Author: Erling Skjalgsson

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)

 

 

1. Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 177 [↩]
2. 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 [↩]
3. Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 178 [↩] [↩] [↩]
4. Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 182 [↩]
5. Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 184 [↩]
6. Brij Tankha, Kita Ikki and the Making of Modern Japan: A Vision of a Modern Empire, (Kent, 2006) p. 189 [↩]
7. George M. Wilson, Radical Nationalist in Japan: Kita Ikki, 1883-1937.,Sophia University, (Tokyo, 1970) p.70 [↩]

Shimomura Torataro (1902-1995) was one of the representatives of the Kyoto School at the Overcoming Modernity summit. He submitted an article prior to the meeting on what he saw as the answer to overcoming modernity. He had as a second-generation representative of the Kyoto School studied under Nishida Kitaro and Tanabe Haijme.¹ In his essay “The Course of Overcoming Modernity” the focus is on the soul or the spirit and how to interpret it in contrast to the new machines is key to understanding modernity.

“Modernity” grew out of Europe and it has since become an integral part of Japan as it has in Europe. Thus “Modernity is to overcome ourselves”² . The Japanese can not overcome modernity by rejecting Europe. Only by negating themselves as can they negate modernity. The spirit is the key to the self, but modernity has changed it.

Shimomura sees modernity as the creator of the external machine civilization.³ Shimomura describes the renaissances as the opposite of the medieval period. The renaissance is not a destruction of a unity between spirit and nature, because there never was a true unity.  The development of the external nature has its roots in the ideas negated by force during the medieval period. It is merely a continuation of the same kinds of slavery to labour that man has been restricted to since the beginning of time.  Ultimately this slavery is rooted in the spirit. But machines have fundamentally changed the dynamic between spirit and the physical as its only advancing the external physical “civilization, not the internal spiritual “culture”. While the “old soul” has only been internal, the new “spirit” must be external. Modern science has redefined the understanding of the body as a machine and it requires a new spirit to be found with new interpretive methods that can aligned with this new physical reality. This must be done with a new theology.

Thus, the spiritual imbalance in modernity as Shimomura sees it is not rooted in a corruption of past beliefs, but a changing in the fundamental way we view the body. As the world has changed because of science so must our theological understanding of it. The new understanding of the self in comparison with our contemporary world is the only way to truly overcome modernity as modernity itself is the understanding of our spirit.

Biblography:

Richard Calichman, Overcoming Modernity, Columbia University Press, (New York, 2008)

 

1. Calichman, Overcoming Moderntity, p. 212 [↩]
2. Calichman, Overcoming Modernity, p.111 [↩]
3. Calichman, Overcoming Modernity, p.111 [↩]

A common theme when studying Japanese intellectuals and thinkers is the problem of placing them within a western ideological spectrum. None may be as difficult to understand as Kita Ikki as he blended both western and eastern philosophy into one world view. Its therefore fascinating to look at his theory on revolution.

Kita Ikki wrote down his observations on the revolutions after his experiences in China between 1911-1913. In his writings in 1916 he identified five points that all revolutions had in common.¹

• 1. Revolution itself does not consist of sudden or violent change. It is a war of ideas that makes a revolution something more than just violent unrest.
  2. Revolution results in the transformation of social values. It must replace the old, not just reform it.
  3. Modern revolutions have the effect of liberating all elements of society. Both in the political and economical sense.
  4. The agents of revolution are not a class, but a self-conscious elite that use the revolutionary ideals with combined political and military power. The current ruling class are never the agents of a revolution.
  5. Revolution is only an internal affair.

Not that these ideas are a completed analysis like the Marxist theory. Even Kita Ikki did not advocate them as a complete guide. He used the Lotus Sutra definition of revolution as a blurred line between being a traitor and loyal subject to show the uncertainty.² The ideas above can nonetheless be used as a basic blueprint to predict the course of future revolutions. I want to give special attention to point 5.

The ideas that influenced revolutions usually originated abroad. The French and Japanese revolution (referring to Meiji Ishin) owed a heritage to ideas from Britain and China respectively, but when ideas encountered a new society they would transform into their own unique blend. This is what made the revolution an internal matter. No idea nor ideology was perfect for every country and had to be implemented through a filter of national ideas. Kita Ikki loudly voiced his rejection of the dogmatic socialists within Japan as he himself rejected Marx’s fixation on the need for class revolution.³ Foreign intervention in an attempt to shape the revolution would only create chaos and unrest. The reason was simple; how could the British understand the French or the Japanese lecture the Chinese on being Chinese?

Revolution therefore had to be something each nation went through on their own. The reasons of a revolution had to be to change the internal political and economic nature of a country. It is for this reason Kita Ikki’s view on revolution is unique. Most Japanese liberals and socialist supported a Japanese copy of western society, but Kita Ikki argues instead that only Japan and other Asian countries have the understanding to create their own revolution. It had to be a fight to reform the nation from within. A singular revolution was often not enough as it often would be betrayed by reactionaries. Neither Japan nor France had attained a proper sovereign nor ended oligarchic rule as Kita Ikki put it.⁴ Kita Ikki did not include struggles like the American war of independence as a revolution since its objective had only been to expel the British.

What is not as clear is the definition on how far a nation’s borders extended. While criticizing Japanese and British attempts to get involved in the affairs of China or India, Kita Ikki did not attempt to advocate for the same rights to Ireland or Korea, both currently being ruled as colonies. Was this an unintentional paradox or practical concession to prevent internal disunity? Kita Ikki’s argued for the need to reconcile with China to avoid fighting a two-front war against their Asian brothers and the Western powers. George M. Wilson argues that this is a continuation of the Japanese tradition Naiyu Gaikan (Trouble from within and without). He argues that Kita Ikki believed that Japan faced the same situation as during the Meiji Ishin⁵. In light of this perspective its reasonable to believe that Kita Ikki could have accepted that Japan’s interior needed to include Korea as the threat of the west was greater than the Koreans right to national independence.

