Ordinary Economies in Japan: A Historical Perspective, 1750-1950

Tetsuo Najita explores a powerful theme in the economic thought and practice of ordinary citizens in late Tokugawa and early modern Japan. He examines commoners’ writings on the virtues of commerce, the reconstruction of villages, and groups offering credit and loans, particularly the traditional cooperative, the ko, which citizens created to save one another in times of famine and fiscal emergency without turning to their government. The alternative genealogy of early Japanese capitalism t...