The History of Economic Thought
Online ISSN : 1884-7358
Print ISSN : 1880-3164
ISSN-L : 1880-3164
Volume 57, Issue 2
Displaying 1-23 of 23 articles from this issue
  • Hiroshi Matsunoo
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 1-24
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: August 30, 2019
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    Abstract: Hideko Maruoka was a Japanese woman economist. Born in Nagano in 1903, she grew up in the home of the grandparents of her mother, who were poor peasants. She was very interested in the livelihood of rural women, and so when she got a job with the Sangyo Kumiai Chuokai (Agricultural Cooperatives Federation) in 1929, she investigated the lives of rural women nationwide under the depression of the 1930s.   Maruoka studied the plight of rural women as agricultural laborers, housewives, and mothers. Her first work entitled Nihon Nohson Fujin Mondai: Shufu Bosei Hen (Rural Wom-enʼs Problem in Japan: Housewife and Motherhood) was published in 1937, where she emphasized that rural women are representative of all women who bear harsh maternal life, sexual discrimination, and feudal servitude. After the war, Maruoka participated in various associations such as the Fujin Minshu Club (Japan Womenʼs Democratic Club) founded in 1946 and the Shin Nihon Fujin no Kai (New Japan Womenʼs Association) founded in 1962, and was busy with various womenʼs agricultural cooperative movements. However, she continued to study, and her important post-war work Bukka to Kakeibo (Prices and Household Management) was published in 1963, where she wrote that family budgets are much distorted by the total inadequacy of social security.   The United Nationʼs proclamation of 1975 as the International Womenʼs Year and declaration of a decade for women gave Maruoka, who was by then over 70 years old, the motivation to study further, and she studied the problems of rural women once again with younger colleagues.   Over her lifetime, Maruoka published numerous books that show her as a researcher of opposition. Her last work entitled Fujin Shisou Keiseishi Note, in two volumes, studies the history of womenʼs liberation thoughts from the Meiji Era to the Showa Era, 1975 / 82. Throughout her life, Maruoka wrote and spoke of rural women's problem as the origin of all womenʼs problems. JEL classification numbers: B 29, B 31, J 71.
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  • A Moulding of the Neoclassical Principle of Labour Exchange
    Motohiro Okada
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 25-45
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: August 30, 2019
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    Abstract: This study critically examines Léon Walras’s thoughts on labour in terms of pure, applied and social economics. In his theory of pure economics, Walras incorporated labour exchange into his general equilibrium system. He disregarded worker subjectivity towards labour performance and the resulting variability in the substance of labour. This neoclassicist bias emasculating the human traits of labour caused him to negate the distinctiveness of labour exchange and argue for its market determination. Thus, Walras assumed labour exchange to be ‘moral-free.’ In addition, Walras denied the influence of ‘moral’ factors in the scope of applied economics treating industries and contended that production activities, including the labour- management relationship, generally should be subject to free competition. However, Walras recognised a need for the state regulation of labour time. Nevertheless, he opposed the minimum wage system and denounced strikes for wage increases. Consequently, Walras adhered to his theory of labour exchange, incurring serious inconsistencies in his own arguments. Walras stressed that social economics dealing with distributional issues in light of justice represents ‘moral’ study. Under the profound influence of his father, Auguste Walras, Walras defended labour-based property rights and proposed land nationalisation. However, he justified the acquisition of capital profit as well as wages determined in a competitive market economy and denied a conflict between labour and capital. Hence, he substantially excluded labour exchange and the labour-capital relationship from the topics of social economics. In this manner, Walras advocated the market determination of labour exchange embracing its subsumption of production and distribution, and labour-management and labour-capital harmony. Therefore, Walras’s arguments in his trilogy allowed a moulding of the neoclassical principle of labour exchange. However, like his contemporary economists who advanced the same line of ideas, Walras enforced this step by playing down his own fair observations of the realities of industrial relations that were at variance with his theory. Thus, Walras’s trilogy reveals features of the formation of neoclassical thought on labour exchange. JEL classification numbers: B 13, J 01.
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  • Shigeta Minamimori
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 46-67
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: August 30, 2019
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    Abstract: The purpose of this article is to show that Takahira Kanda’s( 1830―98) evaluation of “the people” was closely related to his political and economic reform plans.   Since the early 19th century, ships from American and European countries had been coming to Japan, and the Tokugawa Shogunate felt compelled to reinforce their armaments. In order to raise the vast funds necessary for reinforcement, the shogunate tried to promote various domestic industries. The Meiji Government that later overthrew the shogunate also succeeded in such promotional policies. Thus, “the modernization” policies of the government spread to several fields, and the top governmental officials, bureaucrats, and western scholars presented numerous modernization plans, most of them insisting that the government carry out various reforms. However, they believed that “the people” were “ignorant” and did not have the ability to be involved with such reforms.   On the other hand, Kanda evaluated “the people” as political and economic subjects. Such ideas had already appeared by the end of the shogunate. In Nosyoben( 1862), Kanda insisted that “the people” are independent economic subjects with political interest; he succeeded to gain recognition for his thoughts after the Meiji Era. Thus, the idea of the assembly and patent systems in Japan was based on the recognition of his thoughts.   In order to carry out his reform plans, Kanda had to wipe out the evaluation of people made by the top governmental officials and bureaucrats and hence made his reform plans public through magazines and newspapers. His activities were closely watched by the top governmental officials, and finally the Meiji government managed to weaken his influence. However, his thoughts contributed much to the pioneering achievement of “the local notable theory” during the middle of the Meiji Era. JEL classification number: B 31.
