ABSTRACT
In the first half of the nineteenth century, Japan was like any pre-industrial Asian country. The bulk of the populace lived in rural villages and Osaka was the financial centre with Edo as the seat of the Shogunate government. Economic policy and decision-making under the bakuhan system were shared by the Tokugawa government (bakufu) and nearly 300 domains of the han. The economy was operated through regulation and control at all levels of administration. It was a controlled economy that was not reliant on market forces and therefore could not create economic growth.1
