Customer Reviews

Capitalism From Within: Economy, Society, and the State in a Japanese Fishery

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have not yet read this book, but I must indicate that the first review is not reliable. The Japanese writers he recommends are not scholars. They are so called commentators or popular writers.

As its title suggests, Mr. David Howell's Capitalism from within has very ambitious goal to figure out the origin and the development of the modern Japanese capitalism. Although I appreciate his effort, it is quite unfortunate that I have to conclude that Mr. Howell has been unable to achieve his goal.

First of all, this topic (the origin and the development of the modern Japanese capitalism) has been fully investigated and studied by the specialists in Japan so that abundant research accomplishments regarding this topic are already available in Japanese. However, Mr. Howell has apparently ignored all of these research accomplishments so that the toipcs he argues in this book are already well-known and even very stale and obsolete for the people who are interested in the economic history of Japan. To make the matter worse, Mr. Howell is apparently not capable of presenting his arguments logically so that there is a danger that the readers become fully confused on trying to figure out what Mr. Howell wants to say. Also, I unfortunately have to add that Mr. Howell does not have enough skills to read the primary sources written in Japanese: He has made serious misinterpretation on the primary sources he referred to for this research. Thus, his argument in this work is quite irrelevant because, after all, it is based on serious misinterpretation on the primary historical documents.

Finally, I want to point out that although Mr. Howell argues that the Japanese capitalism has its indigenous origin in the late 19th century, this is absolutely incorrect. The Japanese capitalism (i.e., economic system for capitalism) was first prepared by Oda Nobunaga (last name first) in the 16th century, and the spirit (or ethos) of capitalism among the Japanese (which is analogous to the spirit of capitalism argued by Max Weber in his famous The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) was initiated by a zen-priest called Suzuki Shosan (last name first) in early 17th century. Thus, by the end of the 19th century (the era Mr. Howell argues that capitalism first appeared in Japan), almost all the forms of production had been practiced with capitalistic spirit (ethos) already. Thus, the Japanese capitalism was firmly established in the late 19th century already.

For the readers who are interested in studying the origin of the modern Japanese capitalism, I recommend The Spirit of Japanese Capitalism and Selected Essays written by Yamamoto Shichihei. This book rigorously explains how Suzuki Shosan spread the spirit of capitalism among the Japanese. And for those who can read Japanese, I recommend the books written by Tominaga Kenichi and Komuro Naoki (last name first for both). They deeply investigate how the capitalistic system of economy was developed in the era of Oda Nobunaga and the following Edo Era. Also, we must not forget the works of Ootsuka Hisao on the Weberian sociology and its application to the Japanese society. I believe Ootsuka's works will be an appropriate introduction for those who want rigorous introduction to teh study of the the economic history of Japan. Finally, for the ambitious readers who want to spend their life on studying the history of Japan, I recommend the works of Tokutomi Soho. He was the first Japanese who paid attention to the correlation between the modernization of Japan and the economic reforms conducted by Oda Nobunaga.