No More Learning

There are other "mixed enterprises" which are mainly syndicates. These are the Japan Rice Co. , capital 30,000,000 ? , Japan Fertilizer Co. , capital 50,000,000 ? , and the Japan Coal Co. , capital 50,000,000 Y. In each case, the government contributes half of the capital, besides passing out many forms of subsidies. All three have complete monopoly over the buying and selling of the commodity concerned. An- other group of "mixed companies" is concerned chiefly with the development of mining. These are: Imperial Fuel Development Co. , capital 20,000,000 Y, Japan Gold Production Co. , capital 20,000,000 Y, and the Imperial Mining Development Co. , capital 30,000,000 Y. Half of the capital is contributed by the state. Colonial and transportation development companies not mentioned previously are: South Seas Transportation Co. , Japan Transportation Co. , capital 20,900,000 Y, Korea and Manchoukuo Development Co. , 8,000,000 Y, Formosa Development Co. , 18,000,000 Y, South Seas Development Co. , 15,300,000 ? , and the Manchuria Development Co. , 33,300,000 Y.
63 The new company "is a national policy communication company which came into being through the consolidation of the former Nippon Wireless Telegraph Com-
? KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY 109
though it were a "mixed enterprise," even though the direct gov- ernment participation in ownership seems to be of minor im- portance.
Such data but barely scratch the surface, for they fail clearly to indicate the wide ramifications of a network of enterprises of a trust-like character which the Japanese have been swiftly elaborat- ing throughout the entirety of their newly acquired "autonomous circle of common prosperity" in "Greater East Asia. " Within Japan proper, reorganization schemes are being announced almost daily which combine entire industries into single or closely coordinated trusts. Since the beginning of 1941, reorganization schemes have been announced for such widely varying trades and industries as electric light bulbs (for export), oil, silk, spinning (ten manage- ment enterprises coordinated by a single policy administering body), deep-sea fisheries, and automobiles. ^* These are paralleled by a mushroom growth of similar Japanese dominated private trusts in Korea, Manchukuo, North China, and the South Sea areas. Many of these are deliberately organized as central and all-inclusive trusts for the whole of Japanese dominated territories. Thus the East Asia Shipping Company has been recently "entrusted" with "the task" of organizing shipping with the mainland, and Dai- Nippon Airways with the spinning of a centrally directed Far Eastern air traffic system. ^^
pany and the International Telephone Company under the terms of a special law. " It is to handle all wireless telegraphic and a part of the cable telegraphic traffic of Japan and the Japanese empire, and is aimed at "uniform control, completion and development of the international communication network of Japan. " Oriental Econ- omist, July, 1940.
64 In 1941, the following reorganizations were completed: 77 cotton spinning com- panies were merged into blocs, leaving only 14 companies; 37 woolen companies were reduced to 8. Similar steps were taken for other textile companies like silk and rayon. See the annual report of Mr. S. Tsuda, president of the Cotton Spinners' Association, Oriental Economist (August, 1941), p. 423. As for the other industries, nine leading packing firms were merged into one; 27 machine tool firms formed the Nisshin Ma- chine Industry Co. ; six canning companies formed the Toyo Can Manufacturing Co. , 960 glass firms reduced to 50. Those industries in the process of reorganization in the fall of 1941 and probably completed now are: Portland cement, 23 firms reduced to 5 or 6, imitation leather, 16 firms into 4, marine leather, 19 into 1, oil, 14 into 6, municipal transportation, unification of companies in each city, woolen yarn whole- saling, 200 dealers into 24 blocs with one firm in each, tanning, 800 into 30 or 40 blocs, soap manufacturing, 500 into 50 blocs. Cf. Osaka Mainichi and Tokyo Nichi Nichi from August to October, 1941, inclusive.
65 Toshio Narasaki, "Oriental Great Economic Circle and Transportation Policy," East Asia Economic News, Jan. , 1941.
? 110 KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY
The "co-prosperity sphere" has been variously described. One Japanese writer outlines this oriental equivalent of the Nazi "new order in Europe" in the following terms: ^^
The Oriental Great Economic Circle signifies the economic circle com- prising Manchoukuo, China, the Netherlands Indies, French Indo- China, Thailand and British Malaya under the leadership of Japan. The areas belonging to this circle should strive to bring about a com- plementary existence with free exchange of commodities, performing at the same time their shares in the productive activities. In such an economic circle, it is natural that the country the most advanced in the fields of culture, economy, industry and technical arts should take the lead of other nations, and in the Orient this duty of leadership devolves without question upon Japan. ^'^
Parallel with these developments, the government has taken an increasingly active hand in the process of forced cartellization, es- tablishment of compulsory price and marketing control, and vari- ous other forms of regulation which serves to promote the cen- tralization of economic policy-forming power. Under the Bureau for Industrial Regulation, established in 1930, for example, the Ministry of Trade and Industry may declare any "consolidation" to be a regular cartel organized by itself "with the definite purpose of promoting industrial economy," if approved by more than half of the potential membership. And, "if more than two-thirds of the members of the cartel agree to the provisions agreed upon, they may petition for a contract and the Ministry can make such a con-
tract with them. " ^^ The Bureau's powers in theory, even under the original enabling act, range over the entire field of industrial or- ganization and policy:
