In his pioneering synthesis, published in 1962, on the Japanese political economists of the Tokugawa (1603-1868) and the Meiji (1868-1912) periods, Eijiro Honjo outlined the development of the study of the history of Japanese economic thought in evolutionary stages. Starting from its beginning in the Meiji, he argued that a foundation was laid for the study of the Tokugawa economic thought in the Taisho (1912-1925) period, while the Meiji economic thought began to become a serious subject of study in the early Showa period, and prewar socialist and Marxist thoughts after the Second World War. Thus the field exhibited a steady expansion in terms of the scope of the subject, the number of scholars and the number of works published. However, Honjo also commented that such a development was dwarfed by the publication of a much larger number of works on the history of Western economic thought, because Japanese universities offered research and teaching posts for the latter, but seldom for the former.
This was indeed the case at least up to the 1960s. The History of Economic Thought Society of Japan started in 1950 with 123 members, but the total number of papers presented at the Society's biannual meetings on Japanese history during the first five years was as little as seven. Central themes chosen in these meetings usually related to the history of classical political economy and Marxian economics. Almost no attempts had been made to take up a theme centring on Japan. Some members, including myself, did express concern about this state of affairs. Thus, after returning from the study in Europe in 1957-58, I tried to arouse interest in the subject by starting a newsletter for the Kansai branch of the Society in 1959. In 1966-69 a number of researchers, led by Tsuneo Hori, joined the government-funded project on the study of the history of Japanese modernisation since the Meiji, which greatly helped promote the field.
At its 42nd meeting in November 1978, the Society chose the history of modern Japanese economic thought as a central theme for the first time. The three papers presented in the session discussed the thought and activities of Yukichi Fukuzawa, Shiro Shiba and the Japan Society of Social Policy, respectively, and another three papers on the Tokugawa economic thought were presented in the subsequent individual sessions of this meeting. Reflecting the growth of the number of people seriously interested in the field, this meeting signified the Society's open acknowledgement of the central importance of the study of the Japanese experience for the discipline as a whole. Since then the Society has organised three major publications, each marking the steady development of the field;
Nihon no Keizaigaku (
The Political Economy in Japan) (1984),
Keizaigakushi:
Kadai to Tenbo (
The History of the Political Economy:
Its Missions and Prospects) (1992) and
Economic Thought and Modernisation in Japan (1998). Furthermore, the Society's 63rd meeting in November 1999 showed a high standard of scholarship, making the future of the field appear promising. Four excellent papers were presented by the younger generation of scholars, with new source material and perspectives. I could not help recalling Honjo's lecture delivered 60 years ago at Kyoto University, in which he lamented the poor interest in the subject within the discipline. We have come quite a long way.
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