Kokichi Morimoto's Thought and Practice Concerning the “Middle Class” : A Re-examination of Its Logical Structure and Social Context

Abstract

  Kokichi Morimoto was a pioneer of study on consumption economics in Japan, and an educator who tried to actualize his ideals of “cultured life” by the practice of education for adults and girls. In this paper, I refer to some characteristics of his discourses and educational projects in the Taisho and early Showa era, and examine how these characteristics were related to his idea of the “middle class” as torchbearers of the social reform. In addition to this, I examine how his thought and practice corresponded to the habitus of new middle class in this period.

  Morimoto insisted that the “middle class” would necessarily play a leading role in social reforms centered on improvement of daily life. Based on the premise of a rational “middle class” as leaders in the process of social evolution, he appealed to the new middle class to act to improve their lives, and argued that their actual economic status was too low. Moreover, Morimoto tried to bring out the positivity of the “middle class” through his projects of adult education. The sections for readers' opinions, questions in the journals of his organization for adult education assumed that the readers were capable of positively controlling and improving their own lives. And he presented models for ideal living like the “Bunka-Apartment,” which excelled the actual living standards of the new middle class in this period. It was based on his expectations of the new middle class as active subjects in the pursuit of the aloft ideals of their lives.