Proud Blue 3

FEATURE KANAGAWA UNIVERSITY Magazine Professor Akihiro Matoba Marx Studies Associate Professor James Welker Japanese Modern and Contemporary PROUD Cultural History, Gender and Sexuality, Globalization BLUE Professor Mayako Murai English December British Literature, version 2017 Comparative Literature, 02 Fairy-Tale Studies Professor Kimie Oshima Cross-Cultural Communication, Social Linguistics, Humor Studies Distinguished Professor Junzo Kawada Anthropology Professor Toru Komma Cultural Anthropology Professor Ritsuko Hirota Minority Ethnic Groups, The Yao People Professor An-Suk Son History of Modern China, History of Shanghai, History of Foreign Concessions in East Asia INTERVIEW : ECONOMY INSIGHTS Professor Emeritus Minoru Morota Western Economic History 2 CONTENTS pp.04-21 FEATURE pp.04-06 pp.12-13 pp.18-19 Deciphering the Making the World Laugh A Journey through Modern World from with Rakugo Space and Time beyond Marx’s Perspective Professor National Borders. The Power of Writings Professor Kimie Oshima seen in Minority Ethnic Akihiro Matoba Faculty of Foreign Languages Department of Cross-Cultural Studies Faculty of Economics Groups, the Yao People Specialist in the History of Social Cross-Cultural Communication, and Economic Thought Social Linguistics, Professor Marx Studies Humor Studies Ritsuko Hirota Faculty of Business Administration Department of International pp.07-09 pp.14-15 Business Administration Minority Ethnic Groups, Making Sense of Women Does Homo Sapiens Really The Yao People and Liberation in Japan Have “Wisdom”? through Popular Culture (An Anthropologist’s pp.20-21 Aphorism) Associate Professor Understanding what Distinguished Professor James Welker Underpins China, a Department of Cross-Cultural Studies Junzo Kawada Faculty of Foreign Languages Global Superpower, by Institute for the Study of Japanese Modern and Japanese Folk Culture Looking at Shanghai, Contemporary Cultural History, Anthropology an International City Gender and Sexuality, Globalization Professor pp.16-17 An-Suk Son pp.10-11 Faculty of Foreign Languages To the most distant, Department of Chinese different land History of Modern China, We still live fairy tales History of Shanghai, History of Foreign Professor Professor Concessions in East Asia Mayako Murai Toru Komma Faculty of Foreign Languages Faculty of Human Sciences Department of English and Department of Human Sciences pp.22-23 English Literature Cultural Anthropology British Literature, INTERVIEW : ECONOMY INSIGHTS Comparative Literature, Fairy-Tale Studies Fugger and List. Examining these Giants of German Economic History Professor Emeritus Minoru Morota Western Economic History PROUD BLUE 3 PROUD BLUE: Kanagawa University publishes the Japanese version of PROUD BLUE as a public relations magazine focused on our research and researchers. The title refers to our school color. This English version is based on the second and fourth Japanese issues, published in July of 2015 and March of 2017. 4 The Source of a Commodity’s Value FEATURE $179,365,000 for Women of Alger (Version 0), a painting by Pablo Picasso. $141,285,000 for Pointing Man, a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti. These were the winning bids at an auction held Deciphering the at Christy’s in New York on May 11th of last year. These extraordinary sums were reported with surprise in the media, and according to Modern World news reports broke the record for the highest from Marx’s Perspective prices paid for works of art at auction. Various goods or commodities exist in this so- We are living in the era of capitalism. ciety, and the price of the same commodity The first thinker to thoroughly examine its essential nature was Karl Marx (1818 - 1883), an intellectual giant who lived in the 19th changes over time and in accordance with pre- century and had an enormous influence on the 20th. vailing circumstances. For example, a book I Akihiro Matoba has been engaging with Marx for almost fifty years. bought for ¥1,800 will fetch almost nothing if I sell it to a used book store, and this store will then put it on sale for only ¥100. Price is determined by the balance of supply and demand. This is considered common sense in the modern era. It is even taught in schools. But Matoba points out that this balance is not the only factor that determines price. “A commodity has an essential ‘value’ that sup- ports its price. How much labor is needed to produce it? Marx believed this is what determines a commodity’s value.” The balance of supply and demand does of course have an effect on a commodity’s value, but at its root there is labor as the work of human beings. This view, called the “labor theory of value” was the starting point of Marx’s approach. What is Capitalism? Price and value —. They are similar but not the same. Matoba begins by noting, “The sense that Marx is difficult or