Tanaka Masaharu (1925-2000):

His Economic Study and Thought in Historical Contexts

Abstract

Tanaka Masaharu was born in Kyoto in 1925, and lived through the long Showa Era （1925-1989） to the Heisei Era （till 2000）. He grew up in traditional Kyoto and studied there, leading an eventful and exciting life, both as a person and an academic. At Kyoto University, he studied economics and the history of ideas, and in his later graduate career, he concentrated on Max Weber, especially his Wissenschaftslehre, followed by the study of eighteenth-century Franceʼs Morelly and Mablyʼs socialist ideas. 　In 1959, Tanaka published a Japanese translation of a commentary by Max We-ber, Der Nationalstaat und die Volkswirtschaftspolitik （1895）. While his interest in Marx, Lenin, and Weber deepened, he came to know Plehanov （1856-1918）, the forefather of Russian Marxism, which motivated him to study Russian Marxism. His efforts resulted in the publication of A Study on the History of Russian Economic Thought in 1967, a work acclaimed as “epoch-making” among Japanese academia. This work earned him a Doctor of Economics, and he was promoted to professor in 1968. 　During his tenure, Tanaka endeavored to construct a more refined Marxian eco-nomic theory. Before resigning from Kyoto University, he founded a research circle known as “The Methodology Research Meeting” in 1973. He left the university for a teaching post, focusing on Marxian economic theory at Konan University. Here, Tan-aka started a reappraisal of the legacy of social thought in the West. He read Machia-velli, Hobbes, Hume, Smith, and J. S. Mill and lectured on them. He gained a new in-sight into Western liberalism as the result of translating Hayekʼs essays. Tanaka served as President of the Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought （JSHET） from 1987 through 1989. At this time, Tanaka deepened his friendship with the highly respected historian of economics, Noboru Kobayashi. In 1998, Tanaka published an English article titled “The Logic of the Genesis of Mon-ey,” as the subject of money was one of long-held interest, though his early interest in Marx proved an enduring one as it appeared in the article. Earlier in 1985, Tanaka had published a review article, “The Academic World of Economics in early 1890s-Britain,” followed shortly by a number of others, including “A List of the writings of A. Marshall （1872-1889）.” He could not, however, com-plete his study of Marshall, having planned to concretely elucidate the process of for-mation of Marshall Economics by applying the same historical method to Marshall that he had applied in his early study on Weber. He did edit and publish a substantial book during this period: A Comparative Study of Liberal Economic Thought （1997）. He had intended to publish at least two more books, with The Issues of Max Weber published posthumously in 2001. Tanaka did, however, manage to edit a small book, A Memorial of a Historian of Economic Thought, before he passed away following a long sickness in 2000, at the age of 75. JEL classification numbers: B 14, B 19, B 31.