66 Idem.
67 A frank version of the above general aims is expressed by Mr. Masatsune Ogura, Finance Minister in Konoye's third cabinet, in a series of articles, "How to Fight Economic War" in the Osaka Mainichi and Tokyo Nichi Nichi (English), Aug. 2-3, 1941: "Nippon can specialize in heavy industries and China in light industries to advantage. The products of these two countries can supply not only the co-prosperity sphere but all the world as well. The Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere af- fords an ideal market for our manufactured goods. Hundreds of millions of East Asiatics are our potential customers. . . . If we should succeed in settling the emergency and in bringing about expansion, whatever financial burden we may have shouldered will bring returns many times over. "
68 Professor Masamachi Royama, "Die wirtschaftsrechtliche Struktur als Grundlage des japanischen Wirtschaftsaufschwungs," Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, XLVI (July, >>937)' 79-92.
? KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY ill
The first department (or division) handles supervision and checking of industrial transactions, carries out scientific research and administers any financial reform required to achieve special improvements. The second division supervises the standardization of industrial products, the uniformity of manufacturing processes, and the propaganda adver- tising of home products. Thus all different forms of industrial produc- tion are checked, supervised, and virtually controlled by these two de- partments. (R)^
Other governmental coordinating activities extend and deepen the web of official control. The Bureau of Economic Resources, established in 1928, "has jurisdiction over all plans that deal with regulation and disposition of raw materials and both human and material economic resources. " ^? The Bureau of Supervision or General Board of Control, organized in 1935, is a sort of central "Kontrollamt" of the entire national economic system, subject to the direct authority of the Cabinet. ^^ How far such control may go can be seen in the field of agriculture, where a wide-ranging net- work of regulation covers practically the entirety of the Japanese agricultural system, including its economic interests at all levels of production and marketing. The model here is the Rice Law, passed in 1921 and subsequently altered and greatly reinforced by a num- ber of amendments. In its current form it is probably the most rigid, all-inclusive, and totalitarian law relating to any major agri-
cultural industry anywhere in the world. ^^
The final step taken in this direction is reflected in the establish-
ment of the Supreme Economic Council, charged with the task of coordinating "total agricultural associations, total vocational and industrial associations and 'free enterprise units' which will con- tinue to exist outside the corporate bodies. " Under leadership of the government, "plans for an empire industrial federation" made
69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid.
72 Dr. Shiroshi Nasu, "Ziele und Ausrichtung der japanischen Agrarpolitik in der Gegenwart," Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, XLVI, 157-84. According to this authority "the total agricultural debt rose from 750 million yen in 1911 to 4600 million yen in 1929" and by this latter date approximately 30 percent of all Japanese farmers were insolvent and unable to pay their debts. The effect of the various price and market- ing and agricultural control laws seem not to have been the liquidation of this growing mass of agricultural indebtedness, but rather to have cumulatively pressed the poverty-stricken peasant layers into a straightjacket reminiscent of the Pro- crustean pattern of the German Reichsbauerngesetz--or law of compulsory entail- ment. See also the sketch of "the agricultural reorganization movement in the Monthly Circular of the Mitsubishi Economic Research Bureau, March, 1941, p. 11.
118 KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY
up of "leaders representing the steel, coal, electricity, shipping, and cotton industries" was approved as the agency to work with the government in order to implement these plans. The new federation seems to be practically coextensive with the existing Japan Eco- nomic Federation (it may actually be that body! ). The dominating principles were said to be "public service first," abandonment of "liberalistic profitseeking" and "spontaneous and autonomous formulation of economic policy. " The suspicion that "the govern- ment wishes business men to have the management of the nation's economic affairs" ^^ (authoritative self-government in business) seems to have been fully justified with the announcement that Mr. Ogura, head of Sumitomo (third largest of the Zaihatsu), was to be made the Imperial "Japanese Knudsen. " ^*
In addition to the expansion of this meticulously exacting reg- ulatory network, the government has not hesitated under the emergency of war to wipe practically out of existence large sections of the business system. Most noteworthy here is the policy which has come to be known in the Japanese patois as Butsudo (a contrac- tion of the Japanese words meaning "mobilization of commodi- ties"), which was gradually inaugurated after the middle thirties. On the surface Butsudo is a system of war rationing which places special emphasis upon the power of the government to prohibit the manufacture or sale of any commodity in any fashion it may see fit and to canalize productive capacity as the exigencies of a wartime economy may determine.
