Introduction

Introduction In May 1935, the prestigious monthly journal Chūō kōron organized and published essays with the overarching theme “The Fall of Liberalism.”1 In response to the highly publicized Organ-Theory Affair,2 the contributors to the special issue probed the meaning and role of liberalism in Japanese society in the midst of the declining power of political parties and as- cending militarist influence on imperial expansion. That the theme was the “fall” of liberalism is significant because, as one contributor pointed out, it implied the earlier existence of a thriving liberalism.3 Another contributor even argued that liberalism in Japan was at its peak, claiming that “cabinets these days allow only liberals to form a government.”4 Al- though it was not clear what these authors meant by “liberalism” or “liberals,” most of the contributors agreed that the “fall” of liberalism was a matter of necessity or was even inevitable. Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, the unfolding concept of a world society based upon free, autonomous, and rational 1. On the general analysis of this discussion on liberalism, see Ishida, “Waga kuni ni okeru ‘Jiyūshugi’ no ichisokumen,” 221–61. 2. The “Organ-Theory Affair” refers to the assault on Minobe Tatsukichi and his constitutional theory in early 1935. Minobe boldly stated that “the state alone is the subject of governmental power, and the monarch is an organ of the state.” His theory came under virulent attack from academic, bureaucratic, and military circles. Con- verging with the movements that called for Shōwa restoration, Minobe was publicly denounced and forced to resign all of his public posts. His works were also banned. This incident symbolized the end of constitutional liberalism. For Minobe’s constitutional theories and the affair, see Miller, Minobe Tatsukichi, 7 and 27–31. 3. Kiyosawa, “Hōkenshugi shisō no fukkatsu,” 123. 4. Nakano, “Jiyūshugi no zensei,” 103. 2 Introduction individuals and controlled by a market economy powerfully shaped the modern transformations of various societies.5 The Japanese trajectories of constructing an empire, nation-state, and civil society are no excep- tion. One of the Chūō kōron essayists, Hasegawa Nyozekan, stated that “liberalism” was part of a particular modern transformation that valued individual liberty to promote capitalism and interacted with the insti- tution of the market economy. The concept of “liberty” as autonomy and “freedom” became the dominant norm of society. In this sense, “politics followed industrial revolutions,” as seen in the case of Britain. Hase gawa argued that the development of liberalism in a “late developer” like Japan took a different path in that “industrial revolutions followed politics.” Emphasizing the timing of Japan’s entrance into in- ternational society, continued the author, “early developers” had already normalized the liberal institutions derived from their own modern experiences, such as the representative system and free-market economy. In Hasegawa’s view, a late developer like Japan could not become equal to these early developers within these liberal institutions, espe- cially free-market economies. This was why liberalism, represented by the idea of laissez-faire, never took firm root, and, instead, state-led indus tri aliz ation took place. In this respect, “liberalism” in Japan was something borrowed.6 At this time (1935), when the early developers were abandoning liberal principles like the ideal of laissez-faire and forming protected markets, the author asked, why should Japan have a lingering attachment to them?7 At the heart of this public discussion of liberalism was Japanese am- bivalence and uneasiness toward its modern transformation, which was embedded in the diffusion of ideas and institutions such as laissez-faire and a representative system originating in Western societies. Yet the his- torical processes of expansion were often marked by assumptions based on the putative centrality of Euro-American societies in global history. Liberalism grew out of the complex set of feudal notions of property, contract, and rights and came into being to articulate the inviolability of individual freedom, individual liberty under the rule of law and representative government, and the superiority of private capital and 5. Polanyi, The Great Transformation;Bull and Watson, “Introduction”; Gong, The Standard of “Civilization”; Thomas et al., Institutional Structure; Iriye, Cultural Inter nationalism and World Order. 6. Hasegawa, “Rekishiteki no jiyūshugi to dōtokuteki hanchū toshite no ‘jiyū,’” 96–99. 7. Ibid., 98–99..

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