「平成不況」の性格とその帰結 : 「複合不況」論の検討を通して

抄録

After the Plaza agreement, Japanese economy first plunged into recession due to the high valued Yen, but shifted into the Heisei Bubble Boom and then to Heisei Depression which covers all areas in finance and industry. This depression is the most serious both in scale and in length of period in post World War II Japan. How should we understand the characteristic of Heisei Depression? Concerning this thesis, the Complex Recession Theory advocated by prof. Miyazaki has been widely received at present as the most persuasive explanation. The most important point in his view, is credit crunch from banking recession has extended recession from finance areas to the industrial areas, and the credit crunch itself occurred because of the collapse of bubble economy which was triggered by the financial liberalization. This paper first points out, based on the Marx's credit theory, the reasons why prof. Miyazaki. actually ended up describing the character of the Heisei Depression as financial recession, though his original intention was to define the character of Heisei Depression as complex recession, structure of reciprocal influence of financial recession and recession in real economy. Secondly, the paper proposes the basic definition of Heisei Depression as a process of reduction unprecidented in size, of both moneyed and real capital overaccumulated during the bubble economy period. Thirdly, this paper details the reasons why Japanese economy has no way out of the Heisei Depression as far as the postwar Japanese capital accumulation system remains the same. Finally, the paper concludes with a critical comment on the Complex Recession Theory, saying the theory only dealt with the Heisei Depression within the framework of recession. Instead, the paper offers its own theory, Heisei Depression which was triggered by the collapse of bubble economy (collapse in price of land and stocks) linked with the end of cold war, should lead to the fundamental change of postwar Japanese capitalism's reproductive structure, because it has been destroying the two main pillars of export-led high accumulation system of postwar Japanese ecoonmy, namely, land system built on both ownership and usage of very small sized land, and the system of corporative mutual holding of stocks.