重化学工業化と経済政策 (<特集>両大戦間の社会と経済 : 特にファシズムを中心として)

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The political structure in wartime Japan is often deemed as a kind of fascism and such characterization has caused many debates. Here I make a hypothesis that the fascism in Japan is a political consequence of the state-monopoly capitalism that pursues the militaristic spending policy to extremes. In the depth of the great crisis in 1930's, Japan found the way out to recovery by enlarging the internal market especially of heavy industries through the expansion of armaments. Though the increase of the military expenditure stimulated the economic activities, it was not long before the inflationary situation emerged. The rise in prices reduced the rate of real wages, thus causing social discontent among the laboring class and others. To continue the military aggression which inevitably accelerates inflation, the government sought to centralize the political power more and more in order to suppress the internal discontent and to keep the national unity by force. The democracy that gradually developed toward the end of the Meiji era lost its efficiency, and the fascist group came to gain control of the political affairs in Japan. To analyse the economic phase of the fascism in Japan, we have to consider the importance of heavy industries and chemical industries. Without the development of these industries the military aggression and the quick recovery from the crisis in 1930's by military spending policy would have been impossible. In the course of the development of these industries the economic policy of the government played a great role. In this paper I tried to sketch the role of economic policy in the interwar period from 1918 to 1941. In this period, we can find out, six phases according to the characteristic features of the economic policy that affected the heavy and chemical industries. In the first term (1918-1924), inflationary finance and active protectionism succeeded in preventing the newly developed industries from breaking down in the afterwar economic crisis. In the second term (1924-1927), fiscal policy shifted its course to the balanced budget but protectionism continued. In the third term (1927-1929), inflationary finance was resumed. In the fourth term (1929-1931), severely balanced budget policy and removal of the gold embargo, Finance Minister Inoue's fiscal policy, brought about hard economic circumstances for business especially for heavy and chemical industries. In the fifth term (1931-1936), Finance Minister Takahashi laid the gold embargo again and adopted reflationary fiscal policy and active protectionism. During this term the heavy and chemical industries made great progress. Takahashi's fiscal policy had two aspects. One is comparable to Roosevelt's New Deal policy that tried to expand the internal market by peaceful spending policy, and the other is comparable to Nazism that led to military aggression. In the sixth term (1936-1941), the former aspect of Takahashi's policy vanished and heavy industries developed only as munitions industry guided by the government.
社会経済史学会の論文
1976-03-30

重化学工業化と経済政策 (<特集>両大戦間の社会と経済 : 特にファシズムを中心として)

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