Kita Ikki’s theory of revolution can thus be seen as a response to western imperialism as it sought to create the political justification for Japan and other Asian nations to consolidate their internal revolutions without interference. This revolution would as Kita Ikki saw it lead to economic and political unity within the East Asian societies giving them the power to resist the Western powers. I will address Kita Ikki’s design for Japanese society in a later blog post.

 

1. George M. Wilson p.90-91 [↩]
2. George M. Wilson p. 92 [↩]
3. George M. Wilson p. 96 [↩]
4. George M. Wilson p.92 [↩]
5. George M. Wilson p.98 [↩]

Ishiwara Kanji’s national defense state was the idea of remodeling the Empire of Japan along a military controlled political order with a planned economy in preparation for an inevitable war with one or all the great powers. I wish to look at how the National Defense State treated the relation between civilian and military government and its contrast to the politics of the late Japanese Empire. Ishiwara had, unlike many other Japanese thinkers, an important position of power in most of major events of Japanese politics in the 1930s and I think it’s interesting to consider to what extent the National Defence State was part of a broader trend in the Japanese army.

Mark R. Peattie argues that the traditional European ideas of fascist or communist is unhelpful to understand Japanese interwar society and Ishiwara Kanji.1 (Peattie, p.254) Peattie’s main points is that Ishiwara’s imagined national defense state unlike a typical fascist state, lacked a military subordinate to a direct central dictator and the glorification of war. I think the National defense states share more similarities than differences to fascist rule Italy and Germany, but that it would be wrong to assume these ideas were imported from Europe. The cause of Japanese militarism was deeply imbedded into the state already by the Meiji constitution and it is important to see Ishiwara as part of a larger movement of statism in the 1930s following thinkers like Kita Ikki and Shumei Okawa.

What makes Ishiwara interesting is his focus on the role of the military. Formally he would place the military and civil administration apart as two distinct entities of the state. Yet in practical terms the military would overrule the civilian government.

Partially it can be explained with the justification of the Meiji emperor’s “Imperial Rescript to soldiers and sailors” the military were considered outside politics and the public opinion only charged with the duty of protecting the state. The rescript, as James L. McClain puts it, said that the soldier’s role was “To be loyal was to stand outside the fray of the political arena”. (McClain, p.202)  Ishiwara, and several other high-ranking army officers, interpreted this as the military had a duty to administer the protection of society without involvement from the civilian or “political” government. In the age of total war the army needed to mobilize civilian industry and resources to such an extent that it would have to be assured of its proper use. When challenged on financial concerns by a civilian official Ishikawa replied, “If the finance minister should declare that the five-year plan could not be completed, then the government should replace him with someone who could complete it.”(Peattie, p. 250) There was no doubt Ishiwara thought the military had the legitimacy to intervene in all affairs of the state because of the threat of war. The army clad in the justification of protecting the empire and serving the emperor would thus work as a ruling body outside of any control or administration. While not being controlled by a single dictator like a fascist state, its power would be held by a small clique of leading officers and channeled through a religious figurehead emperor and a bureaucratic civilian government. The military would not be subject to any obligation other than war.

If this sounds familiar within Japanese history, it’s because it was the political situation within the Japanese government just two years after the outbreak of war in China. One could even argue that military rule had been already assumed in 1932 with the May 15th incident and the death of party governments so that Ishiwara was designing the National Defense State in a political climate of military supremacy. The military with the army and navy ministries could prevent any government to form without their approval, effectively determining all important matters of policy. (McClain, p.424) Under the later cabinet of Konoe Fumimaro from (1940-41) then Hideki Tojo (1941-44) the military ruled without any political opposition. (McClain, p. 456) It would be over disagreement on foreign policy and long-term goals that Ishiwara would a vocal critic of official army policy. The way of ruling the state through the military was based on the same political order he imagined his National Defense State implementing.

It is then interesting to ask if the political design of the National Defense State was made for practical or ideological reasons. I think the urgent matter of preparation to secure a National Defence state in East Asia was the only goal and exploiting an already established system was certainly the path of least resistance. Ishiwara was an opportunist throughout his career. E.g. the planning of the Manchuria incident and his attempt at the exploitation of martial law during the 26th February crisis. But this is not enough to prove anything beyond speculation.

A state with a military dominated political structure, justification of power because of imminent war and legitimacy through the emperor. While similarities appear, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the National Defense State. What was the role of the Emperor? Who would lead the military? How would it prevent rivalry between the branches of the military? It would require a further in-depth study on Ishiwara to accurately prove his ambitions when it came to Japanese society and the governing of the state. Thus, it is hard without additional perspective to determine the full implication of his ideological connection to the established militarist order when Ishiwara wrote about the National Defense State in 1935.

P.S Japanese historians have in recent years emphasized the positive aspects of Ishiwara, but there is little written on him in English literature outside of Mark R. Peattie, Ishiwara Kanji and Japan’s confrontation with the West.

I avoided the ideas of the East Asian League organization formed in 1939 and just focusing on the ideas of the National Defense State. This is because I think his ideas had changed significantly by the founding of the EAL in 1939. 

Bibliography:

McClain, James L., Japan, A modern history, W.W. Norton, (New York, London, 2001)

Mark R. Peattie, Ishiwara Kanji and Japan’s confrontation with the West, Princeton University Press, (Princeton, N.J., 1975)