Equilibrium and Internal Convertibility: Financial Policy in Meiji Japan’, Journal of Economic History, vol. XXV, no. 2 (1965).Google Scholar
Patrick, Hugh T. (ed.) Japanese Industrialization and its Social Consequences. Berkeley, 1976.Google Scholar
Ranis, Gustav. ‘Factor Proportions in Japanese Economic Development’, American Economic Review, vol. XLVII (1957).Google Scholar
Ranis, Gustav. ‘Capital—Output Ratio in Japanese Economic Development’, Review of Economic Studies, vol. XXVI, no. I (1958).Google Scholar
Ranis, Gustav. ‘The Financing of Japanese Economic Development’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, vol. XI, no. 3 (1959).Google Scholar
Reubens, Edwin P. ‘Foreign Capital and Domestic Development in Japan’, in Kuznets, S. (ed.), Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan. Durham, NC, 1955.Google Scholar
Roberts, John G.Mitsui: Three Centuries of Japanese Business. New York and Tokyo, 1973.Google Scholar
Rosovsky, Henry. Capital Formation in Japan, 1868–1940. New York, 1961.Google Scholar
Rosovsky, Henry. ‘Japan's Transition to Modern Economic Growth, 1868–1885’, in Henry, Rosovsky (ed.), Industrialization in Two Systems. New York, 1966.Google Scholar
Sansom, George Sir. The Western World and Japan. London, 1950.Google Scholar
Sansom, George Sir. A History of Japan Vol. III, 1615–1867. London, 1964.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, E. B. et al. The Industrialization of Japan and Manchukuo, 1930–1940. New York, 1940.Google Scholar
Sheldon, Charles David. The Rise of the Merchant Class in Tokugawa Japan, 1600–1868. Locust Valley, NY, 1958.Google Scholar
Shibagaki, K. ‘The Early History of the Zaibatsu’, Developing Economies, vol. IV, no. 4 (1966).Google Scholar
Shinohara, Miyohei. Growth and Cycles in the Japanese Economy. Tokyo, 1962.Google Scholar
Shinohara, Miyohei. Structural Changes in Japan's Economic Development. Tokyo, 1970.Google Scholar
Smith, Thomas C.Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan: Government Enterprise, 1868–1880. Stanford, 1955, 1965.Google Scholar
Smith, Thomas C.The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan. Stanford, 1959.Google Scholar
Smith, Thomas C. ‘The Land Tax in the Tokugawa Period’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. XVIII, no. I (1958).Google Scholar
Taeuber, Irene B.The Population of Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1958.Google Scholar
Taira, Koji. Economic Development and the Labor Market in Japan. New York, 1970.Google Scholar
Taira, Koji. ‘Factory Labour and the Industrial Revolution in Japan’, in Peter, Mathias and Postan, M. M. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. VII, The Industrial Economies. Cambridge, 1978.Google Scholar
Takahashi, Kamekichi. The Rise and Development of Japan's Modern Economy. Tokyo, 1969.Google Scholar
Tanin, O. and Yohan, E.Militarism and Fascism in Japan. London, 1934.Google Scholar
Tiedemann, Arthur E. ‘Big Business and Politics in Prewar Japan’, in James, W. Morley (ed.), Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan. Princeton, NJ, 1971.Google Scholar
Totten, George O.Democracy in Prewar Japan. Lexington, Mass., 1965.Google Scholar
Tsukahira, Toshio G.Feudal Control in Tokugawa Japan: The Sankin Kōtai System. Cambridge, Mass., 1970.Google Scholar
Tsuru, Shigeto. Essays on Japanese Economy. Tokyo, 1958.Google Scholar
Utley, Freda. Japan's Feet of Clay. London, 1936.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Thomas O.The Urbanization of Japanese Labour, 1868–1955. Amherst, Mass., 1965.Google Scholar
Yamamura, Kozo. Economic Policy in Postwar Japan: Growth versus Economic Democracy. Berkeley, 1967.Google Scholar
Yamamura, Kozo. A Study of Samurai Income and Entrepreneurship. Cambridge, Mass., 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yamamura, Kozo. ‘Japan, 1868–1930: A Revised View’, in Rondo, Cameron (ed.), Banking and Economic Development. London, 1972.Google Scholar
Yamamura, Kozo. ‘The Founding of Mitsubishi’, Business History Review, vol. XLI, no. 2 (1967).Google Scholar
Yamamura, Kozo. ‘Zaibatsu Pre-War and Zaibatsu Post-War’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. XXIII, no. 4 (1964).Google Scholar
Yamamura, Kozo. ‘Success Illbegotten? The Role of Meiji Militarism in Japan's Technological Progress’, Journal of Economic History, vol. XXXVII, no. I (March 1977).Google Scholar
Yanaga, Chitoshi. Big Business in Japanese Politics. New Haven, 1968.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×