SOCIO-ECONOMIC HISTORY
Online ISSN : 2423-9283
Print ISSN : 0038-0113
ISSN-L : 0038-0113
Volume 70, Issue 4
Displaying 1-21 of 21 articles from this issue
  • Kanji ISHII
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 391-398
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    Professor Hisao OTSUKA once argued that merchants could be linked with a variety of economic interests, and that in feudal society they were closely linked with feudal economic interests. However, we should recognize that such feudal merchants could suddenly change their behavior in order to link with modern economic interests. The common theme of the seventy-second annual conference of the Socio-Economic History Society, organized by Kanji ISHII, was the re-examination of this theory of Professor OTSUKA, through analysis of the role of merchant capital in the process of industrialization. Takafumi KUROSAWA discussed how the industrialization of Switzerland was led by the activity of merchants who imported raw materials and exported products. Kanji ISHII discussed how the moneychangers in Kyoto, Osaka, and Yedo changed their behavior during the Meiji reform era to support the development of modern merchants. Commenting on these two reports, Saburo SODA observed that Chinese merchants only began to promote industrialization after 1900. Hisashi WATANABE remarked that merchants in other parts of Europe functioned in a way similar to the role of Swiss merchants. Makoto KASUYA asked how the highly developed financial system of the late Edo era influenced the formation of the capital market in the Meiji era.
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  • Kanji ISHII
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 399-416
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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    After discussing the importance of investment by merchants during the industrialization of Japan, this article analyzes historical materials relating to the firms of Banjin (Kyoto), Mitsui (Osaka, Yedo), Chogin (Kyoto, Yedo), and Hiromi (Kaizuka). It proves that the activities of moneychangers in Kyoto, Osaka, and Yedo continued in spite of the economic disorders of the early Meiji period. In Osaka, bills issued by merchants on moneychangers stopped circulating after the regime change of 1868. This was because plundering by the victorious armies of the domains of Satsuma and Choshu caused the bankruptcy of the many moneychangers who had been closely linked with the Tokugawa Bakufu or Aizu domain. In Kyoto, the circulation of bills stopped from 1873 owing to the introduction of stamp duties. Moneychangers who survived such disorders in the money market began to finance the new merchants who invested their accumulated resources in modern industries. After the 1870s, modern banks were established by big moneychangers. These included Konoike, Sumitomo, Hirase, Yamaguchi, and Hirooka in Osaka, and Mitsui, Nakai, Yasuda, and Kawasaki in Tokyo.
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  • Takafumi KUROSAWA
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 417-436
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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    The intent of this paper is to clarify the role played by merchants in the industrialization process. The beginning of Swiss industrial development after the sixteenth century was marked by the large-scale migration of Calvinists throughout Europe, and the introduction of cotton and silk manufacturing. Later on, the center of cotton production was transferred to the countryside, where 'bottom-up' development and democratization took place. Urban merchants maintained the initiative in the capital intensive sectors, and some of them founded private banks. The organizers of the Verlagsystem in the countryside and merchants in the city became factory owners. The banks in Zurich were in a fledgling state, and capital demand from the factory sector was still low. In the 1820s and 1830s, capital demand caused by the cultivation of new markets and intensified competition in the factory sector was satisfied by private bankers in Zurich and Basel, who doubled as textile manufacturers or traders. Their resources were supplemented by regional and non-institutional means of finance. In conclusion, it can be said that merchants in Switzerland supported industrialization in various ways, as organizers of production and distribution, and as founders and leaders in the financial sector.
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  • Hironobu SAKUMA
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 437-457
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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    This article aims to explore the connection between German journeymen and the honor of their craft guilds, and the reason why journeymen and guild masters held on so persistently to this notion of honor. The concept of the honor of the craft guild took shape in southern Germany between the years 1450 and 1500. It comprised a wide range of strict views surrounding the details of one's birth, gender, marriage practices, freedom from debt and rejection of thieving. From the beginning of the sixteenth century onward, these craftsmen began to discriminate against 'dishonorable' people-including executioners, skinners and others. Through the use of strikes, boycotts, or the threat of such actions, journeymen supported notions of honor with more tenacity than guild masters. Yet their actions could achieve legitimacy only after receiving approval from the entirety of assembled guild members. The growing connection between artisans and honor derived not from economic circumstances as demonstrated by the 'closing off of the craft guild', but rather was dependent upon social context. In fact, journeymen wanted to distinguish themselves from other members of the lower social order and 'dishonorable' people through organizing associations and forming homogeneous groups.
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  • Yusaku MATSUZAWA
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 459-480
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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    In 1869, the newly established Meiji government was confronted by a bad harvest. In this article the author analyses how the prefectural governments it had set up responded to the resulting famine. At first, the prefectural governments followed the practice of the Edo period by inducing wealthy people to aid the poor. But such policies of forced redistribution had reached their limits by this time. The strategies of poor relief and emergency funding that were adopted by prefectural governments developed as alternative ways of dealing with the crisis. The first alternative was to enlarge the areas of redistribution from a village to a village union or to a prefecture; the second alternative was to introduce opportunities for commercial distribution. Neither alternative was successful, but the attempts indicated the possibility of overcoming the limits of forced redistribution. The Meiji government continued to pursue both directions of welfare policy throughout the 1870s.
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 481-483
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 483-484
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 484-486
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 486-489
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 489-491
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 491-493
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 493-495
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 495-497
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 497-499
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 499-501
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 502-503
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 504-505
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 505-507
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 507-509
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 510-511
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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    Download PDF (331K)
  • Article type: Bibliography
    2004 Volume 70 Issue 4 Pages 513-515
    Published: November 25, 2004
    Released on J-STAGE: August 09, 2017
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