Tax Reform as Social Policy

Adjusting to change in interwar Japan

Bibliographic Data

ID3611533
AuthorsAndrea Revelant (0000-0003-1903-6540, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume47
Issue3
Pages851-894
Publication date2013-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0026749x12000522
OpenAlexW2026930448
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited24

In the wide domain of finance, taxation is one of the issues to which public opinion is most sensitive. This paper explores why tax reform was hotly debated in Japan throughout the 1920s, focusing on the policies of the two main political parties. Though a topic rarely treated by historians, this controversy reveals a wealth of information on the concerns that lay behind policy choices in years that were marked by economic instability and social unrest; it shows, in particular, how the ruling elites tried to attenuate class conflict by enhancing the redistributive function of taxes, which had thus far been subordinated to the encouragement of rapid economic growth and the financing of state investment. While these attempts deserve attention as tentative steps towards the development of a welfare state, their limits indicate that the parties, in spite of extending the suffrage during this period, retained strong links with a restricted network of established constituents. This paper dwells especially on the earliest and least studied phase of the dispute on tax reform, in order to prove that the emergence of distinct party platforms did not stem simply from tactical considerations, but was rooted in broader policy visions

Economics · Investment (military · Market economy · Order (exchange · Political economy · Political science · Politics · State (computer science · Suffrage · Tax policy · Tax reform · Unrest · Finance · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies

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