ABSTRACT

This chapter explores labour-intensive industrialization in modern Japan by focusing on the development of small-scale industries in both rural and urban areas. Since the 1970s, studies of the history of indigenous industries have revealed that Japan’s modern economic growth included the development of various forms of industrial organization other than the factory system. 1 A book written by Takafusa Nakamura pioneered this stream of studies, proposing the notion of ‘balanced growth’ of modern and traditional industries in Japan before the First World War (Nakamura 1971/1983). This was a reinterpretation of the ‘dual structure’ which characterized the Japanese economy and had been regarded until then as a peculiar sign of ‘backwardness’. Under the influence of this historiography, subsequent studies have tended to consider the existence of various form of industrial organization, albeit implicitly, as a peculiar feature of Japan’s economic development.