This essay addresses what will be studied in regard to J. S. Mill within coming ten years, and the research methods employed. For the present, Mill students are strongly recommended to compare works on Mill by two historians, S. Hollander and S. Mawatari (The Economics of J. S. Mill, only in Japanese), and to draw suggestions regarding the topics and methods to be followed.
Hollander's position as a positivist historian is seriously damaged by his adherence to the continuity theorem, continuity from Ricardo to Mill, and continuity from classical to neo-classical economics. The inverse relation of wages and profit via price-mechanism, even if Ricardo had, was not what Mill succeeded from Ricardo. Mill insisted on the inverse relation in real terms. As a result, he paradoxically developed an almost complete theory of the partial equilibrium price-mechanism. Hollander's discussions regarding methodology, social philosophy and economic policies are somewhat too narrow.
It follows that there will be four fruitful research topics: First, J. S. Mill's philosophy of science; second, value and distribution in Ricardo and Mill; third, J. S. Mill's theory on the state and the market, and fourth, Mill's position in the history of Utilitarianism from Hume to Sidgwick. The last area is that which I am most interested in.

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In this paper, we analyze John Stuart Mill's theory of the ideal stationary state and clarify its nature in connection with the law of the falling rate of profit. The chapter 'Of Product' in Principles of Political Economy (1848) notes that in the absence of innovation, a constant population could not be maintained permanently at constant wage and profit rates because of the exhaustibility of natural resources. The chapter 'Of the Stationary State' clarifies that the richest and most prosperous countries would very soon attain the stationary state of capital and wealth, if no further improvements were made in the productive arts. Mill claimed that the law of diminishing returns and the law of population would bring a dreaded and deprecated stationary state at the end of a progressive state which was so termed by political economists. Mill, however, regarded the stationary state as a necessary state in the progress of civilization. Mill recognized the dismal stationary state would be brought about because of the unfair and incomplete system of private property. Thus, the present system of private property should be modified into a fair and complete one, which was a matter of urgency. Mill claimed that social reforms including land reforms and the introduction of joint-stock companies were an absolute necessity. He believed that further improvements in the productive arts and better distribution of property would bring the ideal condition of society, even in the stationary state. In fact, in the middle of the 19th century, unskilled labourers lapsed into poverty and moral decadence; many labourers were becoming poorer, while the wealthy owned capital and land, which raised violent conflicts between capital owners and workers. In order to settle the matter, Mill said there was a necessity for land reforms and the introduction of joint stock companies to establish a fair and better distribution system. From Mill's perspective, the ideal stationary state contains leading features; higher living standards which could develop the intellectual and moral standards of workers and cultivate their abilities of sympathy. Mill noticed that there was the law of inverse relationship between cost of labour and profit; higher real wages would encourage labourers to increase productivity, which would reduce the total cost of labour and at the same time would increase profit rates of capital. That was why Mill stressed the importance of human development of both labour and capital and why Mill recognized the significance of jointstock companies in which labourers could become skilled and develop their abilities and individual specialties in the production process. This paper emphasizes Mill's economic philosophy should be considered alongside his moral philosophy. Mill asserted that elevating the level of intellectual and moral standards among people would improve productivity and raise wage and profit rates, which could realize the ideal state of society, even in the stationary state.

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The aim of this paper is to show John Stuart Mill's first prospect for the stationary state. The stationary state is one of the famous terms in political economy, which means a state of human society where the wealth of a nation does not increase nor decrease. It is well known that Mill celebrates it in his treatise Principles of Political Economy. Our conclusion is that Mill's first prospect for the stationary state is one which does not suppose a realization of this state. Previous studies offer an interpretation that Mill regards a practice of associations as a process of realizing the ideal stationary state. For the 3rd and subsequent editions of Mill's Principles, we maintain that this interpretation is appropriate. However, this is only true with regard to these editions. The construction of this paper is as follows: First, it is shown that whereas he considers a progressive state of national wealth the best option for the time being, Mill thinks that an ideal of human society is the kind of stationary state in which people have no intention of increasing wealth. From this, a question arises as to how this ideal stationary state can be realized. Then we compare the theory of associations in the 1st and 2nd editions of Mill's Principles with that in the 3rd and subsequent editions. We conclude that in former editions, a prospect that the ideal stationary state can be realized through a practice of associations is not proposed; Mill judges a practice of associations not to be realistic at present and scarcely refers to changes in society to which it will give occasion. As described above, a realization of the ideal is not proposed in the 1st and 2nd editions of Mill's Principles. However, we can seek, even in these editions, the meaning of the theory of the stationary state: to change attitudes of legislators. Based on this theory, Mill proposes to legislators that they ought to put the greatest importance not on the mere increase of production but on the improvement of distribution, "as the true desideratum."