Actually, it vests in the government power to build up or undo entire branches of industry in either war or peace. Under Butsudo for example, the domestic sale of cottons has been almost entirely eliminated. ^^ Various strictly nonessential foodstuffs can be sold only in limited amounts. Its net effect has been not only to bring
73 Byas, "J'lpan's Censors. " "Under intensifying wartime conditions, the situation has changed quite perceptibly. Government authority has steadily increased and the Government and a special group of officials connected with the big moneyed interests have come to have much say in the economic scheme of the nation. With the progress of the planned economy, these officials are likely to play greater and greater parts in concert with the various industrial and business 'gauleiters' or district leaders, who are moving up to become fuehrers. These rising men are also leaders of their respective cartels. " Hirose Higuchi, Japan Times Weekly and Trans-Pacific, March 27, 1941, p. 458.
74 "Mr. Ikeda, the former executive head of the great Mitsui corporation, . . . is now attached to the Emperor as one of his personal consultants. " Hugh Byas, The Japanese Enemy, His Power and His Vulnerability (New York, 1942), p. 33.
75 Manchester Guardian, July 20, 1938.
^
? ? KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY 113
about a considerable dislocation of industry and a great deal of occupational unemployment, but also to force many concerns either to suspend operations or to go out of business entirely. By the early part of 1939 some 9,793 establishments employing 68,273 persons were suspended, and some 1,709 establishments employing 6,223 were openly liquidated. ^^ Most of these businesses were small scale; many of them w^ere simply handicraft shops.
Yet even Butsudo does not run counter to the general picture outlined above. Quite the contrary. It merely represents the logical fulfillment of the partnership between business and government which has characterized the evolution of capitalistic institutions in Japan from the very beginning. In it is revealed the determination to coordinate in a national fashion the entirety of economic activity on behalf of the volatile will and vaulting ambitions of the new social-economic hierarchy.
The elements here are not greatly dissimilar to those noted for other totalitarian systems of the general Fascist type.
1. The ZaihatsUj the monopolistically-oriented enterprises cen- tered around them, and the extensive network of trade associations, chambers of commerce, cartels, and similar bodies of which they are the acknowledged leaders, constitute an elaborate, semilegal hierarchy of graduated economic power. The smaller businesses, handicraft establishments, and the various other layers of the "pro- fessional" middle classes thus exist within a sort of all-inclusive "corporate" regime; their organization by occupational categories guarantees them something of the order of a stable living according to customary standards, providing they do not conflict with such policies as Butsudo.
2. This hierarchy works very closely with the civil and admin- istrative bureaucracy of the state. In fact it is probably not too far from the truth to refer to the gradually consolidating economic bureaucracy as the economic aspect of the state bureaucracy. This constitutes the Japanese version of "National Socialism, which is inclined to regard anti-capitalism as separate from socialism and thus associate state-absolutism with socialism. " " Capitalism, in
76 Isoshi Asahi, The Economic Strength of Japan (Tokyo, 1939). Principally af- fected were the textiles, leather, rubber, and iron and steel industries.
77 "National Socialism is a combination of state-absolutism, which has always been a sheet-anchor to Japanese political thought, and Socialism. . . . Japanese National Socialism opposes two important theories of Marxism: (1) it rejects the theory of
? 114 KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY
this context, is interpreted to be "competitive" and "unregulated" in terms of the "well-being of the state. "
3. The military is becoming increasingly part and parcel of the same control pyramid. At times, as in the beginning of the Man- churian and Chinese "affairs," the army has been able to take inde- pendent action. But under the regime dominated by the cliques centered around Matsuoka, internal conflicts seemed to be largely smoothed out, and that close community of interests which has al- ways held the military and imperial-nationalistic interests together in Japan once again asserted itself. ^^
Japan has really remained a military nation in spite of all the constitu- tional contributions of western democracy. . . . The Key to the de- velopment and expansion of Japanese industry until Japan became established as a major industrial power was increasing militarism. . . . The Administrators and commissioners, the large-scale corpor- ations of the Railroad Company of South Manchuria, and Mitsui and Mitsubishi, the Yasuda and Sumitomo, and other organizations down to the small rice growers and industrial workers and minor crafts- men . . . are all well aware of the numerous factors that control Ja- pan's economic status. In spite of all internal conflicting interests and social differences, all classes of Japan's population are concerned in but one important matter: Japan must progress and she must be suc- cessfulJ^
the decline of state-conlrol; and (2) it rejects the theory of the rise of internationalism. . . . National Socialism appealed to the mass of the Japanese because state-absolutism still exercises its original and traditional influence in Japan. " Kawai, "Neue politische Krafte des wirtschaftlichen Aufbaues. "
78 The Tojo-Terauchi-Sugiyama clique in control of the army at the present time is close to the Zaibatsu. The Terauchi family has been close to the Mitsuis since the first World War days when the elder Terauchi was Prime Minister, while Tojo is intimate with the Mitsubishi. One paper calls Tojo the "most conservative of the army clique. "
Commenting on the New Economic Structure Law of 1941, Joseph Newman, New York Herald-Tribune correspondent in Tokyo and one of the ablest journalists on Japan, declares in a recent book. Goodbye Japan (New York, 1942), p. 199: "The power, however, was left largely in the hands of big business, whose representatives in the offices of Finance Ministry and Commerce and Industry Ministry applied the law in such a way that the big-business clans grew stronger, a larger part of the middle class was liquidated, and workers and peasants were able to buy less goods with their money than ever before. The business clans were permitted to continue their 'voluntary regimentation,' through their independent industrial cartels. They not only were given bigger orders than before by the militarists but also a guar- antee of seven percent profit on their iron and steel output as well as subsidies to encourage production. The government announcement of subsidies for big business was made by the president of the Iron and Steel Control Association, who was pri- vately connected with Mitsui, Mitsubishi and other leading business clans. "
79 Johannes B. Kraus, "Wirtschaftsgesinnung und volkisch-politische Grundbedin-
? KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY 115
4. And finally, the psychopathic, ideological, propaganda ce- ment which holds the Kokutai amalgam together is the fused power of Shinto and Bushido. In a very interesting doctrinal glorification of the Japanese way, Ginjiro Fujihara, quotes with warm approval the words of Lothrop Stoddard: ^^
Present-day Japan is thus stung to action by the sharpest of life's in- stincts--that of self-preservation. Now add to this primeval urge a burning faith in 'Great Japan' and the peculiar excellence of the Ya- mato Race; add to that again the Bushido code glorifying self-sacrifice and welcoming heroic death, and we can realize the fierce longing in Japanese hearts to cut the Gordian knot of their difficulties and hew out a great destiny with the Samurai sword.
