Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan
Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan
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战前日本的劳工与帝国民主
DOI：
10.2307/2164694
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发表时间：
1992
影响因子：
0.8
通讯作者：
A. Gordon
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Gordon
《战前日本的劳工与帝国民主》考察了战前东京工人阶级所扮演的政治角色，并对日本战前政治史的更广泛动态进行了重新解释。戈登认为，骚乱、劳资纠纷和工会组织等现象最好被理解为二十世纪初“帝国民主”运动的一部分，该运动是由十九世纪推动资本主义和建设现代国家和帝国的运动所塑造的。当这场运动的有产、受过教育的领导人在 1920 年代获得一定的权力时，他们对于在多大程度上将工人阶级纳入扩大的政治体系方面存在分歧。就工人们而言，他们对于在帝国民主制度下工作变得矛盾。在这种背景下，大萧条时期工人和业主的严重两极分化最终摧毁了帝国民主的合法性。戈登认为，日本工人的思想和行为都反映并进一步促进了对民众参与和国家权力的强烈关注，这是日本现代历史的标志。他指出了二战后帝国民主在工人阶级运动组织和民众将国民生产总值增长视为国家荣耀指标方面的遗产。重要的是，戈登展示了历史学家如何重新考虑佃农、学生和女性活动家在帝国民主的兴起和转型中的角色。
"Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan" examines the political role played by working men and women in prewar Tokyo and offers a reinterpretation of the broader dynamics of Japan's prewar political history. Gordon argues that such phenomena as riots, labor disputes, and union organizing can best be understood as part of an early twentieth-century movement for 'imperial democracy' shaped by the nineteenth-century drive to promote capitalism and build a modern nation and empire. When the propertied, educated leaders of this movement gained a share of power in the 1920s, they disagreed on how far to go toward incorporating working men and women into an expanded body politic. For their part, workers became ambivalent toward working within the imperial democratic system. In this context, the intense polarization of laborers and owners during the Depression helped ultimately to destroy the legitimacy of imperial democracy. Gordon suggests that the thought and behavior of Japanese workers both reflected and furthered the intense concern with popular participation and national power that has marked Japan's modern history. He points to a post-World War II legacy for imperial democracy in both the organization of the working class movement and the popular willingness to see GNP growth as an index of national glory. Importantly, Gordon shows how historians might reconsider the roles of tenant farmers, students, and female activists, for example, in the rise and transformation of imperial democracy.