Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State

Janis A. Mimura

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780801461330
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Japanische Geschichte

Japan's invasion of Manchuria in September of 1931 initiated a new phase of brutal occupation and warfare in Asia and the Pacific. It forwarded the project of remaking the Japanese state along technocratic and fascistic lines and creating a self-sufficient Asian bloc centered on Japan and its puppet state of Manchukuo. In Planning for Empire, Janis Mimura traces the origins and evolution of this new order and the ideas and policies of its chief architects, the reform bureaucrats. The reform bureaucrats pursued a radical, authoritarian vision of modern Japan in which public and private spheres were fused, ownership and control of capital were separated, and society was ruled by technocrats.

Mimura shifts our attention away from reactionary young officers to state planners—reform bureaucrats, total war officers, new zaibatsu leaders, economists, political scientists, engineers, and labor party leaders. She shows how empire building and war mobilization raised the stature and influence of these middle-class professionals by calling forth new government planning agencies, research bureaus, and think tanks to draft Five Year industrial plans, rationalize industry, mobilize the masses, streamline the bureaucracy, and manage big business. Deftly examining the political battles and compromises of Japanese technocrats in their bid for political power and Asian hegemony, Planning for Empire offers a new perspective on Japanese fascism by revealing its modern roots in the close interaction of technology and right-wing ideology.

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JAPAN'S WARTIME TECHNOCRATS

In his theory of what he termed the “managerial revolution,” James Burnham proclaimed that capitalism was coming to an end. What was emerging in its place was not socialism but a new type of “managerial” society.

What is occurring in this transition is a drive for social dominance, for power and privilege, for the position of ruling class, by the social group or class of the managers…. This drive, moreover, is world-wide in extent, already well advanced in all nations, though at different levels of development in different nations.1

Burnham, a former adherent of Trotskyism, rejected Marx’s theory of class struggle, by which capitalists would be overthrown by workers. Contrary to the Marxist historical view, he argued, the capitalist class was being replaced, not by the proletariat, but by a new quasi-class of “managers.” These managers did not own the means of production but controlled them through their posts within the state bureaucracy. Moreover, under their leadership, societies were becoming increasingly totalitarian. Burnham believed that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had advanced the farthest along this route, while New Deal America was beginning to reveal similar tendencies.

Burnham articulated a vision of the modern world that was shared by many technocrats and their theorists in the advanced industrial countries. Japanese technocrats, like their counterparts in the West, perceived their country to be part of the global trend of technocratic modernity. Its institutional symbols—Nazism, Stalinism, and New Dealism—suggested that the developmental paths of industrial countries were converging toward centrally planned, professionally administered mass societies. According to this view, the application of the principles of the machine to industry and government was bringing about the increased organization of work and “technicization” of society. Laissez-faire capitalism, in which individual capitalists maximize profits in response to market supply and demand, was being replaced by organized capitalism, which was technology-driven, hierarchical, and centered on the large organization. Eventually, they believed, capitalist society would give way to a new form of managerial society in which the ownership and control of capital were separate and political power was transferred to a new professional class of technologically oriented managers, or technocrats.

Burnham’s theory provides insights into understanding the links between technology, the formation of Japan’s managerial elite, and fascism in wartime Japan. His prediction that all managerial societies inevitably become totalitarian has been disproven.2 But he correctly pointed out how technocracy contained certain fascist tendencies. In the case of Japan, these tendencies became more pronounced as a result of the Great Depression, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and war mobilization. In Japan and Manchukuo, military and civilian technocrats challenged the prerogatives of Japan’s traditional ruling elite and the capitalist system, through which it maintained its power and the allegiance of other social strata.3 These technocrats undermined the principles of capitalist property relations by advocating the separation of capital and management; state controls over industry, labor, and finance; and public over private profit. Due to their indispensable managerial functions and organizational expertise, they wielded strategic power in the economy, government, and the military. They operated at the central nodes within the complex network of all large organizations. In contrast to capitalists, whose rule was indirect and mediated through the bureaucracy and political parties, technocrats as a group could exercise direct and unmediated power because their influence penetrated deeply into the institutions of modern society. If effectively coordinated and mobilized, technocrats could exercise total authoritarian power in society. During the 1930s, Japan’s conservative establishment became increasingly alarmed by the subversive, anticapitalist thrust of technocratic policies and programs that threatened its power and privileges. The zaibatsu, in particular, fought tooth and nail against technocrats to defend the capitalist “status quo.”

This chapter examines the ideas and strategies of the managerial elite in interwar Japan. During the 1930s, three groups were identified as representing a new political and economic force in Japan. The press referred to them as the “new military men,” “new zaibatsu,” and “new-new bureaucrats” or “reform bureaucrats.” What was “new” about these groups was that they offered innovative, antiliberal approaches toward war, industry, and government that distinguished them from traditional military officers, industrialists, and bureaucrats. The new military men, associated with the army’s Control faction, introduced a new scale and type of war mobilization in preparation for “total war.” New zaibatsu industrialists devised a distinct management philosophy and corporate structures for heavy and chemical industries. Reform bureaucrats advocated a new activist, goal-oriented approach toward government and paved the way for unprecedented state control of politics, private industry, and public services based on their vision of the “managerial state.” Within their respective areas of expertise, these professionals expressed common views and concerns about the transformative impact of technology on society and how to guide that change. They shared the conviction that the challenges arising from industrial capitalism, technological advance, and mass society called forth a new type of leader who possessed technical expertise, stood above narrow private interests, and grasped the integrated mechanisms of modern industrial society. Together they sought to reorganize Japanese society along a new ideological basis. We first consider the role of technology in the rise of this new type of society and leader.

