Capitalism from within: economy, society, and the state in a Japanese fishery 9780520086296

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Capitalism from Within

Capitalism from Within Economy, Society, and the State in a Japanese Fishery

David L. Howell

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley - Los Angeles + London

The costs of publishing this book have been defrayed in part by the 1994 Hiromi Arisawa Memorial Award from the Books on Japan Fund with respect to Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America, published by the University of California Press. The Fund is financed by The Japan Foundation from generous donations contributed by Japanese individuals and companies. Grateful acknowledgement is given for permission to reprint material that previously appeared in an article entitled “Proto-Industrial Origins of Japanese Capitalism,” Journal of Asian Studies §1:2 (1992): 269-86. © Association for Asian Studies. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 1995 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Howell, David Luke. Capitalism from within : economy, society, and the state in a Japanese fishery / David L. Howell.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-08629-5 (alk. paper) Fish trade—Japan—History—19th century. 2. Fisheries—Economic aspects—Japan—History— 19th century. 3. Fishers—Japan—History—1 9th century. 4. Capitalism—Japan—History—1 9th century. I. Title.

HD9466.J32H69 1995

338.3'727'0952—dc20 94-11838

Printed in the United States of America

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 41

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

For Koko

Contents

Preface XI

List of Tables, Figures, and Maps be

and Capitalism 1

1. Commercialization, Proto-Industrialization, | 2. Not Quite Capitalism: The Rise and Fall of

the Contract-Fishery System 24

3. The Capitalist Transformation , 50 4. The Institutions of a Capitalist Fishery 93

5. Capitalism and Immiseration , 119

1905-1935 , 148

6. A Right to Be Rational: Karafuto, | 7. Conclusion: Traditional Industry and Indigenous Capitalism in

Nineteenth-Century Japan 176

Notes | | 185 Works Cited 223

Index 241

Tables, Figures, and Maps

Tables

1. Fees at Contract Fisheries in the Western Ezochi, 1854 37

2. Population of Western Ezochi Fisheries, 1859 62

3. Independent Fishers at Yoichi, 1828-1854 63 4. Independent Fishers at Hamamashike, 1866 65

5. Loans Owed to the Kishida House, 1789-1868 80 6. Number of Pound Traps by Province, 1888-1893 110 7. Number of Gill-Net Sets by Province, 1888-1893 111

8. Herring Fishery Workers by Province, 1887 112

9. Fishery Workers by Province, 1902 113 10. Operating Expenses for a Gill-Net Fishery, c. 1892 114 11. Operating Expenses for a Pound-Trap Fishery, c. 1892 115

12. Pound-Trap Operators in Iwanai and Furuu, c. 1897 124

and Rebun, c. 1897 125 14. Otaki Sanz6’s Wage Account, 1899 142

13. Pound-Trap Operators in Soya, Esashi, Rishiri,

15. Residence of Fishery Workers Entering Hokkaido, 1930 146

1. Gill Net 68 2. Pound Traps 69

Figures

3. Hokkaido Herring Production, 1871-1958 108

1. Hokkaido XV 2. Karafuto and the Kuril Islands Xvi

Maps

Preface >

The search for the roots of Japan’s modern economic growth and industrialization has long occupied Western scholarship on the Tokugawa era (1603-1868). However various their methodologies and approaches, studies of peasant society and economy, demography, commercialization, urbanization, religion, and ideology reflect this concern, at least implicitly. It is a tribute to the efforts of a generation of scholars that we are now ready to proceed to a new level of analysis—that is, instead of merely asking if modern Japan’s roots lay in the Tokugawa period, we can now look at how the nineteenth-century transformation of the Japanese economy

actually took place. _ ,

In the chapters that follow I shall illustrate the indigenous origins of capitalism in nineteenth-century Japan with a case study of the fishing and fertilizer-processing industry of the northernmost island, Hokkaido. Let me introduce the study with a brief listing of what I consider to be its five principal objectives. First, my concern here is to identify the origins and trace the development of capitalism as a mode of production. Rather than frame my discussion in terms of aggregate growth or some other quantitative measure of economic development, I focus on qualitative changes in the basic structure of social and economic relations, particularly the organization of production. Second, I have employed the concept of proto-industrialization (rural manufacturing for long-distance trade) to clarify the relationship between

| XI

Xi Preface state institutions and social and economic structural change. The protoindustrialization model helps us to see how a feudal institutional environment can give rise to capitalist production and how, in turn, nascent capitalist production can pressure state institutions to adapt to economic change.

