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Paper short abstract:

This paper shows how Christian socialist Kagawa Toyohiko sought to solve the problem of poverty through the idea of "cooperative solidarity" as a way to bring together the working-class and the middle-class in a new vision of the Taisho era Japanese public sphere.

Paper long abstract:

One of the best-known Christian socialists in modern Japan, Kagawa Toyohiko saw what he called “the profit motive” in Japanese capitalism as the root of poverty and social inequality in the Taisho era. I will show that during this period Kagawa began to advocate for a morality in everyday life that could bring the working class and middle class together through new forms of economic and social engagement such as the cooperative. Influenced by Guild Socialism in the U.K. and thinkers like GDH Cole, Kagawa viewed morality as something that could only be realized through the nitty-gritty of concrete social enterprises, such as the modern cooperative—which he founded and developed in Taisho Japan. This paper will argue that Kagawa had an overall vision of the Japanese public sphere that required a kind of “cooperative solidarity” which brought together the working-class and the middle-class in ways that would transform Japanese capitalism, but not bring it all the way to socialist revolution, per se. This vision of what I call Kagawa’s “cooperative solidarity” was in fact based on moral principles and Christian ideals that would support the creation of a more expansive public sphere. At heart, Kagawa saw class differences that existed in prewar Japan as structural obstacles to the development of a modern morality based on mutual aid and brotherhood. The only way to create a vibrant and inclusive public sphere, he maintained, was through what he referred to as “middle way socialism” to move Japanese society beyond the profit motive, but not directly toward revolutionary socialism, which he saw as violent and excessive. The paper will conclude by arguing that Kagawa advocated a vision of morality that would transform the existence of classes in Japan and thereby eliminate poverty.