The development of microelectronics technology (ME) and electronic info-communicatin (EI) activities is very remarkable in such advanced capitalistic nations as Japan. But the evaluations of its effect on economy, society, labor etc. do not agree even by positive studies. Moreover, on the theoretical studies there is actually a great deal of difference in views on the significance of ME and EI from various viewpoints and methods. Now there are different views as to the significance of ME itself and of its modern innovation with regard to productive force. These views will be classified, depending on their angle of evaluations, as follows. (1) the view which evaluates the significance of modern technology emphasizing its effect on the change of the means of labor in the productive process, especially the development of the automation. (2) the view which stresses the development of means of labor with their particular characteristics, such as computer or computer network system rather than automation. (3) the view which evaluates not so much means of labor as science and scientific labor and estimates the fact that sience has come to be the basis of productive forces. (4) the view which regards the significance of ME and EI as a shift from the industrial society to the post-industrial or higher information society. We will criticize these first three views critically to evaluate the significance of ME and EI and then represent our own theoretical view.

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Japan put all of her energies into increasing aircraft output during the latter half of the Pacific War. The demand for aircraft was in exess of the productive capacity, so the government mobilized equipment, materials, labor to the aircraft industry as much as posible. In this sense the aircraft industry is an important focus for the analysis of the national mobilization in Japan. The military authorities planned an urgent aircraft production program for 1944 during the summer of 1943 with priority given to the High Command demands. In this plan they expected 3 times as much output as 1943 at the cost of reductions in many other weapons. The Musashino Plant of Nakajima Aircraft Company, Ltd., one of the biggest aircraft maker in Japan, expanded its facilities rapidly. But on the other hand, lack of coordination of equipments and dilution proceeded unduly. The Musashino Plant had priority for materials, machines, labor, electricity, etc.. Trading on this merits the plant tightened the combinations between subcontract, cooperative and allied factories. But the high productivity was not accomplished owing to a shortage of high efficiency machines and technical experts. For all that the extream mobilization of labor, the priority production of materials and machines for aircraft, the nationwide recovery and the distribution concentration yielded much increase in aircraft production. There was no consideration for the cooperation of the overall economy anymore. Therefore the selfgoverned distribution system by the Control Asociations which developed during the war time, began to collapse.

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This paper will attempt to discuss the peculiar combination of agriculture and industry which characterized the structure of the regional economy in Wurttemberg, South-West-Germany, during the World Depression. The symbiosis between agriculture and industry can be understood in two ways. Firstly, where small peasant farms are dominant, it allows peasants to dovetail their work into both agriculture and industry. It also means backwardness as to the social division of labor, because these peasants still continue their intermediate status as part-peasant and part-worker. Secondly, agricultural and industrial products together create a local market area in a regional dimension through the internal trade between agriculture and industry. In this second case the social division of labor deepens, in contrast to the former. It has been said that the regional economy of Wurttemberg withstood the business depression during the World Depression, because the level of unemployment in this region was much lower than that of other regions in Germany. Therefore it was regarded as a "model" economy. The reason for the low level of unemployment was the occupational combination of agriculture and industry, which allowed the unemployed to continue participating in agricultural activities. This combination took shape in the form of the peasant-worker, who was engaged in factories located in the rural area, and of the so-called "pendler" (swing-worker), who possesed a small farm and worked in factories located in the city. This structure of the regional economy in Wurttemberg was looked upon as a "model" by contemporaries, so that Erich Preiser analysed it during and after the World Depression in order to propose the outline of the development plan in OstpreuBen. He emphasized the settlement of workers and artisans with small farms in rural districts in order to bring forth a local market offering internal trade between agriculture and industry. He recognized this patten of combination in the structure of the Wurttemberg economy, and indeed, the economy of small farmers and carft artisans had shown its prosperity in local market areas. The structure of the regional economy in Wurttemberg should be characterized as a complex formation of an occupational and market symbiosis between agriculture and industry.

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