Uno Kozo Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Uno Kozo (1899–1977) was the most influential Marxist thinker in Japan in the twentieth century. Born into a mercantile family,

Uno received a degree in economics from the Tokyo Imperial University and joined the Ohara Institute for the Study of Social Problems. During this period, Hajime Kawakami was publishing the journal Social Problems Study, which included translations of German philosopher Karl Marx’s books. With his introduction to Marxism, Kawakami, who is considered the founder of Marxist economics in Japan, attracted young intellectuals such as Tamizo Kushida, Hyoe Ouchi, Itsuro Sakisaka, and Uno Kozo. Many of these scholars became major figures in the Communist or Socialist Parties, but Uno remained politically uncommitted.

From 1922 to 1924, Uno studied in Europe, primarily in Berlin. Upon his return to Japan, he joined the faculty of Tohoku, one of the seven imperial universities, and then moved to Sendai where he remained for fourteen years. His life’s work thereafter was the study of the world capitalist development from a Marxian perspective, drawing a careful distinction between theory and policy. In 1936, Uno published The Theory of Economic Policy, in which he outlined his idea that the historical clash of class interests influenced the type of economic policy pursued by a country at any one time. Mercantilism, liberalism, and imperialism were three stages of capitalist development. These three stages, in turn, represented three types of capital: merchant, industrial, and venture capital. While he utilized Marxian terms in his work, Uno continued to dissociate himself from active involvement in the Communist and Socialist Parties. Unlike the Communists, he did not accept that the Japanese economy was semi feudal, and unlike the Socialists he did not hold that it was advanced.

In 1938, Uno’s career came to a halt when he was arrested along with others associated with the dissident Marxist Ronoha School, which had broken away from the Japanese Communist Party in 1927. After two years in jail, Uno was acquitted on appeal but did not return to Tohoku. In 1944, he moved to the Mitsubishi Institute of Economics and after World War II (1939–1945) he edited the institute’s journal, Economic Affairs. Later he became professor at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Social Science and, from 1949, director of the institute. Although by this time he had broken from orthodox Marxism, Uno returned to the study of Marxian economics, seeking to systematize what he called a pure theory of capitalism. His later books included The Theory of Value (1950), Studies in the Theory of Value (1952), and his revision of Marx’s Das Kapital entitled Principles of Political Economy (1964). In his Theory of Economic Policy (1954), Uno distinguished three stages of Marxist study: (1) the study of the basic principles of capitalism as it developed in Britain, the United States, and Western Europe; (2) the three varieties of capitalism—mercantile capital, industrial capital, and venture capital associated with imperialism; and (3) empirical analysis of specific current economic problems. Uno’s three-step approach differed from traditional ones because it was modified to suit Japan’s peculiar growth trajectory.

Uno retired from the University of Tokyo in 1958 to become a sociology professor at Hosei University. Many of Uno’s students, such as Ouchi Tsutomo and Hiroshi Iwata, have made substantial contributions to economic theory and the theory of values.

Bibliography:

Furihata, Setsuo. An Exposition of Uno’s Theory. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobo-, 1973.
Hideaki, Ouchi, Kamakura Takao, Hayashi Takehisa, and Saeki Naomi. Uno Kozo: His Writings and His Thought. Tokyo:Yu-hikaku Shinsho, 1979.
Mawatari, Shoken. “The Uno School: A Marxian Approach in Japan.” History of Political Economy 17, no. 3 (1985): 403–418.
Sekine,T. “Uno-riron: A Japanese Contribution to Marxian Political Economy” Journal of Economic Literature 13, no. 3 (1975): 847–877.
Shumai, Ouchi. Basic Issues of Uno Economics. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1971.
Tsuyoshi, Sakurai. Uno’s Theory and Capital. Tokyo:Yu-hikaku, 1979.

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