Industrial production in Shōwa Japan
Industrial production was a defining characteristic of
Overview
Industrialization first appeared in the textile industries, especially cotton and silk production, which were based in home workshops in rural areas. By the 1890s, Japanese textiles dominated the home markets and competed successfully with British products in China and India, as well. Japanese shippers were also competing with European traders to carry these goods across Asia and even to Europe. As in the West, the textile mills employed mainly women, half of them under age twenty. They were sent there by their fathers, and they turned over their wages to their fathers.[2] Japan largely skipped water power and moved straight to steam powered mills, which were more productive and created a demand for coal.
1907 saw the greatest number of labor disputes in a decade, with large-scale riots at Japan's two leading copper mines,
Despite this, Japanese citizens were able to advance through the ranks of society more easily due to the abolishment of the feudal system.
From 1918 to 1921, a wave of major industrial disputes marked the peak of organized labour power. A prolonged
In the 1930s, the Japanese economy suffered less from the Great Depression than most industrialized nations, its GDP expanding at a rapid rate of 5% per year. Manufacturing and mining came to account for more than 30% of GDP, more than twice the value for the agricultural sector. Most industrial growth, however, was geared toward expanding the nation's military power.
Beginning in 1937 with significant land seizures in China, and to a greater extent after 1941, when annexations and invasions across Southeast Asia and the Pacific created the
During the early stages of Japan's expansion, the Japanese economy expanded considerably. Steel production rose from 6,442,000 tons to 8,838,000 tons over the same time period. In 1941 Japanese aircraft industries had the capacity to manufacture 10,000 aircraft per year. Much of this economic expansion benefited the "zaibatsu", large industrial conglomerates.
Over the course of the Pacific War, the economies of Japan and its occupied territories all suffered severely. Inflation was rampant; the Japanese heavy industry, forced to devote nearly all its production to meet military needs, was unable to meet the commercial requirements of Japan (which had previously relied on trade with Western countries for their manufactured goods). Local industries were unable to produce at high enough levels to avoid severe shortfalls. Furthermore, maritime trade, upon which the Empire depended greatly, was sharply curtailed by damage to the Japanese merchant fleet over the course of the war.
By the end of the war, what remained of the Japanese Empire was wracked by shortages, inflation, and currency devaluation. Transport was nearly impossible, and industrial production in Japan's shattered cities ground to a halt. The destruction wrought by the war eventually brought the Japanese economy to a virtual standstill.
See also
- Economic history of Japan
- Economy of the Empire of Japan
- German–Japanese industrial co-operation before and during World War II
References
- ^ George Allen, Short Economic History of Modern Japan (1972)
- ^ E. Patricia Tsurumi, Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan (1992) p. 83
- ^ Nimura, K. The Formation of Japanese Labor Movement: 1868–1914 Archived 1 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine (Translated by Terry Boardman). Retrieved 11 June 2011
- ^ "Japan Answers the Challenge of the Western World". The Meiji Restoration and Modernization. Columbia University. Archived from the original on 2012-10-14. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
- ^ Hardy's Case, The Japan Weekly Mail, January 4, 1875.
- ^ Weathers, C. (2009). Business and Labor. In William M. Tsutsui, ed., A Companion to Japanese History (2009) pp. 493–510.
- ^ Fukao, Kyoji (2007). Real GDP in Pre-War East Asia: A 1934–36 Benchmark Purchasing Power Parity Comparison with the US (PDF).
- S2CID 197866746.