The
classical view of how capitalism develops is that within feudal society a
class emerges made up of merchants, bankers, early industrialists, i.e.
the bourgeoisie, and that for this class to be able to develop its full
potential a bourgeois revolution is required to break the limits
imposed by the landed feudal aristocracy. That is how things developed,
more or less, in countries like France and England, but not in Japan.
The
classical view of how capitalism develops is that within feudal society a
class emerges made up of merchants, bankers, early industrialists, i.e.
the bourgeoisie, and that for this class to be able to develop its full
potential a bourgeois revolution is required to break the limits
imposed by the landed feudal aristocracy. That is how things developed,
more or less, in countries like France and England, but not in Japan.
Photo: Bill KeaggySimply
because that is how capitalism came into being in a few advanced
capitalist countries does not at all mean that the selfsame process has
to be repeated again and again in all countries of the world. In fact,
if one looks at most countries today , that was not the way things
developed.
There is a good reason for this. Once a few advanced
industrialised capitalist nations had emerged on the scene of history,
these tended to dominate the rest of the world. Hence, the phenomenon of
imperialism. The existence of powerful industrial countries, with a
high level of productivity and advanced technological methods, meant
that the path of gradual emergence of a local bourgeoisie was blocked
off in the lesser developed countries.
This is a key idea that
Trotsky developed in his theory of the Permanent Revolution. The events
in Russia in 1917 confirmed the correctness of this theory. The Russian
bourgeoisie was incapable of leading its own revolution. Unlike the
French bourgeoisie in the 18th century or the British in the
17th, the Russian bourgeois was tied hand and foot to the interests of
the powerful imperialist nations. That is why the task of carrying out
the bourgeois revolution fell to the young Russian proletariat, the only
truly revolutionary class in Russia at that time. Of course, the fact
that there was already a modern proletariat in Russia meant that in
beginning the task of carrying out the bourgeois revolution, the workers
would pass over to the socialist tasks in one “permanent” process, but
that is not the subject of this article.
What we are interested in
here is a phenomenon whereby, precisely because of the weakness of a
class that is supposed to be the leader of a process, i.e. the
development of capitalism in this case, another class takes that task
upon itself. When the class to whom the leadership of the bourgeois
revolution should rightly belong is too weak, or too dependent on
mightier bourgeois powers, another class can step in. Japan is a clear
example of such a phenomenon.
Historical precedent
From
the history of Japan we have several examples that show how a ruling
class, or caste, can consciously adopt an economic system from another
country if it considers it to be superior to its own and to better
suited to promoting and defending the interests of that ruling group.
The
Yamato state in sixth century Japan adopted Buddhism, taking it from
China, and with it came an attempt to adopt the economic system of
China, which was the Asiatic mode of production. At that time, China had
a more advanced civilisation and level of development than Japan.
The
ruling classes of Japan were concerned about being invaded and
colonised and thus they looked to China, and sought to emulate its
economic and legal system. The wealthy families sent their sons to study
in China and to learn about the economic and legal system there. This
led in 645 to a major reform being introduced, the nationalisation of land.
This was an attempt to introduce into Japan the economic system that
existed in China. For a period it worked and allowed Japan to develop,
but as the geographic conditions that were at the base of the Chinese
system did not exist in Japan, this state ownership of the land tended
to break down and by the 8th century the system was shifting to private land ownership and therefore to feudalism. By the 10th century half of all land was privately owned.
In
these conditions powerful local feudal warlords emerged and Japan
experienced long periods of war between the various clans. It took
centuries for the country to be finally united under one emperor and one
central power. Having achieved this, the ruling elite attempted to shut
off Japan from all outside influence. From around 1600, for two
centuries, Japan was an extremely closed society, with the feudal
aristocracy keeping a firm grip on power, using all means possible to
stifle any kind of development that could affect their source of wealth,
ownership of the land and a peasantry tied to that land. It was an
attempt at autarchy. In fact some historians have commented on the fact
that had a visitor to Japan in 1600 been able to return in 1800, 200
years later, he would have hardly noticed any change. In spite of this,
there was a degree of capitalist-type development, especially in the
first half of the 19th century, but this was held back within the constraints of the feudal state.
However,
elsewhere capitalism was developing, in Europe and the USA, and this
could not but have an impact on Japan. In neighbouring China, the ruling
class of Japan could see the effects of the western-induced Opium Wars.
