Homo Oeconomicus, Rural Community, and Peasant Revolution : modern rural historical studies in postwar Japan and moral economy theories
Futoshi Yamauchi (Nagano College of Economy) and Naoki Odanaka (Tohoku University)
(Tohoku University TERG Discussion Paper 142, 1998)
(c)Futoshi Yamauchi and Naoki Odanaka, All Rights Reserved.
I. The discovery of the peasantry in history : from the nineteen-twenties to 1945
In the nineteen-twenties, Japan was advancing toward the great crisis of 1929. It was then that Japanese historians discovered the importance of the peasantry in history. Many intellectuals of this period, including historians, were interested in how to characterize Japanese society. A famous debate called Nihon-Shihonshugi-Ronso (the debate over Japanese capitalism) arose over the question of whether Japanese society was already capitalist. Two schools opposed each other there. One, Koza-Ha, insisted that Japanese society was not yet capitalist, and another, Rono-Ha, regarded it as sufficiently capitalist. The importance of this debate for us historians lies in two areas. First, as Japanese society was still dominantly agrarian, there was an emphasis on the relations between the peasantry and commercialization (market-oriented production), commonly regarded as a precondition for the establishment of capitalism. Second, historians interested in this debate chose modern rural history as a major object of research. But, with the coming of the wartime system in the later half of the nineteen-thirties, the freedom to research was lost until 1945.(1)
Needless to say, this concern was not peculiar to Japanese historians. Studies on the relation of the peasantry and commercialization have born much fruit all around the world. The most noticeable are the so-called "moral economy" theories, presented systematically in the nineteen-seventies. Among them, Edward Thompson and James Scott were introduced in Japan at the end of the nineteen-seventies. This paper considers what relation there has been between these theories and rural historical studies in Japan.(2)
II.Before the introduction of moral economy theories : from 1945 to the nineteen-seventies
After World War II, historical studies in Japan were dominated by the so-called Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha (comparative economic history school) led by Hisao Otsuka. Following in the footsteps of Koza-Ha, it intended to discover how to modernize Japan by analyzing the process of the commercialization, which it saw as a component of modernization. We begin by considering the research by this school.(3)
Taking European history as a model for the course which postwar Japan should take, the school asked : Why did Europe realize a smooth commercialization ? Based on Karl Marx, it discovered the driving force of commercialization in the independent and free peasants. Emerging in the middle ages, they accumulated wealth, establishing a polarization between rich and poor. In the course of the industrial revolution, the former became capitalists and the latter wage laborers, and so established a capitalist society. From the interest in these free and independent peasants emerged three main objects of research for historians. First, Homo Oeconomicus. How could wealth be saved in order that the commercialization be realized ? Adopting Max Weber, Hikaku-Keizaishi-gakuha claimed that Puritanism played an important role in the accumulation of wealth by peasants. This religion regards irrational devotion to economic activity as a calling, which leads to profit-maximizing. Sixteenth-century England saw the birth of human beings who attempted to maximize profit rationally. We call such people Homo Oeconomicus. The school hoped to see this Homo Oeconomicus appear in Japan. Second, rural community. Pre-commercialized rural society was regulated by the network among rural people with some collective regulative function, which we call rural community. According to Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha, we need to analyze this community in order to find a way to break it down, for its dissolution was necessary for the commercialization. Third, peasant revolution. What was necessary for commercialization ? The school thought that a bourgeois revolution must be experienced. Influenced by this argument, historians turned to the research concerning revolutions by the peasantry, which was regarded to be a main component of bourgeois revolution.(4)
These three objects, Homo Oeconomicus, community, and peasant revolution, attracted not only Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha, but also a number of historians. Modern rural historical studies began to prosper again. When considering Japan, historians were concerned with the question of why a pre-commercialized social structure had persisted until 1945. Concerning Europe, their concern was to discover why Europe had succeeded in bringing about commercialization.
(i) Homo Oeconomicus or Homo non-Oeconomicus ?
