Publisher's Synopsis
This comprehensive book charts the development of economic thought in Japan and reveals how leading Japanese economists tried to understand and cope with significant economic and social problems in the process of modernization. It sheds new light on the nature and degree of intellectual modernization that accompanied Japan's impressive social and economic development during the last 150 years.
The book begins by tracing the development of several currents of economic thought during the Tokugawa period, which represented the intellectual prerequisites of modern economic growth in Japan. The authors go on to discuss the development in the Meiji era and the inter-war period before focusing on the development of economic thought after 1945. They examine Marxian and non-Marxian approaches to economic development and political economy and relate this to the development of economic thought in Japan. They also assess the considerable influence of Adam Smith on the development of economic thought in Japan.
This book will prove invaluable not only for the Japanese but also for those in developing and developed countries who are interested in the relationship between the modernization process and the development of economic thought in Japan.