Or, as Dr. Kraus, a very sympathetic observer, puts the matter somewhat more dryly, "Japan's secret is that she knows how to con- trol her economic system through the ethics of Samurai or 'Samurai Geist. ' " <<^
The final step here has been already taken with the de facto dis- solution of all the old parties and the emergence of a fully totali- tarian "single-party state. " The new Fascist party, deliberately modeled after those of Italy and Germany, is still somewhat vague in outline. It is known as the "Association for Assisting the Throne" (AAT), which is in charge of the "National Movement for Assist- ing the Throne" (NMAT), and was at its inception, ex officio, di- rected by the former premier. Prince Fumimaro Konoye. Launched officially on October 12, 1940, it appears to be conceived as an of- ficial government body. ^^ A "Parliamentary Bureau . . . has for
gungen als Voraussetzungen des japanischen Industrielisierungsprozessen," Welt- wirtschaftliches Archiv, XLVI Quly, 1937). PP- 45-61?
80 Ginjiro Fujihara (also written Fujiwara) The Spirit of Japanese Industry (Tokyo, 1936, pp. 118-19. For over a quarter of a century ex-Minister of Commerce Fujihara was chief executive of the Oiji Paper Company, a gigantic paper monopoly con- trolled by Mitsui interests, and formerly associated directly with Mitsui in a number of important positions. Fujihara was also a member of the House of Peers.
81 Kraus, op. cit.
82 "The Cooperation Council [of the A. A. T. ] is an organ through which the will of the people is conveyed to the Administration and vice versa, and is, thus vastly more than an advisory organ of the Government.
The Central Cooperation Council is in Tokyo and there are district cooperation councils of the prefectures, cities, and towns and villages. The membership of the Central Cooperation Council is com- posed, besides representatives of the prefectural cooperation councils, of persons recommended by the heads of the district A. A. T. , from among members of various public bodies and of the prefectural assemblies and government officials, to be ap- proved by the President. " East Asia Economic News, Feb. , 1941.
? ii6 KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY
its object to ensure the satisfactory functioning of Parliament, for
which purpose the political parties of the past were dissolved to
form a unitary whole in the A. A. T. Other departments, including
those for the direction of national life, propaganda works, and
planning, have already commenced activities for the development
of the National Movement. " ^^ Its central motive is held to be that
"of the moral ideal of a harmonious, complementary development
of the peoples of East Asia and for the establishment of a new world
(R)*
order. "
Paralleling this "constructive" action has gone dissolution not
only of all the old political parties, but also of all the various demo- cratic and trade-union organizations. In the place of the labor unions has come an organization apparently modeled directly after the Nazi Labor Front. ^^ And in the place of the other associa- tions there has sprung up a bewildering array of authoritatively led youth, patriotic, and other organizations of a completely totali- tarian stamp.
Economic policy-forming powers became highly centralized with the passage of the New Economic Structure Law in August, 1941. This law called for the establishment of all-inclusive cartels, called control associations, in each of the following industries: iron and steel, coal, chemical, cement, machine tools, nonferrous metals, foreign trade, foodstuff, medicine, shipping, shipbuilding, and