First of all we will look at what moral economy theories said about peasants in modern rural society and whether they could be called Homo Oeconomicus. According to Thompson, the eighteenth century "English crowd," including the peasants, had a notion of moral economy, a "consistent traditional view of social norms" claiming that the right to live is superior to the right to private property. Peasants had a certain rationality in pursuit of their purpose, but they were not Homo Oeconomicus, for their purpose was not to maximize profit. As to whether they were economic-rational, a judgment is difficult to be made, for Thompson explained the moral economy in legal and cultural terms such as custom, right, or legitimacy.(5)
Differing from Thompson, Scott tried analyzing the consciousness within the field of economy. Taking the peasants of Burma and Vietnam as objects of analysis, he discovered that the stability of profit was more important to them than its maximization.@This theory, made under the influence of a Russian economist Aleksandr Chayanov, was severely criticized by Samuel Popkin as soon as it was published. Claiming that the peasants' economic consciousness is based on the pursuit of maximizing profit, Popkin regarded them as "rational" every inch. Scott agreed with him, however, that peasants pursued their purposes in an economically rational manner. What Scott emphasized is that, as peasants' purpose was not to maximize profit, they are not Homo Oeconomicus, but that they have a different economic rationality. Economic rationality could have purposes other than profit-maximizing.(6)
We can now turn to the rural historical studies in Japan made before the nineteen-seventies. Studies of European history generally accepted Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha's argument that free and independent peasants were Homo Oeconomicus. Their research proceeded to consider when and how such peasants appeared. Of course there were criticisms of Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha's image of England. They emphasized the historical role of the country gentlemen and the Anglican Church instead of peasants and Puritanism, but, to our regret, did not take the problem of economic rationality into consideration.(7)
Studies of Japanese history were still under the strong influence of Koza-Ha. It was widely claimed that Japanese rural society was not completely commercialized until 1945. Under the "semi-feudal" tenancy system, peasants in prewar Japan suffered from excessively high rents, which prevented them from becoming Homo Oeconomicus. Studies of Japanese modern history presented an image of the peasantry different from that of "typical" peasantry deduced from European history, that is to say, Homo Oeconomicus.(8)
(ii) Rural community studies a la mode
Thompson's moral economy theory did not contain an analysis of rural community. Scott regarded it as an institution which secures the subsistence of peasants, but lacked a sufficient analysis of its establishment or relation to commercialization. Among Japanese historians, on the contrary, rural community studies was a la mode. Japanese rural community was still functioning as an regulative and normative institution in the first half of the twentieth-century, when Japanese constitutional structure (Kokutai) itself was "communal and patriarchal." With the experience of living in it, many historians could not but have an interest in it.(9)
Studies of European history were interested in the distributive function performed by the rural community concerning arable land. This distribution was based on the principle of "formal equality," giving the same area of arable land to each household and not always securing the subsistence of large families.(10)
Studies of Japanese history, particularly attracted by the question of how rural community was made, concentrated on rural society in the formative era of community, the early-modern ages (from the later half of the sixteenth century to 1867). According to them, slaves and servants had depended on land proprietors until Taiko-Kenchi, the land survey ordered by Hideyoshi Toyotomi in the fifteen-eighties. Taiko-Kenchi purified the seigneurial land system, resulting in the relative independence of slaves and servants who became serfs. They were regarded as the basic class within early-modern rural inhabitants. Taiko-Kenchi was a "feudal revolution," in that it realized the transition from the patriarchal slave system based on the dependent people's labor to the feudal system with the serf labor. In the later half of the seventeenth century, the growing independence of serfs made it worth calling them peasants. The emergence of the peasantry intensified the need for Iriai, the common use of rivers and forests. This need worked as a catalyst for the organization of rural community. The typical early-modern rural community is a flat unity based on neighborhood, composed of these relatively independent and self-managing peasants. This argument was advanced then by many historians. Use of irrigation water and forests were fundamental conditions for agricultural production, which could not be performed by individuals. Peasants gathered into rural community in order to realize effective administration through the general will. A communal bond restrained the autonomy of each individual, sometimes disturbing agricultural production itself. What these historians regarded as rural community was a spatial bond among neighboring peasants, organized around the common use and administration of rivers and forests.(11)
