Mercantilism in a Japanese domain : the merchant origins of economic nationalism in 18th-century Tosa

This book explores the historical roots of economic nationalism within Japan. In a situation analogous to early modern Germany, Japan in the Edo period (1600-1867) was divided into over 230 realms, many of which developed into competitive states that struggled to reduce the dominance of the shogun's economy. This study of the merchants of one such domain, Tosa, reveals how they developed mercantilist strategies to protect and invigorate their domain's economy, and to support the public value of the merchant in a hostile Confucian world. This book explores the historical roots of economic nationalism within Japan. By examining how mercantilist thought developed in the eighteenth-century domain of Tosa, the author shows how economic ideas were generated within the domains. During the Edo period (1600-1867), Japan was divided into over 230 realms, many of which developed into competitive states that struggled to reduce the dominance of the shogun's economy. The seventeenth-century Japanese economy was based on samurai notions of service and a rhetoric of political economy which centred on the lord and the samurai class. This 'economy of service', however, led to crises of deforestation and land degradation, government fiscal insolvency and increasingly corrupt tax levies, and finally a loss of faith in government. Commoners led the response with a mercantilist strategy of protection and development of the commercial economy. They resisted the economy of service by creating a new economic rhetoric which decentred the lord, imagined the domain as an economic country, and gave merchants a public worth and identity unknown in Confucian economic thought

This book explores the historical roots of economic nationalism within Japan. By examining how mercantilist thought developed in the eighteenth-century domain of Toas, Luke Roberts shows how economic ideas were generated at the regional level. During the Edo period (1600-1867), Japan was divided into over 230 competitive states, many of which wished to reduce the dominance of the shogun's economy. The seventeenth-century Japanese economy was based on samurai notions of service - especially the duty performed by the dominal lord to the shogun - and the rhetoric of political economy that centred on the lord and the samurai class. This 'economy of service,' however, led to crises in deforestation and land degradation, government fiscal insolvency and increasingly corrupt tax levies, and finally a loss of faith in government.

This work explores the historical roots of economic nationalism within Japan. By examining how mercantilist thought developed in the 18th-century domain of Tosa, the author shows how economic ideas were generated within the other decentralised domains This book explores the historical roots of economic nationalism within Japan. By examining how mercantilist thought developed in the eighteenth-century domain of Tosa, Luke Roberts shows how economic ideas were generated at the regional level The development of the modern nation-state of Japan is based, in part, upon common belief in and support of a nationally organized political economy.