Desolation of Farm Villages and the Development of Capitalism in Kanto District

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  • 関東農村の荒廃とブルジョア的発展 : 豪農層研究の一視角
  • 関東農村の荒廃とブルジョワ的発展--豪農層研究の一視角
  • カントウ ノウソン ノ コウハイ ト ブルジョワテキ ハッテン ゴウノウソウ ケンキュウ ノ イチ シカク

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When we examine the economic foundation of the Meiji Restoration, we presume the development of capitalism to a certain extent. This view was advanced by Shiso Hattori before W.W.II, and its was succeeded by Tatsuya Naramoto and Goro Fujita after the end of the war. However, it is weii known that farm villages all over the country were in serious economic desolation after the middle Edo period. It was especially serious in Tohoku and Kanto districts. Recent historians, therefore, argue that capitalism could scarcely develop under such a condition. We will examine whether or not there was a development of capitalism in farm villages in Kanto district, especially in a village of Mito-han. In Mito-han, the number of household and population diminished sharply in all over the area. The population reached its peak 1726, and decreased by 30 percent during the period of eighty years afterwards. Although it began to increase in the early nineteenth century, the increase was very slow. During the period of declining population, the Han government and rural villeges were in depressed condition. The northern area, where natural condition was poor, was especially hard hit. In Senda village, about 40 percent of arable land was desolated, and almost all the village officials, who were large landowners, were degraded to poor peasants. Nontheless, the penetration of market economy could be observed in this village. By the early nineteenth century, fifty-six among seventy-six farm househods were engaged in paper production, and most of the farmers had some sideworks in slack season. The farmer in the middle class became prosperous through the production of paper for market in the early nineteenth century, while those in the upper class were poverished. The same tendency can be perceived in a neighboring village of Kobune. In other words, we can see the rise and development of embryonic capitalists, or petit bourgeois, in Mito-han villages.

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