This theory was criticized by some historians, who claim that rural community is a network without economic purpose. It is constructed, not on the neighborhood, but on kinship or pseudo-kinship networks, which give it a hierarchical structure based on the extended family. Certainly there existed a spatial unity based on the neighborhood, which was called Sonraku (village), but it was no more than an administrative unit under the domination by feudal lords, and without agricultural function. This theory differed from the orthodox view over what was the basis of a rural community. To be emphasized, however, is the fact that both theories regarded the rural community as anti-commercial, evaluating it negatively. All the historians studied rural community in order to know what relation it had with the delay of Japanese commercialization. Behind their research lay a desire to commercialize (and therefore modernize) Japanese rural society. This task made rural community studies a la mode.(12)
(iii) The debate over "commercialization-oriented peasant revolution" theory
Keywords in historical studies in postwar Japan were "bourgeois revolution" and "peasant revolution" in particular. Why did these attract so much attention ? We begin by examining studies of the French Revolution by Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha. They placed the core of the French Revolution in the fact that free and independent peasants overthrew domination by feudal lords, establishing unencumbered property, thus preparing for a modern capitalist society. Calling this movement a peasant revolution, they took it to be commercialization-oriented and therefore to possess economic rationality.(13)
Behind such an understanding of peasant revolution existed a judgment that prewar Japan was semi-feudal. It was necessary to mold postwar land reform into a kind of peasant (and therefore bourgeois) revolution, and to use it as a chance to realize modern society. Historians were to contribute to this reform by studying peasant revolution. Historical studies had a very practical character in those days. As this consciousness was shared by most Japanese people, Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha's argument received wide acceptance and had a strong influence. For example, the first comprehensive work in Japan about the German March Revolution of 1848 essentially depended on it.(14)
It was, however, widely criticized from the very start. These criticisms were based on another theory of peasant revolution, advocated by Georges Lefebvre. He agreed with Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha that peasant revolution was a component of bourgeois revolution. Peasants demanded, however, that communal rights be maintained, resisting the development of commercialization. Without a commercialization-oriented character, peasant revolution could not be economic-rational. In rivalry with the bourgeoisie during the course of the French Revolution, this peasant revolution was lost and a capitalist modern society was born. This theory reminds us of that by Scott, which understood peasant revolution as a resistance to the invasion of the commercial economy following colonization. Lefebvre, Japanese historians influenced by him, and Scott shared the judgment that peasant revolution was not commercialization-oriented.(15)
The trend in studies of Japanese history differed. Most influenced by peasant revolution theories were studies in Jiyu-Minken (liberal democracy) movement, a popular movement in the eighteen-eighties which demanded democratization but was suppressed. Prewar Japan was considered to be in the semi-feudal era, but had there been no attempt of bourgeois revolution ? Historians were attracted by Jiyu-Minken movement which demanded respect for human rights and national sovereignty. They regarded it as a failed bourgeois revolution, adopting Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha's framework of bourgeois and peasant revolutions. Peasants took part in it on a search for a capitalist modern society.(16)
In Japan, where the bourgeois revolution failed, Jiyu-Minken movement was charged with hope. Its modern and therefore commercialization-oriented character was beyond doubt, leaving no room for Lefevbre's theory. This caused a complete break between European and Japanese historical studies.
Rural historical studies from 1945 to the nineteen-seventies shared an image of "typical" modern rural history wherein free and independent peasants emerge and break rural community in the course of peasant revolution to realize commercialization. Japan failed in this "typical" process. Believing that Japanese society in 1945 was still at the pre-modern stage, historians continued their research over European history in order to establish a model for Japan, and over Japanese history in order to find out obstacles to modernization and especially the reason why Japanese peasantry had not become Homo Oeconomicus.
Moral economy theories presented a different image of modern rural history. Homo non-Oeconomicus in itself, the peasantry had recourse to peasant revolution in order to resist commercialization. This historical process did not lead to what was important to most of Japanese historians. Unless their interest changes, moral economy theories had no basis to be accepted. That change happened at the end of the nineteen-sixties.
III.After the introduction of moral economy theories : from nineteen-seventies to today
(i) The preponderance of Homo non-Oeconomicus
From the latter half of the nineteen-fifties, economic development accelerated in Japan. As a consequence, public opinion became dominated in the nineteen-sixties by the view that Japan had already achieved modernization, and that was no longer necessary to pursue it. Such a trend in public opinion had to influence historical studies.