China was being colonised and the Japanese aristocracy feared the same
fate. Initially they attempted to tighten their control and stop any
foreign influence, but matters came to a head in July 1853 when US
Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into Edo Bay with four ships. He came
with very clear demands: a more humane treatment of foreigners landing
in Japan, the opening of ports to foreign ships for provisions and fuel,
and most importantly the opening of ports for trade. Perry gave the
Japanese a year to consider these requests and to make his point he gave
them white flags that they may have needed upon his planned return one
year later. Perry in fact returned in February 1854 and the Japanese
shogunate accepted all his demands, including the opening of a consular
office of the United States in Japan. This outside pressure provoked
conflict within the Japanese aristocracy. The shogunate was removed and
the emperor was “restored” in 1868, but the real power was passing to
those within the Japanese ruling class that favoured “westernisation” as
a means of resisting the Western powers.
What was meant by
“westernisation” was the development of industry. Thus began a period of
industrialisation. Part of this was the laying of the basic
infrastructure for capitalist development, with priority being given to
developing the rail network. In the years 1870 to 1874 one third of
government investment went on the railways. The Japanese bourgeoisie was
weak and did not directly guide this process.
Weak bourgeoisie
As Kenneth Henshall in his ‘A History of Japan, from Stone Age to Superpower’ (1999) states:
“In
general the merchant houses from the Tokugawa period were not
especially willing to take up the challenge of establishing modern
industries, which they saw as too risky. Mitsui and Sumimoto were in
fact the only major houses to do so. Rather, in most cases
entrepreneurial initiative was taken either by the government itself or
by the same ‘class’ of lower-ranking samurai – often with peasant
associations – who formed the government.”
And
although there were some ex-samurai who played a role in developing
industry, “at least in the early years, the government was disappointed
at the lack of private entrepreneurs. It ended up having to establish
many enterprises by itself. The hope was that these would serve as
successful models for private industry to follow…”
Henshall goes
on to explain that, “During the 1870s the government also set up
factories in industries such as munitions, brick, cement, and glass, and
took over a number of mines and shipbuilding yards.”
Japan was
still a predominantly agricultural country, with agriculture
contributing 42% of GDP. This meant that large amounts of cheap peasant
labour were available for employment in the factories that were more and
more export-orientated. In the 1880s exports were 6-7% of GNP, but by
the Meiji period these had grown to 20%.
In order to acquire the
necessary advanced western technology, companies were encouraged to form
joint ventures. Today’s well-known companies such as NEC (Nippon
Electric Company) and Toshiba started off as joint ventures with
American companies.
And as Henshall explains: “Throughout the
Meiji period the government played an important guiding role in the
economy, developing and maintaining relations with the business world,
and offering assistance in areas it favoured and to those companies it
favoured.” And after explaining that the government didn’t always get it
right, he states that, “Nevertheless, one thing was certain – the
government was reluctant to leave economic development to market forces.
It still is.”
Role of the state in the economy
E. Sydney
Crawcour of the Australian National University, in his work,
“Industrialization and technological change, 1885-1920 (Chapter Two of
the book, The Economic Emergence of Modern Japan’, edited by
Kozo Yamamura, 1997), points out that, “No explanation of
industrialization and technological change in Japan between 1885 and
1920 would be complete or satisfying without considering the role of the
state.” And almost as if to answer latter-day “neo-liberal” thinking,
i.e. that the market is the answer to everything, he points out the
following:
“Some economists oppose state intervention
on the grounds that it cannot raise total output above the level that
would be produced by the operation of competitive markets. Free
competitive markets are not, however, necessarily the best strategy for
long-run dynamic growth. Specifically, market forces do not maximize
long-run growth when the returns from an investment depend on other
developments outside the investor’s control. We have already seen that
in the 1890s neither an ironworks nor a steel mill in isolation were
profitable. A coal mine might not be profitable without a railway to
carry its product to the market, but a railway might not be economical
without the development of both the coal mine and other industries along
its route. Yet all of these might be highly productive investments as
parts of a state-supported development program.”
Here
we see how state intervention can be an essential part of developing an
economy even on a capitalist basis. The author even refers to the
advantages of such methods in what he calls a “late-developing economy”.
In
all this economic development what was the driving force? Was it the
emerging bourgeoisie as in the England of Cromwell’s days or of the
French Revolution of 1789? No, it was not. The driving force came from
outside. It was the pressure of the advanced capitalist countries, which
threatened the position of the Japanese feudal aristocracy, that led to
sections of this same aristocracy to push for modernisation, i.e.
industrialisation, which meant capitalism. As the bourgeoisie was too
weak to play its historical role, the task fell to another class, in
this case the samurai class through its control of the state.
Henshall explains:
“The
young samurai who led the coup [of 1868] in his name [the boy-emperor]
were able to consolidate their control of the government and bring a
certain stability to the country beneath all the changes.“Their aim was to build up a strong nation that could match and even perhaps eventually outdo the west.”
And
who abolished the feudal system? Not the bourgeoisie, which was too
weak to do so, but elements from within the feudal aristocracy itself.