83 In the reorganization of 1941, the Parliamentary and Planning bureaus were abolished.
84 East Asia Economic News, Dec, 1940.
85 "The first meeting of the All-Japan Convention of Patriotic Trade Unions (Aihoku Rodo Kumiai Zenkoku Konwakwai), which was organized in April, 1936, by the union of all patriotic or nationalistic trade unions with reactionary ideas in general politics, was held at Tokyo on September 27, 1936. " It placed itself in full opposition to the Japan Trade Union Council (the central federation of regular Japanese Trade unions). Its platform planks called for: (1) "Propagation of the Japanese Spirit," (2) "Institution of a Law for the Control of Industry and Labor," (3) "Demand for the Establishment of an Industry and Labor Council," (4) "A thorough Industrial Service for the Country," (5) "Nationalization of a Labor Fes- tival peculiar to Japan," (6) "Unity of the War Front of Labourers and Farmers. " It "denounced present social and democratic thought as being mere imitation of the West and contrary to Japan's national constitution, and upheld a reorganization of all trade unions in the spirit of love for the country in the true Japanese spirit. " Foreign Affairs Association of Japan, Tokyo, Japan Year Book, 1938-39, p. 773. An- other Patriotic Industrial Association (Sangyo Hokuku Kai) was established in 1938 and shortly received government support. Japan Year Book, 1939-40, p. 723. From these beginnings the final step seems to have been recently taken with the an- nouncement of the formation of an all inclusive labor organization.
? KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY 117
land transportation. The control association will embrace all the firms, semiofficial, "mixed" companies, trade associations, and ex- isting cartels and will possess complete control of production and distribution in the industry concerned. The president of the con- trol association will act in the capacity of a "Fuehrer" of the in- dustry.
He has full authority to appoint or dismiss the vice-president, chief director, directors, councillors and other officials of the association and may also dismiss any director or directors, with the permission of the competent Minister, of a member company or organization, when he considers that their deeds are harmful to the conduct of the affairs of the association. The business of the association in regard to materials, funds and labor required for production equipment will thus be oper- ated under the guidance and direction of the president. Products of the industry concerned are not permitted to be sold without his consent. ^*
If the need arises, a supreme central organ embracing all these control associations will be set up.
Commenting on the control associations in the New Structure plans, the London Economist (July 12, 1941), declared: "The scheme, when it emerged, was so emasculated that public corpora- tions which had been planned were now nothing but private cartels under another name. " Up to December, 1941, three control associations were established: in the iron and steel, coal, and ship- ping industries. Hachisaburo Hirao, head of the Iron and Steel Manufacturers' Federation, and for forty years the able managing director of the Mitsubishi subsidiary, Tokyo Marine and Fire Insurance Co. , became president of the Iron and Steel Control Asso- ciation. The Federation of Coal Mine Owners* Association dis- solved and emerged as the Coal Control Association, with the presi- dent of the former, Kenjiro Matsumoto, becoming the president of
the latter organization. Mr. Matsumoto is also a director of the Mitsui Trust Co. In November, 1940, the Central Shipping Fed- eration, headed by Noboru Ohtani, for many years the president of Mitsubishi's huge Nippon Yusen Kaisha, changed its name to the Central Marine Transportation Control Association. A year later, the latter was reorganized into the present Shipping Control Asso- ciation with Mr. Ohtani as the president. (R)^
86 Oriental Economist, Sept. , 1941, p. 460.
87 The correctness of the London Economist's comments is also shown in the case
? ii8 KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY
With the Association for Assisting the Throne serving as the su- preme ideological coordinator for both the Supreme Economic Council and the Supreme Cultural Council and as official bearer of the doctrinal position allied to Shinto, Bushido, and the fanatical worship of Amaterasu-O-Mikami (sun goddess, the legendary an- cestress of the imperial house), the means will stand at hand for the final fusing together of the upper reaches of the existing hier- archies into a caste-like state. Close alliance among the cliques, inter- marriage,^^ and similar fusions had already gone far towards smoothing the road before the appearance of the single party state. (R)^ And that state is a symbiosis clearly dominated by an econ-
of the particular control associations which were in the process of establishment when the U. S -Japanese war broke out. Thus the Osaka Mainichi and Tokyo Nichi Nichi (English) of Sept. 24, 1941, declares: "it has become certain that the association (Nippon Warehouse Association) will be designated as a control association," with Shinzo Mihashi, president of Mitsubishi Warehouse Co. and the Nippon Warehouse Association becoming the president of the control association. The trade-control association seems likely to be headed by Ginjiro Fujihara (see footnote 80, above).
88 It has not been possible to check the following, but the picture it submits seems highly probable in view of subsequent developments: "All the big monopolist con- cerns maintain very close personal contacts with the Court, the high bureaucracy, the high nobility, government circles, and with the leaders of the two big political parties (the Seiyukai and the Minseito).
"Thus, the Japanese Emperor is personally interested in the Mitsubishi concern. One of the daughters of Iwasaki (head of the concern) married the late leader of the Minseito Party, Kato; another married the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the last Minseito government, Shidehara; and a third married the Minister of Finance in the same government, Inouye, who was assassinated in 1932. One of the principals of the Mitsui concern, Fujiwara Ginjiro [see footnote 80 above], is a member of the House of Peers; another, Yamamoto Jotaro, is a prominent leader of the Seyukai Party.
"One of the most prominent feudal aristocrats. Prince Saionji (the last member of the Genro), is a brother of the founder of the Sumitomo concern, and an uncle of its present owner.
