故山田盛太郎先生の学問業績(<特集>故山田盛太郎先生追悼特集)

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I. When Dr. Yamada took up his researches, the world system of capitalism was in the general crisis after World War I and the Japanese capitalism, which has developed through the war-time, was specifically on the stage of self-criticism. At that time, economic studies in Japan were focused in three great debates about Marxian Economics. Dr. Yamada firstly examined the value theories of several economic schools and demonstrated in 1925 that Marxian value theory had sublated the contradiction within the classical value theories. In 1931 he took part in the controversy on capital accumulation and reproduction. With the criticism of Tugan-Baranowsky and R. Luxemburg, he described the part III in vol II of Das Kapital as "the essence of Marxian Economic Theory" because it solved the most important issue of economic theories, i.e., the macro-analysis of reproduction and circulation of the aggregate social capital. In 1936, just before World War II, he completed his famous work, The Analysis of the Economic Structure in Japanese Capitalism, according to Marx's reproductions-theory. The evaluation of Das Kapital as an macro-dynamic theory and the theoretical and actual researches for Japanese capitalism made him one of the most influential economists in Japan. His theory is now estimated as not only the Marxian economics on the stage of the general crisis of capitalism but also a forerunner in the field of macro-analysis which was later highlightened by Keynes in the criticism of the Say's law in 1936 and by Leontief in The analysis of American Economic Structure, in 1941. II. The core of Dr. Yamada's economic theory is the analysis of reproductionsprocess and - structure of the aggregate social capital. Combining it with his another theory about the evolutional periods in the world capitalism, he aimed to analyse a certain historical-concrete capitalism, especially Japanese one. He insisted that the industrial capital formation in England signified the transition period of economic structure from the feudal hierarchic land-ownership to the industrial capitalism in England herself as well as in the world, and that only such a typical transition gave birth to the classic economic school. In his opinion, as the transition in other countries occured after the industrial revolution in England, i.e., in another evolutional period in the world capitalism, the capitalism in other countries had its own national type, distinguished from the capitalism in England. In the case of Russian Empire, for example, not only the same phasal definition as in England but also the evolutional type with its local features should be examined. Moreover, the industrial capital formation in Asia (China, Japan, etc.) was modified even by their own agrarian order. In this connexion, "which phase of economic structure was discussed in what kind of manner by Quesnay (or Smith), Marx, Lenin, Wittfogel, etc." became very important for him. III. One of his important writings after World War II is resulted from the inquiry about the historical significance of the Postwar Agrarian Reform. This work began with the theoretical definition in his article "The Scheme of Capital Reproduction and Rental Category" in 1947 and with the researches after the big land-owners for the scientific record of this reform process. Besides these activities, he tried three times to evaluate the historical significance of the reform. (1) He pointed out in 1949, that the reform was revolutionary because it destroyed the social basis of the prewar semi-feudalistic land-owner system in Japan, but it had its limits because of the lack in the perspective toward agricaltural revolution. (2) Immediately after the agrarian reform the productivity of agriculture had remarkably increased, but its abnormal stagnation penetrated gradually among the former high productive areas and the differentiation of the peasantry began to be actualized. At this point, he reexamined the historical significance of the reform in the article, "Histori- cal Constructions and Stages of the Productive Power in Japane e Agriculture" (1958). He clarified that as a result of the reform which was lacking in the perspective towards the agricultural revolution, new small land-owners were destinged to the segmented cultivation and that the new segmented land-ownership tended to disorganize the agricultural economy. Therefore he insisted that it is impossible to interprete the Japanese agriculture and land-ownership after the reform with the concept of so called "Parzelleneigentum". In his opinion, the agriculture after the reform is characterized with the segmented private land-ownership and small-scaled cultivation. (3) The significance and limits of the agrarian reform should finally be affirmed in the connection with the postwar rapid industrialization lead by the heavy industry Basic Analysis of the Agricultural Reproduction Structure in Japan, (1962). Because of the supra-historical and supra-phasal contradiction, it was in 1955 when the turnning point in the postwar agricultural development had come. Japanese peasantry is now degraded to the lower stratum than what the wage-laborers belong to. IV. In addition to these agrarian problems, Dr. Yamada analysed the postwar Japanese capitalism in total. It was in 1954 when he had the lecture on "The Capital Reproduction Structure and the Theory of Crisis". The contents of this lecture and another one (1961) were derived from his theory concerning about "Capital Reproduction Structure and General Crisis". After he had two preparatory works ("General Circuit and Capital Reproduction Structure" and "The Characteristics of Capitalism on the Postwar Stage") in 1962 and 1963, he developed the framework to analyse the postwar capitalism in his article "The Phase of the Postwar Capital Reproduction Structure and Agriculture" (1964). It was impossible for the capitalism to reconstitute itself after its prewar pattern whole through the world as well as in Japan, because the fundamental contradiction, inherent in capitalism, was acutely expanded due to World War II. In Japan, while the collapse of the old economic order and the democratic revolutionary movements against the old political and social orders took place, the economic reorganization and the construction of the new orders were progressed. As a result of these dual-processes Japanese economy shifted rapidly from the stage of the light industry to that of the heavy industry in the viewpoint of the economic structure. On the other hand, the discrepancies between the gigantic monopoly in the heavy industry and the middle and small enterprises in the conventional industry, the differentials in wages and value-added pro- ductivity, and the differentials between manufacturing industry and agriculture etc. were yielded. The agriculture with the segmented private land-ownership and small-scaled cultivation was sent to the bottom of such a conspicuous construction. Discussing these points at issue through the meeting of our academic society in 1969, Dr. Yamada made clear the following problems in his article, "The Basic Process in the Postwar Capital Reproduction Structure" (1972): the national and international factors that regulated essentially the postwar shifting to the heavy industry in Japan, the natures of these factors and of the structural contradictions which were expressed in 1962 and 1965 economic crises, and the construction of the manpower in manufacturing industry.
政治経済学・経済史学会の論文
1981-10-20

故山田盛太郎先生の学問業績(<特集>故山田盛太郎先生追悼特集)

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