ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the main trends of economic thought in Japan in the Tokugawa period (1603–1867) before the encounter of Japanese scholars with Western economic thoughts. In this period of Pax Tokugawa before the Meiji Restoration (1868), scholars and politicians faced tensions between established hierarchical orders of the society and the penetration of the market economy. Their views and policy recommendations on the politico-economic problems contained the element of economic thought, though the modern idea of ‘economy’ did not prevail yet. We will see it in the case of Miura Baien in Chapter 2. As literacy diffused to the rank of commoners, the sense of equality in the vocation emerged. Thus, in the closing phase of the Tokugawa period, the soil for the reception of Western economic ideas matured. On the other hand, we cannot say that the traditional concept of Keizai (governing the world and securing people) disappeared totally after Meiji Era. In the continuing chapters, we see the mixture and tensions of traditional ideas and modern concepts of ‘economy.’