"Of the Yasuda concern, Takahashi Koreikiyo is one of the leaders of the Seiyukai; Mori Hirozo is chairman of the Government Bank of Taiwan and Shijo Takahide was formerly Minister of Commerce and Industry. " E. Varga and L. Mendelsohn, New Data for V. I. Lenin's "Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism" (New York, 1938), pp. 105, 107.
89 Speaking of the growth of the single-party idea, a correspondent, M. B. Thresher, in a recent issue of Oriental Affairs (July, 1940) writes, "Mr. Chuji Machida, Presi- dent of the majority party, the Minseito, made his endorsement of the plan de- pendent on the acceptance by Prince Konoye of the leadership of the projected party. Prince Konoye, true to form, raised objections to assuming the post, the prin- cipal one being that he was President of the Privy Council. His resignation of this office on June 24th is naturally taken to indicate that the stage is now set for the establishment of a single party under his leadership. " Simultaneously, conversations with the Axis powers took on a more serious tone: "On June 22nd, the Parliamentary League for Attainment of the Objectives of the Sacred Campaign (the Chinese cam-
? KOKUTAI AND CO-PROSPERITY 119
omy in which policy-forming powers are so centralized and held that it may most appropriately be described on its economic side as a regime of monopoly-organized status--not state--capitalism.
paign), addressed to Hitler a copy of a resolution expressing their admiration for the great achievements of the Reich, and their hope that it would go on to destroy Jewish control of the World. The Social Mass Party issued a statement about the same time urging the Government to strengthen the Axis and cease negotiating with Britain and the U. S. A. " The fruits of this shift are already apparent today: in the formation of the Supreme Economic and Supreme Cultural Councils, in NMAT and the establishment of AAT, in the appointment of Mr. Ogura to the position of an "economic dictator. " The group centered around Matsuoka, himself closely allied to the Zaibatsu, has come to the fore with what appears to be at once an effective single-party and a greater empire formula. The anti-Comintern Pact has been fol- lowed by the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo pact. With the opening of the Burma road the adventure in Indo-China and the general Drang nach Suden the country is stripping for action in a major war. The last vestiges of parliamentary forms of government and popular participation are rapidly being liquidated. The militarily omnicompe- tent, economically coordinated, politically streamlined, inherently expansionist, patri- archally guided, oriental variant of totalitarian status capitalism emerges.
--
? Chapter IV
FRANCE: THROUGH DOUBLE DEFEAT TO VICHY'S "NEW ORDER"
THE Confederation Generale du Patronat Fran^ais (CGPF) represents almost the ultimate in expression of that "inherent tendency to combine and form ever larger business units"/ which goes back beyond the earliest days of the industrial system into France's earlier and all-embracing system of medieval guilds. Though not a "combination" itself in the ordinary technical usage of that term, it has nevertheless clearly arisen as a by-product of the concentration movement and, before its recent dissolution,^ the ex- pansion of its functions had been halted but a single pace short of the establishment of a "corporative system" structurally coextensive with national and imperial frontiers. There is some evidence that under the most recent Petain regime the last step has already been taken. If so, the pattern of control evolved over the past decades is now in process of being fully rounded out and France stands in the
ante-room of a formally Fascist-type state.
Whether this last is yet true or not ^ does not greatly matter. What
is significant is the fact that such a transition, in full keeping structurally, functionally, and in terms of social outlook--with past lines of development in the evolution of employers' central policy- forming bodies in France, could be made without seriously up- setting any institutions, conventions, or interests except those opposed to the advance of groups who stand to gain from inaugu-
1 William F. Ogburn and William Jaff^, Social and Economic Studies of Post-War France (New York, 1929), p. 552.
2 The Confederation was formally dissolved shortly after the German victory; this, it appears, was a preliminary to general reorganization of French economic life con- sonant with past trends but more clearly patterned after the German (rather than the Italian) totalitarian model than was previously the case.
3 See pp. 145-49.
? VICHY'S "NEW ORDER" 121
ration of the "corporate state. " That this could be true of a country but yesterday still so imbued with the popular ideas and democratic values transmuted from the French Revolution is of far greater moment than that these ideas and values should have been, even temporarily, submerged. For it would then clearly demonstrate that "Fascism" was not so much imposed by a militarily victorious totali- tarian power from without, as that it had been evolved through more or less "normal" processes from within, by elements which found in the war an auspicious occasion for thus consolidating a power which had been gravely threatened in recent times (by the "Popular Front" movement), and which they now hoped at long last to be able, through control over the political machinery, fully to wield. What these "normal" processes are remains to be seen.
origins: a period of ''freedom of association"
The CGPF, as it stood at the moment of its dissolution, was the product of a thorough reorganization in 1936 following the con- clusion of the famous Matignon Agreement between its predeces- sor organization, the General Confederation of French Production (Confederation Generale de la Production Fran^aise), and the General Confederation of Labor (Confederation Generale du Tra- vail--CGT). This predecessor body was, like similar organizations in England and Germany, a "war baby," having been "called into existence" in 1919 by M. Clementel,* Minister of Commerce, to aid in the reorganization of French economic life after the First World War.