Historical studies began to change at the end of the nineteen-sixties, at first in the field of labor history. Inspired by "social history" or "popular movement" studies in England and France, many young historians presented a new image of the wage laborer. Freed from the existing grand theories, they attempted to grasp the real condition of wage laborers. Adopting this stance called "history from below," they found wage laborers to be Homo non-Oeconomicus. They faced what Thompson and Scott saw in modern rural society. Moral economy theories were accepted on this basis.(17)
It was not Scott but Thompson who influenced young historians over the understanding of the peasantry. Look at a work over food riots in early-modern England. According to it, food riots were a field where popular (including peasant) culture and elite culture met, confronted, and compromised with each other. Moral economy was comprehended not just as an economic consciousness, but as culture with a wide meaning. In this way we could take into consideration any phenomena outside the field of economy, such as concepts of law or government system. This stance has a great advantage, but weakens the reason to analyze the peasants' economic consciousness.(18)
Research under the influence of Thompson posed serious criticism of Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha's argument which had once been dominant in Japan. It was found that the English elite culture of the sixteenth century was experiencing both coexistence and conflict with popular culture without either economic rationality or discipline. At this time, which Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha regarded as the first era of modernization, many English were not Homo Oeconomicus. Today we can not talk about European rural history without reference to Thompson's theory.(19)
Studies of Japanese history needed time to accept moral economy theories. It was only in the nineteen-eighties that some research adopted Thompson's image of the peasantry. Already in the nineteen-sixties, however, a historian was creating an original argument in Japan, independent of but in rather parallel with Thompson. Analyzing popular thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries according to the so-called "popular history method" (advocated by Daikichi Irokawa), Yoshio Yasumaru became conscious that the peasantry was an active actor with its own thought. As soon as the commercialization started in the eighteenth century, peasants began spontaneously to create a "popular moral," a consciousness suitable for the new situation. This moral consisted of both economy and diligence, making them Homo Oeconomicus.(20)
Once there was a consensus that Japanese peasants had been prevented from becoming Homo Oeconomicus. If the circumstance had changed, they could have acquired economic rationality and pursued profit-maximizing. Since the nineteen-seventies, historians, accepting Thompson's argument, regarded the peasantry incapable of spontaneously becoming Homo Oeconomicus. Changes in the peasant's image could not but influence the images of rural community and of peasant revolution.(21)
(ii) A slow but steady change in rural community studies
Once flourishing, rural community studies have recently lost popularity. Behind this lies the fact that they have lost a sense of reality (of course this does not mean that they have not developed at all). We begin by looking at studies of European history. In studies of England or France which realized a relatively smooth commercialization, rural community studies have not progressed since Otsuka. Advances have been made in studies of relatively backward societies such as Germany or Russia. One of them regarded the "communal" structure as a fundamental characteristic of German society in the first half of the nineteenth century. Communal regulations were still effective there and restricted the development of the economy. Even after having lost power, rural community continued to be closed as an "order of land owners (that is to say, land proprietors and landed farmers)." Only land owners had its membership, forcing other inhabitants to depend on the rural community as "protected persons." In studies of Russian history, research concerning the Mir community has advanced. These studies could not, however, coalesce with reality.(22)
Studies of Japanese history, on the other hand, have found some new viewpoints. We can cite two of them here. First, some historians, attracted by the relation between the feudal lord and the peasantry, claimed that rural historical studies should analyze the peasants' image of the feudal society. Peasants fostered the thought that "peasantship" was a status and that the feudal lord must secure their subsistence and peasantship, which led to a consciousness that the upper classes should "restore" part of their wealth to the whole society. Second, there emerged remarkable research on Shitchi-Ukemodoshi, a custom of recovery of forfeited land. According to it, land in pawn or forfeited land could be recovered with the payment of the principal even though many years had passed since the pawn. In some regions, this custom had a strong regulative power as a bylaw. This "living law" had a logic peculiar to the consciousness that the subsistence of peasants should be secured. Land proprietors or village officers who ignored this custom were criticized as selfish, and communal sanctions were inflicted on them.(23)
Accepting these trends in rural historical studies, new researches of rural community were recently set forth. Regarding the possession of land as an essential element of rural community, they analyzed diverse phenomena in early-modern Japanese rural society such as Shitchi-Ukemodoshi, redistribution of land, the prohibition of the sale of land to non-members of rural community, and so on. Rural community had the function of administrating arable land, which a historian called "indirect communal ownership." It had two purposes. First, the maintenance of the subsistence of peasants. Second, the persistence of peace in the rural community, which in turn would secure the subsistence of peasants. Restricting the accumulation of land and aiming at maintaining the subsistence of peasants, this indirect communal ownership characterized Japanese community. Here was a social shock absorber which peasants needed in order to maintain their subsistence, as Scott insisted.(24)
Since the nineteen-seventies, studies of Japanese history have understood the rural community as a network for the subsistence of peasants and evaluated it positively, coming closer to Scott. They continue to claim that rural community and commercialization are contradictory to each other, but abandoned the judgment that the former should disappear. They found a new actuality in rural community studies, emphasizing that it functions to protect the social weak against the commercialization.(25)
(iii) The decline of "commercialization-oriented peasant revolution" theory
If peasants are not Homo Oeconomicus and rural community is not to be denied, then we do not have to hope for peasant revolution. Research in this field after the nineteen-seventies was characterized by a coolness in analysis. Does this mean that the commercialization-oriented character of peasant revolution is denied ?
