Meiji Restoration: the unbalanced evolution of proto-systems and derivative systems and its impact on Japan’s Industrialization

MANG Jingshi

Contemporary Economy of Japan,2018,Vol 37,No. 06

By 2018, Japan’s Meiji Restoration had reached its 150 anniversary. Based on the relative relationship between the proto-system and the derivative systems and the evolutionary analysis framework, this paper explores the impact of the Meiji Restoration on Japan’s pre-war industrialization. As a large-scale systematic change, the Meiji Restoration is different from the British Revolution and the American Revolution. In the process of the Meiji Restoration, the evolution of the proto-system and the derivative systems was unbalanced. In other words, the evolution of the alternative system and the transplanted systems without a proto constitutional government was unbalanced. Japan did not choose the constitutional democracy system in the restoration course, but the authoritarian system of the Emperor’s autocracy, and at the same time vigorously transplanted the high-efficiency modern economic systems deriving from the Western developed countries. Thus, the unbalanced evolution of the proto-system and the derivative systems was manifested in the unbalanced evolution of the political system and the economic systems since the Japanese Meiji Restoration began. The Meiji Restoration demonstrated the change of systematic model in Japan. From the perspective of the short-term effects, Japan’s pre-war industrialization had been greatly promoted because of its more powerful resource mobilization ability. However, from the perspective of the long-term effects, Japan started an aggressive war in the circumstance of systematic model change and the war ultimately led to the failure of Japan’s pre-war industrialization.

Summary of 2018 Annual Meeting & Symposium of National Society of Japanese Economic Studies and the 40th Anniversary of China’s Reform and Opening Up and Japan

SUN Huizong

Contemporary Economy of Japan,2018,Vol 37,No. 06