THE SUBLIME PERVERSION OF CAPITAL: MARXISM AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION IN MODERN JAPANESE THOUGHT A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Gavin Walker August 2012 © 2012 Gavin Walker THE SUBLIME PERVERSION OF CAPITAL: MARXISM AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION IN MODERN JAPANESE THOUGHT Gavin Walker, Ph.D. Cornell University 2012 Beginning from the dramatic changes which took place in the early 1930s in the dominant historical logic of Marxism at the time, that is, when the Kōza, or “Lectures” faction published their major historical statement, the 8-volume Nihon shihonshugi hattatsu-shi kōza (Lectures on the History of Development of Japanese Capitalism) corresponding to the Comintern’s 1932 Thesis on Japan, I theoretically trace the problem of the “national question,” in other words, the theories of the distinguishing or specific characteristics of the Japanese situation through the interwar period and into the early postwar. The “national question” remained the decisive center around which Marxists considered the strategies and tactics of politics, as well as the means and methods of writing history. I examine certain Kōza faction theorists, in particular Yamada Moritarō, in order to theoretically consider their discussion of the national question in terms of the history of the development of Japanese capitalism. What they considered the uneven temporal sequences of development (supposedly “proven” by Japan’s supposedly “semi-feudal” social basis in the countryside) can also be read as a debate on the temporalities and epistemic ordering mechanisms implied in the formation and constitution of specific difference itself, a debate on the question of how capital localizes itself, how capital acts as if it is a “natural” outgrowth of a putatively “given” situation. In the pursuit of this broad conceptual point – both the rethinking of the theoretical implications of the national question today and the rethinking of the specifically theoretical implications of the aftermath of the debate on Japanese capitalism – I revisit Uno Kōzō’s powerful intervention into the basic questions of this debate through extensive reinvestigations of Marx’s work, and take up certain corollary developments in the works of Tanigawa Gan and Tosaka Jun. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Gavin Walker was born in New York City. He is Assistant Professor of History and East Asian Studies at McGill University in Montréal, Québec. He received his BA and MA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also taught at the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, and received his PhD from Cornell University. He has been a Visiting Researcher at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and a Mellon Graduate Fellow at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell. His essays and translations have appeared in various edited volumes and journals such as Shisō, Jōkyō, Gendai Shisō, positions: asia critique, Postcolonial Studies, Traces, Mechademia, Historical Materialism, Rethinking Marxism, Interventions, and Socialism & Democracy, among others. His current work includes The Archive of Revolution: Marxist Historiography in Modern Japan (in collaboration with Katsuya Hirano) and Area and the Regime of Civilizational Difference: Biopolitics, Geopolitics, History, a special issue of positions: asia critique (in collaboration with Naoki Sakai). iv To my parents v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First let me acknowledge the following sources of support: Cornell University’s Graduate School for two years of the Sage Fellowship, the Cornell Department of Asian Studies for teaching assistantships, the U.S. Department of Education and Cornell East Asia Program for a Foreign Languages and Area Studies Fellowship, the Japan Foundation for a Japan Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, and the Society for the Humanities and Mellon Foundation for a Mellon Graduate Fellowship. I am grateful to the members of my committee – first and foremost, Naoki Sakai. I owe a great intellectual debt not only to his theoretical work, but perhaps more importantly to his friendship and personal support, all of which has been a decisive and formative influence on my own thought. Discussions and exchanges with J. Victor Koschmann have been a central source of intellectual motivation: Vic has encouraged, assisted, and discussed many aspects of my project, and his support has been much appreciated. I would like to thank Brett de Bary for many discussions over the years, for the exceptional and close readings of my work that she has given me, and for all her help and support. I owe many thanks to Bruno Bosteels for his support, friendship, discussions, encouragement, and many decisive suggestions on my writing. I would like to deeply thank Yutaka Nagahara for his friendship, his solidarity, his encouragement and assistance, and for his support. It is not excessive to say that Yutaka’s comradeship and our projects together have been one of the deepest influences on me, and his support has given me a sense of energy to write. Katsuya