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This essay examines contemporary arguments for basic income in view of Marxian theories of political economy. In the first section, it begins with a general definition of basic income as a regular income publicly supplied to all individual social members without means test. This idea has gathered academic and social attention in Western Europe since the 1980s. It reflected a deadlock of traditional welfare policies, as individualistic life style (such as single mothers and elderly singles) became widespread, as well as increasing irregular workers with unstable jobs. It has been supported not just by social democrats among other various ideologists but also by influential Marxian theorists as a policy device possibly to guarantee real freedom for all in a future society via social democracy against the Soviet model. When the idea is introduced into Japan after two decades, however, it is argued mainly within a framework of reformation of the existing social security system in a capitalist society. The possible academic contributions from the view of Japanese Marxian political economy to this contemporary issue still remain to be explored. In the second section, a history of this idea is briefly reviewed. Two types of social thoughts which flowed into the contemporary arguments for basic income are discernible. The first type originates from T. Pain, asserting social need and legitimacy of basic income redistribution upon the premise of capitalist market economy. The second type assumes either centrally planned or market socialist society where some sorts of basic income for social members as communal owners of means of production are easily and duly to be realized. However, full basic income, which is sufficient to maintain an ordinary economic life for individual persons by itself, would not be realizable theoretically even in models of market socialism, not to mention capitalist societies, so long as it would seriously damage functions of labour market and incentive for market labour. In the third section, affinities between ideas of basic income and Marxian political economy are investigated. For instance, Marx's own image of future society beyond capitalism as 'association of free individuals' is clearly closer to the contemporary socialist idea of basic income to achieve real freedom for all individuals rather than to the Soviet model of society. Marxian analysis of contemporary capitalism must serve to clarify the historical necessity and feasibility of basic income as an advanced form of social welfare policy, better and deeper than any other economic schools. On the other hand, contemporary arguments for basic income request reconsideration on some of Marxian thoughts and theories. For example, although Marx formulated that an ideal rule of redistribution 'from each according to one's ability, to each according to his need' is realizable only at the second higher phase of communist society, contemporary Marxian economists began to be aware that redistribution according to one's necessity could be at least gradually and partially realizable already in the form of advanced social security system or its reform program as basic income. Further, if Marx's theoretical treatment of skilled or complex labour is reconsidered as suggested in this essay, Marxian labour theory of value would easily gain affinity with the idea of basic income demanding fundamentally egalitarian redistribution of income. Thus this essay attempts to show that Marxian basic theories of value, surplus-value and economic crisis can serve well as a basic frame of reference also for examining the historical significance of contemporary arguments on basic income.

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In this paper, historical and social significance of ideas and practices of local (or community) currencies are examined, starting from economic thoughts and theories of Silvio Gesell. (1)Gesell's major work Die naturliche Wirtschaftsordnung durch Freiland und Freigeld (1916) was highly appreciated by J. M. Keynes. It aims at socialism with human freedom by abolishing unearned income such as ground rent and interest. In order to abolish ground rent, nationalization of land is to be achieved through offering certain amounts of state bond to private owners of land. The resultant payment of rent to the state is to be redistributed to mothers in proportion to their number of children (just like a sort of basic income). Whereas the idea to nationalize land does not seem particularly unique, Gesell's thoughts and theories of money and interest are quite original. In his view, traditional money has an advantage over all other commodity products physically not to decay or rust. Therefore money can easily be withdrawn from a market without loss, while other commodities are enforced to be sold. Under the circumstances interest is obtainable to money owners like merchants when they exchange their money with other commodities. In order to abolish interest as unearned income, traditional money has to be converted into 'stamp money', which needs carry-over cost like other commodities in the form of duty to stick stamp of one thousandth amount of face value of paper money weekly (so as to make annual rate of 5%). Stamp money would no longer be able to demand interest, and must continuously stay in a market to be exchanged. Thus it must solve also a decisive cause of depression due to money hoarding. This paper would examine significance and weaknesses in Gesell's theories; such as negligence of profit as a more fundamental form of surplus value in a capitalist society, as well as the logical relevance of his theory of interest. (2)Then this paper treats the ideas and historical significance of local currencies, which were initiated under the strong influence of Gesell's arguments in the early 1930s. In many cases to set up local currencies, the form of stamp money was utilized in order to mitigate the economic distress under the Great Depression in local towns and communities. However, as the national economic recovery policies became strengthened, the central governments and central banks prohibited most of local currencies from a view of unified national budgetary and monetary policies at that period. After several decades, the second wave of upsurge of local currencies has globally been conspicuous in our age of continuous economic crises and restructuring since 1970s. The number of local currencies grew rapidly especially since 1990s, and reached more than two thousands in the world, and more than five hundreds in Japan. They are largely facilitated by development of information technologies such as personal computer and mobile phones. Their forms are no longer limited to stamp paper money, but multiplied. For instance cases of Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) organize mutual debit account system through computerized records, without issuing paper money. In most cases of recent local currencies either in LETS type or in paper money type, interest is not paid for saving or debt, by following Gesell's idea. However, those to charge minus interest rate such as stamp money in Gesell's model became rare. At the same time quite a number of recent local currencies intend to organize equal exchange of labour time by using labour time as unit of account or setting money unit proportional to labour time (say 10 dollars per one hour of labour). This idea is disconnected from Gesell's, and follows the genealogy of labour money presented by Ricardian socialists, or R. Owen. In this genealogy, abolishment of surplus value based on exploitation of

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