Behind this latest attempt at the creation of a vast and all- inclusive syndical organization of industry lay a long period of ex- perimentation with less comprehensive forms. And these, para- doxically, first took root in the midst of a swiftly proliferating meshwork of local, occupational, and regional employer associa- tions at a time when France, far more completely than any other modern industrial country, was formally and legally committed to absolute prohibition of all forms of association whatsoever. Under the famous Le Chapelier law of 1791, an attempt was made to wipe out all vestiges of guild organization, but in so doing a prohibition
* Ren^ P. Duchemin, Organisation syndicate patronale en France (Paris, 1940), p. 1.
? 122 VICHY'S 'NEW ORDER"
was laid on every conceivable type of private association designed in any manner to promote common interests, whether of laborers, employers, or any other special interest group. ^
Legal freedom from this interdict first came with the promulga- tion of the Act of March 21, 1884, "respecting the foundation of industrial associations," a law subsequently widened and general- ized by an act passed July 1, 1901. ^ In the meantime, however, the prohibition did not seem to have seriously hampered, or even greatly to have slowed down, the formation of employers' associa- tions. Nor did it entirely prevent the formation of workers' or- ganizations, though clearly the history of enforcement under the interdict shows that the act was designed more to prevent the rise of workers' organizations than to inhibit ekpression of employer solidarity. ^ "By 1881 there were in Paris alone 130 employers' asso- ciations, with 15,000 members, and 150 workers' organizations, with 60,000 members, while 350 workers' organizations were in
^
existence in the province. "
It is interesting to note, in passing, that the central issue in-
volved in passage of the new laws was not mere "freedom of asso- ciations. " Whereas Le Chapelier desired to prohibit private asso- ciations as such, in 1884 debate turned only on the matter of whether membership should be voluntary and free, or compulsory and "corporate. " This was because in the earlier period all associa- tions were regarded as "corporate" per se, or as direct carry-overs of
6 Noteworthy are the two following sections of the Act:
Section 1. Since the abolition of all forms of corporations in the same grade or occupation is one of the bases of the constitution, it is forbidden to recreate such corporations under any pretext whatever.
Section 2. Citizens of the same grade or occupation, and workers or journeymen in any art or craft, may not, when assembled together, appoint a president, a secretary or an alderman, keep a register, enact decisions or establish any regulations concern- ing what they call their common interests. Quoted in Freedom of Association (Inter- national Labor Office, Geneva, 1927), II, 90.
6 Laws passed in 1849 and again in 1864 considerably modified the unfair incidence and severe penalties formerly imposed under the Le Chapelier law.
7 "Statistics show that while legal penalties were seldom imposed upon employers, workers organizations, including those of the most harmless character, were ruth- lessly suppressed. . . . During the reign of Louis Philippe the relative proportion of prosecutions was as follows: one employers' association for eight workers', 40 per- cent of the employers were acquitted as against 5 per cent of the workers. " ILO, Freedom of Association, II, 93.
8 Ibid. , p. 98.
? VICHY'S "NEW ORDER'* 123
specialized feudal privileges. Passed in 1791 in the early days of the French Revolution, the law of Le Chapelier expressed the desire of the rising commercial, trading, and industrial classes to be rid of that vast, cramping network of guild and feudal restrictions which Colbert had attempted to liquidate by nationalizing, and Turgot had hoped to sweep away entirely.
Once on the statute books, the law proved of special value in preventing the rise of labor organizations (since these were held to be inherently of a "corporative" character); but it did not wholly prohibit various forms of commercial and employer collusion (since the employers still lacked any real sentiment for all-inclusive group action). By the decade of the eighties, however, sentiment in busi- ness circles for the principles of "free competition" and "laissez faire" was being rapidly undermined in France as elsewhere. To employers it then became desirable to remove the formal prohibi- tions on employer associations. They wished to enjoy powers of association of at least a semicorporate character, while adhering to the principle of "freedom of association" as a basis on which to deny the comprehensive demands which organized labor might see fit to make, if vested with power to compel all workers to join and to bargain collectively for entire industries. Once the level of organization in employer groups had itself approached such limits, agitation for a reversal of the 1884 formula began to appear, and we find a return to the organizational pattern of pre-Le Chapelier France. (R)
So to state the case, however, is apt to be slightly misleading, since it tends to gloss over certain facts of unique importance to an understanding of the peculiar susceptibility of France to "cor- porate" forms of organization. French production is still primarily small scale, specialized, in many respects highly localized, and--by comparison with England, Germany, and the United States--rela- tively free of large-scale trusts and combinations. ^^ This fact might be expected to discourage corporate ideas. Yet even before large-
9 See pp. 127 ff.
10 It might be more accurate to state that both factors exist in France. A large number of small and middle-sized businesses as well as high concentration can be found. Examples of large-scale trusts are as follows: iron and steel industry; chemical industry; machine building; production of electric power; fuel production.