As Henshall explains again, “The restrictive feudal class system was
abolished, including the samurai class from which the government leaders themselves came.” [our emphasis].
Within
quite a short period of time Japan emerged as a major economic power
and with it went military might, as it expanded beyond its borders
building its own empire in the east. In addition, although the Japanese
ruling class copied the West in terms of economic reform, it did not
take on board the political institutions of the West. As Henshall
explains, “The cabinet of oligarchs remained ‘transcendental’ – a law
unto itself – and freedoms were very much within limits…”
Here we have some useful analogies with present-day China. Who had the power in Japan at the end of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th?
The bourgeoisie was still too weak to exert direct control over the
state. However, the state was building a modern capitalist Japan. Was
the Japanese state bourgeois, in 1870? One would have to answer both yes
and no. If one were to judge it purely from the men who led that state,
the same feudal aristocrats of the past, one could be led to making the
mistake that it was “feudal”. The point here is that those elements who
came from within the old feudal aristocracy were at the head of a state
that was building the foundations of a powerful capitalist economy.
Although they were then in the early stages of such development, the
direction was clear: towards capitalism. In that sense it was a
bourgeois state. If one ask the correct question, i.e. in which direction was that state going, the answer would be unequivocally towards capitalism, and that is what would finally define the fundamental nature of that state.
An extremely relevant and interesting point precisely on this question is to be found in one of the writings of Trotsky, “Not a workers’ and not a bourgeois state?”
(November 25, 1937): “The assertion that the bureaucracy of a workers’
state has a bourgeois character must appear not only unintelligible but
completely senseless to people stamped with a formal cast of mind.
However, chemically pure types of state never existed, and do not exist
in general. The semi-feudal Prussian monarchy executed the most
important tasks of the bourgeoisie, but executed them in its own manner,
i.e., in a feudal, not a Jacobin style. In Japan we observe even today
an analogous correlation between the bourgeois character of the state
and the semi-feudal character of the ruling caste. But all this does not
hinder us from clearly differentiating between a feudal and a bourgeois
society.”
Role of US imperialism
The fact that Japan
never had a “bourgeois revolution” left remnants of the old feudal state
in place, the emperor for example. (This is even true of Britain with
its monarchy and House of Lords to this day!). Most of these would only
be finally removed by the occupying US army under General Douglas
MacArthur. In his memoirs MacArthur explained that while his aim was to
destroy Japan’s ability to wage war, he was also pushing for
“modernisation”. In his words what was needed were to, “Build the
structure of representative government. Modernise the constitution. Hold
free elections. Enfranchise the women. Release the political prisoners.
Liberate the farmers. Establish a free labor movement. Encourage a free
economy. Abolish police oppression. Develop a free and responsible
press. Liberalize education. Decentralize the political power. Separate
church from state…”
Although some of this is pure demagogy, they
did proceed to implement key land reform in 1946, whereby farmers were
allowed to own as much land as they could farm themselves. The
government went so far as to buy up land from absentee landlords and
redistribute it to small farmers. This measure was clearly dictated by
the fear of revolution, as “Communism” [i.e. Stalinism] was spreading to
large parts of the world, in the first place to neighbouring China.
The
American imperialists had good reason to push for such reforms as
within Japan itself a powerful trade union movement had developed,
together with a large Communist Party. It was to cut across such
developments that the Americans pushed for what amounted to the final
completion of the Japanese bourgeois revolution.
Thus, Japan
became a powerful, advanced capitalist country, indeed one of the most
successful capitalist economies of the post-war period, with sustained
levels of growth of over 10% per year for several years. Eventually even
Japan succumbed to the contradictions of capitalism and in the late
1980s entered into a prolonged crisis. However, the modern, capitalist
transformation of Japan took place under the guiding hand of a section
of the old feudal aristocracy.
This development inside Japan was
determined by the world situation. A section of the ruling elite of
Japan, that until the early 1800s was a feudal aristocracy, could see
that their own position of privilege and power would be threatened by
the more powerful industrialised countries unless they too developed
industry. There was no actual bourgeois revolution as such, but a series
of steps that led nonetheless to a modern capitalist Japan.
We
could also take the example of the historical development of German
capitalism, where modernisation (i.e. industrialisation and therefore
capitalism) was promoted by the Junkers, elements from within the old
landed, feudal aristocracy, Bismarck being the best example, but that is
material for another article.
The point, however, is that two of
the most advanced industrial powers on the planet, Germany and Japan,
emerged from their feudal past not through classical bourgeois
revolutions, of the French type, but through a process that was dictated
by the needs of the ruling elite of a system that could no longer
defend its interests by clinging on to feudalism.