Among studies on European peasant revolutions, the corroborative level has greatly progressed since Hikaku-Keizaishi-Gakuha or Lefebvre, and it is the latter who has obtained predominance and became orthodox. His influence is not limited to studies on bourgeois revolution. Historians of Russia began to apply it to the Russian socialist Revolution.@This revolution has once been regarded as being realized by the cooperation of urban factory workers and rural peasants, both exploited. In the corroborative analysis of that revolution, however, a peasant movement with its own claim was found. What peasants demanded most was not the realization of socialism, but the revival of Mir community which had been weakened by the reform politics of the Russian government since the beginning of the twentieth century. In the midst of the revolution, the Communist Party supported their claim and cooperated with them. The conflict between the two was inevitable, however, as long as the agricultural policy of the Communist Party was focused on the diffusion not of rural community but of Kolkhozes. Here lay the origin of the tragedy of the collectivization.(26)
How is the situation in studies of Japanese history ? Concerning Jiyu-Minken movement, there have recently emerged some studies critical of the orthodox view. According to them, peasants taking part in that movement presented unacceptable demands to a capitalist society, such as the return of foreclosed land. They acted with their own claims against commercialization. Behind this understanding lies an acceptance of moral economy theories and especially of Thompson. This acceptance seems slow compared with studies of European history, but here too moral economy theories have begun to permeate. There is, however, certain criticism of this new trend, saying that it overestimates the originality of the peasantry. This overestimation, it says, prevents analysis of the "inter-relation" between peasants and other social classes.(27)
In studies of European history, the commercialization-orientedness of peasant revolution began to be denied before the nineteen-seventies. In studies of Japanese history, it was very difficult to deny the commercialization-orientedness of Jiyu-Minken movement, which was charged with the hope of Japanese people. With the introduction of moral economy theories, this charge was removed at last.
Since the nineteen-seventies, historians have regarded modern rural society as a field where "as Homo non-Oeconomicus, peasants resisted commercialization by peasant revolution, having recourse to rural community." Rural historical studies in Japan have come very close to moral economy theories.
IV. The future ?
It does not mean that there is nothing more to learn from moral economy theories for Japanese rural historians. Thompson's theory treated not only the consciousness and behavior peculiar to peasants, but also the relation of obedience and domination between them and the ruling classes. The moral economy of peasants could not have existed without support from the ruling classes who preferred paternalistic rule. According to Thompson, however, the preference of the ruling classes changed in England at the end of the eighteenth century, abandoning paternalism and adopting economic liberalism. We need to analyze the structure of rule in Japanese rural societies with this argument in mind. On the other side, Scott tried analyzing the peasants' consciousness in the field of economy and claimed that economic rationality could have various objects. Apt to extend analysis toward the field of culture, Japanese historians should respect his stance and think about the diversity of economic rationality.
Could Japanese historians contribute to the progress of moral economy theories then ? It seems possible, especially in the field of rural community studies. Since 1945, they have made corroborative and theoretical analyses over various aspects of rural community. It is not only possible but also necessary to enrich, by the fruit of these studies, moral economy theories. There remains much to discuss.
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