Defining Technology and Technocrat

Technology’s Impact

For the post–World War I generation of Japanese leaders, the keynote of modernity was technology. The symbols of modernity were the machine, train, car, tank, telegraph, and radio. These products of the “second industrial revolution” were made possible by the recent scientific and technological advances, and especially the widespread application of electric power to industry. By the turn of the twentieth century, Japanese technology had developed well beyond the small-scale, labor-intensive techniques of the past, although these continued to coexist with modern methods throughout the interwar period.4 It surpassed the technology of Meiji, embodied in advanced Western machinery, model plants, and foreign technicians, which was directly imported by the state. From the time of World War I, during which Japan profited immensely from favorable trade relations and new markets, it began to establish the foundations of its heavy and chemical industries.

Modernity meant not only the arrival of the machine, but also the application of its principles to society at large. Technology represented a new form of technical rationality expressed in the mass assembly line, the corporation, and the large, complex bureaucracy. It can be defined as the application of science to daily life by means of the dual processes of specialization and integration.5 In the case of an automobile, its production required the division of labor into specialized tasks in order to apply scientific knowledge in the manufacture of its individual components, such as the engine, tire, or window. At the same time, it involved the integration of these various tasks and components to create the final product. Technocrats were engaged in the latter task as managers and administrators, whose technical grasp and organization skills enabled them to bring together the various elements and processes into a coherent whole.

Technology’s potential impact could be detected most clearly in the most technically advanced industries, where the worker’s role became redefined in the production process. In the mass assembly line, the worker performed specialized tasks, whose results comprised one small component of the final product. The plant, that “highly complex organization of men, machines and tools,” became the productive unit or means of production.6 The significance of mass production technology lay not in its function as a “mechanical principle” for organizing material processes, but as a “social principle” for organizing human activity to perform specific tasks.7 As a result, mass production brought about the prioritization of technology over labor. Marx’s claim that technology was a means of labor was reversed: labor now became a means of technology.8 The organization replaced the individual worker as the unit of production and became the complement of specialization. The organization, in the form of the plant, industrial enterprise, state trust, or government planning agency, became the institutional expression of modern technology.

With technological advance, organizations became large, costly, and complex.9 Modern technology required an increased division of tasks and detailed coordination of a larger number and variety of highly specialized workers and equipment. Both aspects required more time for completion and larger amounts of investment capital to finance the specialists, managers, equipment, and research expenses. In order to capture the economies of scale, capital was increasingly concentrated and controlled by the corporation or the state. In effect, the individual was subsumed by the organization; management became increasingly impersonal and formalistic; and custom, tradition, and private considerations gave way to the scientific criteria of efficiency and economy.10

Technology, in the form of the organization, brought about a greater need for planning and an increasingly planned and organized economy. Planning can be defined as the temporal forecasting and arrangement of materials and labor in order to provide a future product or service. Planning is enhanced by the new techniques of scientific management and industrial rationalization. Taylorist methods of standardization or inventory control helped increase productivity and avoid future disruptions by establishing criteria to ensure the consistent quality or quantity of materials, labor, and goods. Industrial rationalization, through interfirm cooperation, cartels, and trusts, aimed to increase efficiency and productivity by minimizing the waste of material and effort, especially overproduction and excess competition. At the same time, rationalization gave rise to technical inefficiencies as large firms fixed prices, reduced competition, and stifled innovation in order to secure profits. As Thorstein Veblen first pointed out, capitalism became incompatible with technological progress because it subordinated it to nontechnical ends in the pursuit of profit. Technology paved the way for a more organized form of capitalism in which the economy was increasingly planned by cartels and trusts and eventually by the state.

When applied to society at large, planning became the means by which the machine refashioned the worker and society into its own image and made them compatible with its principles. Scholars have described planning as a form of “social technology” or “social technique,” which introduced the new principles of machinelike efficiency and organization and brought about an advanced stage of rationalization that societies are unable to control or resist. The machine brought about an increasingly planned or “technicized” society—in industry, administration, war, work, leisure, health, child-rearing, and science.11 With regard to the latter, scientific research became increasingly planned and oriented toward technical improvement and practical application. Invention ...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Japan’s Wartime Technocrats
• 2. Military Fascism and Manchukuo, 1930–36
• 3. Bureaucratic Visions of Manchukuo, 1933–39
• 4. Ideologues of Fascism: Okumura Kiwao and Mōri Hideoto
• 5. The New Order and the Politics of Reform, 1940–41
• 6. Japan’s Opportunity: Technocratic Strategies for War and Empire, 1941–45
• Epilogue: From Wartime Techno-Fascism to Postwar Managerialism
• Bibliography