Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Abe Isoo And Kawakami Hajime In Interwar Japan - Economic Reform Or Revolution?, Masako Gavin

Masako Gavin

This article explores the views of two eminent professors of economics, Abe Isoo (1865-1949) and Kawakami Hajime (1879-1946), regarding their socialist economic theories for easing poverty in Japan during the interwar years (1918-1939). Prior to this period, Abe believed the cure to capitalism's ills lay in a combination of socialist economic reforms (sangyô demokurashii) and individual spiritual refinement. Kawakami, at that time a bourgeois economist, prioritised the spiritual revolution of the rich over any socialist-type economic reform. Thus, although convinced of the need for a different approach to eradicating poverty, they nevertheless agreed in the need for gradual change rather …