--
? 124 VICHY'S "NEW ORDER"
scale concentration began to make much headway in France, the main discussion in economic organization turned directly on that issue.
The answer to this paradox seems to lie in the fact that France, somewhat similarly to Germany and Japan (and in sharp contra- distinction to England and the United States), never really got wholly rid of medieval guild "corporate" forms of organization at all. ^^ Nowhere else is the gap between de jure and de facto (prior to the law of 1884) so great as in France. During this period, local, regional, and in many cases national associations of handicrafts- men, trading and commercial interests, and workmen--frequently disguised under the form of various friendly and benefit societies continued to exist. Such associations not only continued to exist but were strongly influenced throughout by codes of conduct, methods of working together, organizational biases, and a sense of quasi-professional group solidarity strongly reminiscent of, if not as was frequently the case--directly traceable to, medieval times.
The relatively small-scale nature of French economic activity proved, consequently, rather a strength than a weakness in taking advantage of the forms of organization allowed when the ban was raised in 1884. More than that, for many industries, and in many rather peculiar ways, the trade association became not a secondary but a primary form of organization, quickly assuming functions and representing interests, and even, in some cases, communities of interest, comparable to those of the cartels, trade associations, and semifraternal associations (such as Kiwanis and Rotary). This was true even when the trade association had relatively little power, since the prevailing conception of its function was such as to make it useful along all these lines, whenever the occasion should arise.
It is, thus, not surprising that the passage of the laws of 1884 and 1901 should be paralleled by rapid spread of the associational net- work. An American observer in 1916 wrote that he found "in France . . . nearly 5,000 employers' associations, having a mem- bership of over 400,000; and about as many commercial associa- tions, with an equal membership. " These were in turn "in a manner regulated by law and joined by affiliation into member associa-
11 This is true mainly of the handicrafts. The trade associations of industry and commerce are nineteenth-century children.
? VICHY'S "NEW ORDER" 125
tions, which in turn are joined into the principal or controlling organization with headquarters in Paris, and all working with very great success for the interests of French industry and commerce. " ^^
The tendency to draw separate organizations together into fed- erations evidenced itself at an early date. The first 'Tederation of Industrial Associations (Chambre syndicale) known under the name of the Groupe de la Saint-Chapelle" was organized in 1821 by the Carpentry Association. "The year 1858 saw the beginnings, on similar lines to the Saint-Chapelle Groupe, of the National Union of Commerce and Industry, which by 1869 included 55 industrial associations representing industries other than the building trade. " ^^ In 1859 the first effort was made to bring all existing associations into a national confederation by the formation of the National Union of Commerce and Industry. Others followed in short order.
The Central Committee of Trade Associations (1867) was intended to provide a central organization to include both the building trades and the National Union. The Commercial and Industrial Alliance (1896) in its rules provided for specialized committees, and marks a higher degree of development. Finally, the Federation of French Manufacturers and Merchants, founded in 1903, provided for the institution of regional committees and delegates from the various departments, and endeav- ored to group its members in sections, but without taking the goods manufactured as the basis of classification. ^*
The object of the first national federations was clear: "to make sure that they were not unions only of certain professions (trades, industries) but of all employers" the better to speak on behalf of "collective interests" of French employers as a whole. ^^ According to the survey of the International Labour Office this interest was
12 In a speech delivered by Mr. D. E. Felt, Vice-President of the Illinois Manu- facturers' Association, and reproduced in American Industries, June, 1916, p. 15, it was argued, "In Germany and in France, organization of manufacturers is compul- sory. In France, there must be at least one for each department, and the law imposes upon them the duty of advising the Government and the legislators on all industrial and commercial matters. They are, in part, supported by a tax. " I have been unable to find any support for the assertion that the associations referred to enjoyed any direct government authority or support whatsoever.
18 ILO, Freedom of Association, II, 92.
1* "Employers' Organisations in France," International Labour Review, July, 1927, PP- 50-77-
15 See, in particular, Etienne Villey, L'Organisation professionnelle des employeurs dans I'industrie frangaise (Paris, 1923).
? 126 VICHY'S "NEW ORDER"
pursued through three distinct phases of development after 1884.
*
The first was a 'preparatory period" (1884-1900) characterized
primarily by educational efforts designed to create among employ- ers "an atmosphere of mutual confidence" and to encourage "meas- ures calculated to promote useful but restricted cooperation between industrial establishments. " This was followed by a period of "defensive tactics," in which they proceeded to take measures against the "possible results of the development of social legisla- tion," against "international competition," and against the rising power of the trade unions, particularly the CGT (Confederation Generale du Travail). ^^
The results of this second period were enormously to increase membership in the "primary employers' associations, the member- ship of which doubled between 1900 and 1908, and to give more life and force to the unions and federations of associations. " But even more significantly, "a general plan or organization . . . for each branch of production and inter-trade agreements arose and prepared the way for an all-inclusive concentration.