Capitalism in Japan
The remote ancestors of the four major and nearly three thousand minor islands of Japan came from China, Manchuria and Korea. May be some of them came from South East Asia. No history of these migrations are available to us. We have only some mythical stories[1] which tell us how the invaders came and supplanted the existing inhabitants of Japan, Ainu.[2]
Geographically, Japan is a mountainous country. It has two plains: Kanto in the east and Kansai in the east. Tokyo, Yokohama and Kawasaki is in the east. The big cities of the west are Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe. The ancient capitals changing with every new emperor, were all in this Kansai area until a permanent capital was established in 794 at Kyoto. This remained the metropolis till 1868.
In the ancient days Japan had been heavily influenced by China which was considered very civilised and where from came ideographic script and the Buddhist religion. Buddhism arrived here in the middle of sixth century. But, in Japan Buddhism could not supplant the indigenous religion Shinto. Japanese ideas mostly came from China but these were remoulded in Japan.
Although the Emperor of Japan was the son of Heaven by virtue of divine descent very few Emperors exercised real power. From the 8th century to the 12th the governmental power rested in the hands of powerful family, Fujiwara. From 12th to mid 19th the real powers were enjoyed by a succession of Shogun (generalissimo). In this phase the military class was most powerful. The last great family of Shogun, the Tokugawa had adopted in the 17th century a policy of national seclusion and it had kept Japan somewhat aloof from the changes taking place in other countries. Some foreigners, however, like the Dutch and the Chinese, were allowed to a limited trade from only one centre- Nagasaki. No other foreigners were allowed in Japan and Japanese were forbidden to go abroad. Other religions like the Christianity, introduced in the sixteenth century by Portuguese Jesuits, were suppressed.
The intrusion of the outside word came in 1850s when Commodore Perry of the United States forced the Japanese Emperor to open the gate of Japan for foreigners.
The Shogun’s government was overthrown by a combination of feudal lords and their retainers from south west Japan. This led to the Meiji restoration which had aimed to bring back real powers to the sacred king. Now the capital shifted from Kyoto (west) to a new city Tokyo in the east. With this began modernisation of Japan.
Modernisation of Japan
After the Meiji Restoration Japan became an eager pupil of the West. To move ahead, the founding father of modernisation in Japan decided, the country needed compulsory state education. New techniques were learnt in a hurry and very soon Railways, steamships, harbours, banks, printing presses, and post offices were established in Japan. With that came modernisation of army and navy. By 1890s Japan was strong enough to challenge China militarily. In the war it defeated China and Japan got Farmosa and some other territories. In the next ten years, in 1905, Japan was able to defeat Russia also. After the First World War Japan was considered a super power and it was given a permanent seat on the Council of the league of Nations. This rise of Japan as a great super power was in some ways more spectacular than the rise of Germany.
The period between 1873 and 1905 has been divided into two phases: the years of caution (1873-94) and Power in the East (1894-1905).
These successes, however, brought new set of problems for Japan. As a historian puts it : “ Japan now became engaged in international rivalries at a level which threatened to exceed her resources. She also discovered that her territorial expansion aroused resentments among her neighbours that were hindrance to her trade, becoming distasteful on that account to many Japanese whose livelihood depended on industry and commerce. As a result, the focus of debates on foreign policy changed. After 1905 the point at issue was not so much the choice between adventure and caution, as between different ways of extending Japanese influence overseas.”[3]

The problems generated by Japanese Capitalism

1. Japan’s total population in 1873 was about 35 million. In the next three decades it reached to about 46 million and in 1925 its population rose to 60 million. This added population mostly depended on commerce and industry and they lived in cities and towns. Life in these cities was very different from that of Tokugawa times. The slums, suburbs of the pattern of western industrial societies became part of Japanese society also. New kind of experiences like using things which had been only used by the samurais in old days ( like straw mat floor [tatami] and rice paper partition [shoji]. Better supply of goods, use of kerosene lamps, more options of foodstuffs, new clothes and so on. Per capita income increased from 170 yen a year in 1893-7 to 220 in 1918-22. The figures for industrial workers rose from 316 yen to 444 yen in the same period but incomes in agriculture and forestry rose only from 83 yen to 163 yen.[4] As the picture was not uniform and the growth was uneven for some people the changes were not satisfactory. A foreign visitor to Japan was told by a Japanese villager just before 1920: “In the old days the farmer did not complain; he thought his lot could not be changed. He was forbidden to adopt a new calling and he was restricted by law to a frugal way of living. Now farmers can be soldiers, merchants or officials and can live as they please. They begin to compare their standard of living with that of other callings.”[5]
[1] According to these myths Japan was created by the gods and the grandson of the sun goddess came down, at her command , to rule Japan. Since then the king is considered sacred and even modern Japanese nationalism believed in this mythology.
[2] Some of these Ainu descendents still live in the northern island of Hokkaido.
[3] W.G. Beasley, Text book, The Rise Of Modern Japan (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), p.140.

[4] Beasley, Ibidi, p. 123.
[5] J. W. Robertson Scott, Text book, The Foundations Of Japan (London: Murray, 1922), p. 65, cited in W.G. Beasley, Text book, The Rise Of Modern Japan (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), p.123-24.