European Reformism, Nazism and Traditionalism

This study analyses the impact of European ideas about the reform of capitalism on the economic thought in Japan before 1945. The thoughts of Keynes, Rathenau and Sombart attracted the attention of contemporary Japanese. The influence of Nazism on them was far-reaching. They amalgamated it into a traditional style of totalitarianism under Tennoism.

This study analyses the economic thought in Japan in the critical period from 1930 to 1945. It pays particular attention to how the contemporary Japanese received European and American ideas about the transformation of capitalism from a liberal to controlled or managed economy, and how they applied them to the economic system in Japan. They were interested in English thoughts for the reform of capitalism by the evolutionary ways: those of J. M. Keynes in his The End of Laissez-Faire, reformism of G.D.H. Cole and others. German thought of W. Rathenau and W. Sombart attracted the attention of reform-minded Japanese. The influence of National Socialism on them was far-reaching. This study analyses in detail how they accepted Nazism and amalgamated it into a traditional style of totalitarianism under the emperor system.

Autorentext

Osamu Yanagisawa studied Economics at Tokyo University, where he also received his PhD. Afterwards he worked in Nuremberg (Germany) by the scholarship of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung and taught Economic History, mainly at Tokyo Metropolitan University. He is now Professor Emeritus.

Inhalt
Contents: Capitalism and transformation of the corporation The crisis of capitalism and the controlled economy Japanese analysis of the Nazi economic system An economy for total war: Japan and the Nazi model The Japanese new economic order and Nazi economic thought The new labour system and Nazism Nazi Germany and Japan in the eyes of contemporary economists.