Hirano’s friendship, advice, and our collective work has been one of the most crucial and productive aspects of my time at Cornell. Discussions with Susan Buck- Morss, her assistance, and the influence of her work has been an important part of my intellectual formation. My time at the Society for the Humanities as a Mellon Graduate Fellow was facilitated by the kind assistance and support of Tim Murray, Mary Ahl, Megan Dirks, Celeste Pietrusza, and many others. It was a privilege to spend a year in the beautiful environment of the A.D. White House, and appreciated in particular many conversations with the other fellows, especially Lawrence Chua, Kay Dickinson, Jennifer Bajorek, Joshua Clover, Tim Murray and Michael Jonik, although I benefited from all of the Fellows’ knowledge. In the Department of Asian Studies, I owe particular thanks to Kim Scott and Erin Knuutila for all their assistance. I want to deeply thank Daniel McKee for all his help, support, and conversations. During my time in Japan, I benefited from discussions with many people. I owe thanks to Iyotani Toshio for his personal and institutional support, which enabled me to work in the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Hitotsubashi University as a visiting researcher. I greatly appreciate my discussions with him, his kind providing of books, advice, and space, and his help with all practical matters. I would also like to thank all the members of the Robata-ken, who shared their work, and gave me many useful vi comments and criticisms of my own work. I appreciated the institutional support of Suzuki Mitsuru and Fujimaki Akiko among others at the Japan Foundation. Thanks also to all the members of the Summer 2011 Mellon Foundation research group “Theories of the Subject” for sharing their work and allowing me to share some of mine. Akilano B. Akiwumi-Assani and I spent years intensely debating and thinking together the particulars of Marxist theory and practice, as we strived to become “partisans and artisans.” I deeply appreciate his comradeship. Ronnen Miller’s friendship, and his political and ethical energy gave me a lot of inspiration. Stephen Hastings-King’s friendship and keen sensibility for collective acts of leisure continues to condition my own thought. My exchanges with Christopher Ahn have been a crucial source of political and theoretical discussion – I would like to thank him for his friendship, support, and inexhaustible dialogue. Joshua Young’s friendship, advice, and support have been one of the most important aspects of my time in Ithaca, and I want to thank him here. I owe a lot of thanks to Ken Kawashima for his friendship, our work together, and many discussions on Uno, Marx, politics, music, and more. For discussions, exchanges, and advice, let me also thank: Adachi Mariko, Mark Anderson, Étienne Balibar, Tani Barlow, Sebastian Budgen, Richard Calichman, S. Charusheela, Nina Cornyetz, Deokhyo Choi, Jeff DuBois, Katsuhiko Mariano Endo, Pedro Erber, Lorenzo Fabbri, Mat Fournier, Federico Fridman, Asad Haider, Yukiko Hanawa, Harry Harootunian, Noriaki Hoshino, Makoto Itoh, Christopher Huw Jones, Hirotaka Kasai, John Namjun Kim, Takeshi Kimoto, Thomas Lamarre, Alex Lenoble, Paula Long, Sandro Mezzadra, Osamu Nakano, Duy Lap Nguyen, Oki Kōsuke, Kazuhito Onozuka, Mark Pendleton, Andrea Righi, Jon Solomon, Setsu Shigematsu, Annmaria Shimabuku, Robert Stolz, Dexter Thomas, Alberto Toscano, Keith Vincent, Max Ward, Mark Winchester, Travis Workman, and many more people that I have not listed here, but who I would simply like to thank for being there. In general, this dissertation could not have been written without the constancy provided by The Chapter House. In addition to all these people, places, and events, my parents have always provided me with advice, encouragement, and unconditional love through every moment in my life, and their own literary, political, and aesthetic works have been important influences on me. I would like to save this final space to thank them for always- already exceeding the limited and reactionary conception of “family” as “genetic destiny” and instead teaching me with their love about the critical possibilities of family as friendship. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Note on Translations ix Three Orientations x Prologue: The Sublime Perversion of Capital 1 1 The Feudal Remnant and the Historical Outside 17 2 Primitive Accumulation, or The Logic of Origin 85 3 Labor Power and the Nihil of Reason: Capital’s Threshold 138 4 The Continent of History and the Theoretical Inside 196 5 The Primal Energy of Origin: On Tanigawa Gan 242 6 Filmic Materiality and the Figuration of History 284 Bibliography 329 NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS Throughout this dissertation, all translations from materials written in languages other than English are mine, unless otherwise indicated. For the transliteration of Japanese language, I use the Modified Hepburn system, with the macron indicating a long vowel, i.e., kaikyū tōsō. Terms in Japanese, in particular proper nouns or place names that have an established usage in English, i.e., Tokyo, are not modified with diacritics.