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  • Nao Saito
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 68-88
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: August 30, 2019
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    Abstract: This paper demonstrates how Arrow’s theorem formulates not only a social decision process but also serves to clarify moral rules; further, that such an interpretation is consistent with conventional understanding due to Arrow’s methodology that “the scientific method can elucidate ethical problems.” In order to achieve this aim, this paper traces the development of Arrow’s theory by examining the debate between Arrow and Bergson and Little, among others. We then argue that Arrow seeks to scientifically prove moral rules, in contrast to Bergson, whose economic theory cannot effectively address ethical problems. Finally, we apply Arrow’s methodology to the more general problem of the relationship between economics and philosophy.   The structure of this paper is as follows: In Section II, we present the relationship between science and value in welfare economics prior to the publication of Social Choice and Individual Values (SCIV) in 1951. In Section III, we clarify that science and ethics-or the elucidations of the social decision process and of social welfare-appear in the first edition of SCIV. Section IV presents Bergson and Little’s criticism that Arrow does not methodologically ground the relationship between science and ethics. In Section V, we clarify Arrow’s methodological foundation and how it is affected by Popper’s thought, expressed in the statement “scientific theories can elucidate ethical problems.” In Section VI, we check Arrow’s methodology in the second edition of SCIV, published in 1963. Finally, Section VII demonstrates that Arrow considered social preference as a moral rule based on his methodology in the second edition of SCIV. JEL classification numbers: B 23, B 41, D71.
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  • Kunihiko Uemura
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 89-102
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: August 30, 2019
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    Translator's Introduction This article was first published in the Economic Review( July 1969, vol. 20, no. 3), issued by the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, and reissued in Kiyoaki Hirata, Civil Society and Socialism( Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers, 1969). The book was a bestseller at the time and ignited several controversies over Marx’s interpretation, especially among Japanese Marxists.   In the article, Hirata emphasizes that Marx understood the distinction between individual and private property as well as that between civil and bourgeois society. Hirata’s originality lies in his definition of modern civil society as one in which individual property is established under the appearance of private property. He asserts that Marxian socialism should be a re-establishment of individual property. Thus, John Keane in his book Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions( Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998, p. 12) named Hirata and his camp the “civil society school of Japanese Marxism” and Andrew E. Barshay called them the “civil society Marxists” in The Social Sciences in Modern Japan: The Marxian and Modernist Traditions( Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, p. 175).   Kiyoaki Hirata( 1922-1995) was born in Tokyo and studied economics at Tokyo University of Commerce (today known as Hitotsubashi University). He taught at Yokohama National University, Saitama University, Nagoya University, and Kyoto University. After his retirement, he was invited to assume the president role at Kagoshima University of Economics. For more information, see Toshio Yamada’s “Hirata Kiyoaki and His Thoughts on Civil Society,” in The History of Economic Thought( July 2014, vol. 56, no. 1), issued by The Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought.
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  • Hisashi Shinohara
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 103-107
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: August 30, 2019
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  • Hidetomi Tanaka
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 108-111
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: August 30, 2019
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    若田部昌澄『解剖アベノミクス』日本経済新聞出版社,2013 年  伊東光晴『アベノミクス批判―四本の矢を折る』岩波書店,2014 年  西部忠『貨幣という謎―金と日銀券とビットコイン』NHK 出版新書,2014 年  服部茂幸『アベノミクスの終焉』岩波新書,2014 年
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  • Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
    Akiyoshi Arakawa
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 112-115
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: August 30, 2019
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  • Yusuke Yoshino
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 116-117
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Nobuhiro Ito
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 118-119
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Junichiro Kurosu
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 120-121
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Kiichiro Yagi
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 122-123
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Yoshihiro Yamazaki
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 124-125
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Yuta Otsuka
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 126-127
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Satoshi Yamazaki
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 128-129
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Takuji Yamane
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 130-131
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Jun Kobayashi
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 132-133
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Nobuyuki Ishii
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 134-135
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 26, 2019
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  • Masashi Kondo
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 136-137
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 27, 2019
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  • Yasuaki Tsukamoto
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 138-139
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 27, 2019
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  • Shunsuke Moroizumi
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 140-141
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 27, 2019
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  • Tadashi Ohtsuki
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 142-143
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 27, 2019
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  • Susumu Egashira
    2016 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 144-145
    Published: 2016
    Released on J-STAGE: November 27, 2019
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