Kita Ikki (北 一輝) was a Japanese author and thinker in the Taisho and early Showa era, commonly credited for being the father of the statist Japanese ultra-nationalism of the Showa era. In 1919 his text “The Reorganization of Japan” he expands upon the ideas to Limit on Private Wealth in his 1906 “Kokutairon and Pure Socialism” text. By introducing the system of the Three Pillars (Limits on private wealth, private property and private industry) he seeks to limit the inequality within Japanese society and build the fundamental economic policy to create harmony within Japanese society. He provides a step by step blueprint on how he implement such a policy from chapter II to IV.
Firstly, a limit of private wealth up to 3,000,000¥ per family would be set.1. Adjusted by inflation this would roughly be the value of 20,000,000$ in 2019, thus it would still be possible for a family to amass a considerable amount of privately owned capital.2. The state would garnish the surplus amount of capital, land and business to manage it through a state-run bureau that would employ or secure the livelihood of all the citizens.3
Secondly, he would only put a limit on land ownership, but would give no guarantee of land ownership. Strangely Kita Ikki describes the right of land as a god given right to be a baseless assumption, but then explains the relation between tenant and landlord as natural will of god.
“The existence of landlords and tenants can be seen as the will of God and also as a necessary stage in the development of a society”3
Limits on land ownership was therefore not based on principle, but on necessity to maintain national unity through economic equality. It would depend on a case by case basis if land outside of cities and farmland would be given by the state to new private owners or administered by a state company.4
Lastly would a ceiling of 10 000 000¥ be set on all private enterprise. Again equality was the goal, but in this chapter Kita Ikki rejects the fundamental ideas of socialism. Self interest was the core idea driving man according to Kita Ikki, the state served only to contain this within reasonable limits. Society would get the benefit from the individuals risk taking and its adaptability to satisfy public demand in ways the public system could not.5 Every nation had big capital managed by huge trusts or cartels, it would be better if the state assumed this function. Seven ministries of Banks, Navigation, Mining, Agriculture, Industries, Commerce and Railways respectively would replace the current government bureaucracy.6 Wilson interprets that this was also intended as a specific attack on the great companies, most commonly refereed to as the Zaibatsu (financial clique, 財閥) that held considerable sway over the Japanese economy after the Meiji period.((George M. Wilson, Radical Nationalist in Japan: Kita Ikki, 1883-1937.,Sophia University, (Tokyo, 1970) p.70))
This hybrid of Capitalism and strict State Socialism would theoretically enable a certain financial stability and limit the excess of social inequality that currently plagued Japan. It has never to this day been implemented to such an extent as Kita Ikki suggests. The coups with Kita Ikki’s backing failed. But while the justification for national harmonization in preparation for war has fallen by the wayside, today the economic ideas of Kita Ikki survived his own lifetime. Wilson points out that the Americans would implement sweeping land reform with a remarkable resemblance to Kita Ikki’s ideas, as well as break up the Zaibatsu after the war. ((James L. McClain, Japan, A modern history, W.W. Norton, (New York, London, 2001) p. 543))7 Even today, in South Korea, the Chaebol still presents the social and economic challenges that larger corporations pose to equality within a state. The Three Pillars could perhaps provide an economic model to base reform on.
With it being written in 1919, the “The Reorganization of Japan” presents a remarkably modern and progressive economic solution that aims to achieve a moderate solution between the two extremes of the economic spectrum. It must however be mentioned that I have neglected to bring attention to the darker side of the Reorganization. The methods that would be used to implement the reform were extreme. A three year long martial law would be declare and the seizure of all excess capital, property and holdings would be accomplished by the use of the Army Reservist Association. Those that resisted the reorganization would be given the death penalty as traitors. The present rule of law and government would be absolved during the reorganization and thus legal protection would be void to the citizens of Japan.3 While radical, these ideas were not uncommon among Japanese nationalist and among great writers of the 20th century like Lenin in the chaotic aftermath of the Great War, the need for imminent action appeared more necessary than ever.
Bibliography:
McClain James L. , Japan, A modern history, W.W. Norton, (New York, London, 2001)
Tankha, Brij, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006)
Wilson, George M., Radical Nationalist in Japan: Kita Ikki, 1883-1937.,Sophia University, (Tokyo, 1970)
- Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 177 [↩]
- George M. Wilson, Radical Nationalist in Japan: Kita Ikki, 1883-1937.,Sophia University, (Tokyo, 1970) p.71
https://www.ssb.no/a/histstat/tabeller/24-28.html
https://www.ssb.no/kpi
I ran the JPY to USD Wilson provided againts with the USD to NOK historical averages of the bank of Norway exchange in 1920. Then adjusted for CPI to modern times. Public US and Japanese online financial archives on exchange rates unfortunately only date back to 1974 [↩] - Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 178 [↩] [↩] [↩]
- Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 182 [↩]
- Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 184 [↩]
- Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 189 [↩]
- George M. Wilson, Radical Nationalist in Japan: Kita Ikki, 1883-1937.,Sophia University, (Tokyo, 1970) p.70 [↩]