unapproachable stems from the fact that he addresses topics we tend to overlook as we casually go about our daily lives,” and then explains the relationship be- Professor Akihiro Matoba Faculty of Economics Specialist in the History of Social and Economic Thought Marx Studies PROUD BLUE 5 tween them as follows. problem is that when you leave out the fact that “In the 1870s, toward the end of Marx’s life, an value is underpinned by labor, you cannot prop- economic theory called ‘marginal utility’ came erly explain the mechanism by which profit is into vogue. In this approach the examination of created. You might think it is enough to just buy the essential value of a commodity was aban- low and sell high, but if everyone tries to do this doned, value was taken to be a buyer’s subjec- nobody will make anything and economic activ- tive satisfaction (utility), and buyers were ity will collapse.” assumed to determine their purchasing behav- Marx refers to profit as “surplus value.” As this ior so as to maximize the utility obtained from phrase indicates, profit is part of the value cre- the amount paid. Taking this view, the payment ated by labor. While the value created by labor of such a vast sum for the Picasso painting should belong to the laborers, capitalists do not means the buyer felt it had a corresponding hand all of it over to them. They take a “cut” for Matoba began drinking wine amount of utility.” themselves, and pay what remains to the labor- more than thirty years ago when he was studying in This theory is called the “subjective theory of ers as wages. This “cut” of created value is France. Marx’s birthplace, value” because of its claim that value is subjec- profit (surplus value). the town of Trier in southwest tive. This simple view that put aside the difficult Germany, is also a wine-pro- The Beginning question of the nature of value came to be ducing region. Marx and of the End of Capitalism Engels liked red wine, the widely accepted. Matoba criticizes this ap- color of which represented proach, however, for making it difficult to grasp In Das Kapital Marx conducts a thorough analy- “revolution.” In recent years Matoba has begun stocking the essential nature of capitalism. sis of capitalism. In addition to explaining the his research office with wine “Capitalism is the ceaseless self-propagation relationship between labor and value and the and holding “salons” with of capital. You invest capital and obtain profit, mechanism by which profit is created, he also scholars, members of the media, and students. Matoba then invest this profit again for a greater re- clarifies the essential paradoxes of capitalism. says, “Talking to other people turn, constantly increasing your capital. This This was the essence of Marx’s thought. is stimulating, and new ideas process is the essence of capitalism. The Matoba elaborates, “One of these paradoxes is will often come to you.” known as ‘the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.’ The ‘rate of profit’ is the ratio of the profit obtained to the capital invested. As the name of this law implies, at the end of its The three volumes of Das Kapital maturation capitalism is destined to see a ten- that belong to the university’s library. From top to bottom, a dency of the rate of profit to fall, putting the first edition of Vol. 1 (1867), a brakes on the growth of capital.” first edition of Vol. 2 (1885), and It is difficult to explain why this law arises in the a first edition of Vol. 3 (1894). All of them are German editions. space allotted here. But what Marx described is In the 20th century Das Kapital already coming to pass. The Bank of Japan’s was edited at centers of Marxist- “zero interest rate policy” designed to promote Leninist research in what was then the Soviet Union, and even growth is emblematic of this. The interest on fi- today the most commonly read nancial capital is the source of the profits of in- Japanese translations of this text are based on these Soviet dustrial capital that makes and sells things. versions. Editions from before Looking at society as a whole, the fact that it is Soviet interference are extremely necessary to set interest rates close to zero precious, and these books emit a quiet dignity undiminished by points to an underlying state of affairs in which the passage of time. it is difficult to raise profits. This argument has SIDE STORIES Inviting students to go abroad. Students feel it too! A portrait of Marx He looked for a hat Students change A deep love drawn by a student that suited a beard. when they see the world. for Marx. six or seven years As for its true purpose… ago. Matoba says Photographs from destina- it was left instead Matoba has been tions on an overseas trip with of a message when growing a beard since students.“Perhaps because he wasn’t in his last year.

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