Third, because the Hokkaido fishery was not directly affected by Japan’s opening to the West in the 1850s, the nineteenth century can be treated as a single, coherent unit, in which the critical connections between Tokugawa proto-industrialization and Meyi (1868-1912) capitalism are revealed. The continuities of demand, labor, and technology in the fishery make it possible to highlight social and economic structural changes and the role of state institutions with much greater clarity than in analyses of industries, such as textiles, transformed by the impact of Western technology and the world market. Fourth, in examining the Hokkaido fishery I bring into focus social groups like fishers and the Ainu people that heretofore have been excluded from Western narratives of Japanese history. The physical mobility of fishers and the interregional economic and social integration engen-

dered by their activities further undermine the surprisingly resilient stereotype of a Japanese peasantry tied to the land. The presence of the Ainu in the fishery raises questions concerning the nature of the Tokugawa polity and of Japanese ethnicity. Finally, this study challenges well-established notions of center and periphery in Japanese history. By discarding the assumption that the geographical center of Japan was similarly the source of all important social and economic developments, I am able to locate critical changes in social and economic relations in ostensibly “backward” areas. In particular, | explicitly reject the prevailing image of Hokkaido as an untamed frontier, neither politically nor economically a part of Japan before 1868. I pause here to offer a word of thanks to the many people and institutions who have given me guidance and assistance over the course of researching and writing this study. Marius B. Jansen and Sheldon Garon have been unfailing in their support for this project and indeed all of my professional endeavors. Martin Collcutt, Gilbert Rozman, Saito Osamu, and Anne Walthall read the dissertation on which this book is based and offered numerous suggestions for improvement. I owe special thanks to Gary Allinson for his thoughtful reading of two versions of the manuscript and for his encouragement during the difficult transition from dissertation to book. Ralph Meyer helped me with computer graphics and Koko Fujita Howell made the drawings of nets that adorn Chapter 3. My

Preface Xili father encouraged my initial interest in things Japanese and taught me to respect serious scholarship and clear writing; my parents’ financial and moral support saw me through my study of the Japanese language. A number of people gave me invaluable advice and assistance while I was doing archival research in Japan. Professor Nagai Hideo smoothed the way for me to do research in Sapporo and generously shared his extensive knowledge of Hokkaido history with me. Professor Nagai and

Professor Tanaka Akira both graciously allowed me to sit in on their seminars on modern Japanese history at Hokkaid6 University. Kasahara Akiko, Yamamoto Kazushige, and the other members of the Department of Japanese History at Hokudai expended much time and effort on my behalf as I puzzled my way through the labyrinth of Japanese academic bureaucracy. The staffs of the Hokkaid6 University Library, Hokkaido Prefectural Library, Hokkaid6 Prefectural Archives, Hakodate Municipal Library, Aomori Prefectural Library, and Iwate Prefectural Library were uniformly generous with their time and knowledge. I was welcomed into the community of scholars working on Hokkaido history in Sapporo. I want to express my thanks to all the members of the Kindai Nihon to Hokkaido Kenkyiikai and to Seki Hideshi, Hasegawa Shinzo, and Katada Seishi in particular. Special thanks go also to Tajima

Yoshiya of Kanagawa University, who shared with me his extensive knowledge of the contract-fishery system. Perhaps my greatest debt in Japan is to the former curator of Hokkaidé University Library’s Resource Collection for Northern Studies (Hopp6 ShiryOoshitsu), Akizuki Toshiyuki. For more than thirty years until his recent retirement Mr. Akizuki worked to build the world’s finest collection of research materials on Hokkaido and northeast Asia. His encyclopedic knowledge of the history, geography, and cultures of the northern Pacific region—and his readiness to share it with me—helped me spot the red herrings before they colored my whole work. His capable assistant, Yoshida

Chima, helped me locate sources, introduced me to other scholars, and generally made me feel at home in the archives. If it were not for the generous financial support of a number of institutions I would not have been able to undertake the research and writing of this study. A dissertation research fellowship from the Japan Foundation allowed me to go to Hokkaido in the first place, and a subsequent year as a Whiting fellow made it possible for me to concentrate on writing once I had emerged from the archives. A grant from the University Research Institute of the University of Texas at Austin supported me while I reworked the dissertation into a book.

XIV Preface Preface writers as a rule save the most important acknowledgement for last; I am no exception. My wife, Koko Fujita Howell, has endured every bump in the rocky road of academic life with grace and good humor. With love and gratitude, I dedicate this work to her.

A Note on Dates I have used the lunar calendar to express dates through 1872 and the Gregorian calendar for those after 1 January 1873. Dates under the lunar calendar are expressed as year/month/day; thus, 1782/11/6 is the sixth day of the eleventh month of 1782.

A Note on Weights and Measures [ have converted weights and measures to the metric system throughout. Herring meal is the thing most often weighed and measured here. One koku of herring meal equals 0.75 metric tons or about 1,654 pounds. A metric ton is about 2,205 pounds. A handy source for metric equivalents of other units is Watanabe Shigeru, ed., Hokkaido rekishi jiten (Sapporo: Hokkaid6 shuppan kikaku senta, 1982).

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