Landlords and Rural Capitalists in the Modernization of Japan

Bibliographic Data

ID5152709
AuthorsThomas C Smith (0000-0003-0578-5436, Stanford University, corresponding author)
Year1956
Volume16
Issue2
Pages165-181
Publication date1956-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Economic History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0507 • E-ISSN: 1471-6372
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022050700058630
OpenAlexW2136249544
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited1

There is impressive evidence that wealthy peasants contributed significantly to the success of the Meiji Restoration, the political revolution that launched Japan on her career of modernization. These rural capitalists, for such they were, helped to give the revolution direction as well as power. How otherwise is one to account for a government dominated by samurai, the elite carriers of tradition, following policies that did great violence to Japan's past and destroyed the privileged status of the warrior class? But if the influence of the representatives of rural wealth was so strong, why did they consent to a clique of warriors holding political power almost as a private prerogative for a generation after the Restoration? Despite the demand for a share in power in the eighties, they did consent and weakly accepted the Meiji constitution which sanctified authoritarian government

Authoritarianism · Constitution · Democracy · Economic history · Economics · Elite · Government (linguistics) · Meiji Restoration · Modernization theory · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Prerogative · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Japanese History and Culture · Law

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