This book discusses the development of the Japanese economy from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries from the viewpoint of the consumer. Previously, it has been chiefly such actors as the producer, the manager, the worker, the merchant, and the financial bureaucrat who have been cast into the main roles in research on pre-modern Japanese economic history; rarely has a direct account of the consumer been attempted. By adopting this angle, the book makes a valuable and significant contribution. Let me begin with a simple introduction to the book's contents.
The overall aim of the book is explained in the first chapter, “Japan and the history of consumption.” The author sets out to describe, from the viewpoint of ordinary people's everyday lives, the emergence of the economic forces which produce the goods we now use and enjoy. As such, the author makes “ordinary consumers” the keyword of this book. The author believes that an understanding of the demand side is important, and takes the growth of consumption as a basis for understanding how Japan achieved economic development and industrialization.
Chapter 2, “Shopping in the city,” treats the growth of the city and the birth of city culture during the early Tokugawa period, from the seventeenth century through the first half of the eighteenth century. Many castle towns were built during the seventeenth century – Edo in particular became a big city, and the author identifies the sankin-kōtai 参勤交代, or “alternative residence system” as the most important factor in this. The sankin-kōtai system required the families of the feudal lords (daimyo) to live in Edo, and for the lords themselves to shuttle between their territories and Edo at specified intervals. As a result, the families of the feudal lords all over the country had to live in Edo, accompanied by the large numbers of samurai who served under them. As Edo became a big city, many townspeople and merchants also established themselves there in order to satisfy the consumption demand of these samurai, and developed the food service industry. In this way, the infrastructure which allowed people to enjoy a life of consumption took shape during the Tokugawa period, beginning in large cities such as Edo.
Chapter 3, “Country gentlemen, ordinary consumption and the development of the rural economy,” deals with consumption trends which led the development of the rural economy from the second half of the eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth. The author points out that during the eighteenth century the city growth boom ended, the employment absorbency of the cities slackened, and economic growth shifted to the rural areas which were producing the goods to send to the cities, accompanied by an increase in the local population. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, local people's purchasing power had increased to the point where demand from ordinary consumers for new goods led to an expansion in commercial distribution among rural regions during the first half of the nineteenth century.
Chapter 4, “Civilising goods,” describes how consumption habits in Japan developed during the second half of the nineteenth century. The author argues that the manufacture of special products, which had developed in rural areas during the latter part of the Tokugawa period, continued into the modern age in the form of traditional industries and played an important role in the industrialization of Japan. And, the author emphasizes that the demand created by the spending of “ordinary consumers” who had appeared in the Tokugawa period in rural as well as urban areas supported the economic development of modern Japan.
Chapter 5, “Living with modernity,” discusses how new consumer goods of Western origin came to provide the framework for the urban middle class's consumption habits during the inter-war years in Japan. At the same time, the author emphasizes that traditional Japanese goods improved in quality and variety by adopting Western styles, and also satisfied the new consumption demand.
Chapter 6, “The electrical household,” describes how miraculous economic growth was achieved after defeat in World War II, and how various goods of Western style, such as home electronics, were adopted in the consumption habits of Japan. However, the author points out that elements of the pre-war modernized Japanese lifestyle formed in the cities also survived in parallel.
Chapter 7, “New tribes and nostalgia,” describes consumption habits in Japan after the 1970s, when the generation born after World War II came into the center of consumption activity. And in Chapter 8, “The Japanese consumer past and present,” features of consumption habits in Japan are discussed from a historical viewpoint, comparing them with those of Europe. The author notes that traditional goods were modernized and survived in the consumption habits of Japan, and that these same habits, though often characterized as frugal, continued to be a driving force for important economic growth.
Thus, this book is unique in offering an account of the consumption habits of Japan from a long-range perspective, paying special attention to the relation between traditional goods and imported new articles. However, there are a few points where the reader might feel uneasy with the author's perception of Japanese history, and I would like to offer a few comments in this regard.
The first concerns the historical evaluation of the period from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century. The author has put forth a perception that the population in large cities increased and that the urban economy grew during the seventeenth century, and afterward, in the eighteenth century, the center of economic activity shifted to rural areas. It appears that the author considers the sankin-kōtai system to be the main force driving the development of the consumption economy, and indeed this is a widespread perception, but it should be remembered that during the seventeenth century agricultural cultivation also grew on a correspondingly large scale, and it is now thought that rural areas as well as cities underwent substantial population growth during this time. Rising production in rural areas followed rising demand in local castle towns during the seventeenth century, and overemphasizing the role of large cities such as Edo might possibly lead to misunderstanding.
My second comment concerns the relation between traditional products and new imported goods. The author argues that the disparity between social classes as distinguished by income level substantially determined patterns of purchase of the new imported goods, that the purchase of the new imported goods by local elites stimulated the expansion of the new market to rural areas, and that people's liking for traditional goods owned by the elites served as the background for the traditional goods being modernized and preserved.
This reviewer has analyzed the household financial accounts of local wealthy persons and landed farmers, and demonstrated that there were new imported articles which both local wealthy persons and landed farmers purchased, and that there were also types of new imported articles which the local wealthy persons did not purchase – owing to the price being cheap – but which the landed farmers did purchase.Footnote 1 It appears that there was a qualitative difference in the consumption demand between occupational groups which we cannot explain simply from the viewpoint of the income gap. In view of this, it seems that it is necessary to examine more deeply the complicated processes of the introduction of Western styles to Japan.
The third comment is about the development of the consumption economy during the inter-war years. Although the author discussed the relation between the formation of city culture and the consumption economy to highlight the formation of the urban middle class, there were also regions where the rent paid by tenant farmers showed a tendency to fall, with a corresponding upward tendency in the income of farming villages in the 1920s. We wish the author had done more to develop the argument about the relationship between the consumption economy in cities and farm villages during the inter-war years.
The above comments also reflect future topics of research for this reviewer, who hopes to carry forward research into the consumption economy in twentieth-century Japan, building on the approach laid down in the book under review.
