Paper short abstract:

The advent of World War I and the Japanese leaders’ conviction that the next war would be a total war resulted in the discourse of technology as biopolitical intervention. This paper examines how becoming “human resource” gave leverage for those who sought to enhance democracy in 1930s Japan.

Paper long abstract:

On Governance, Technology, and Utopia in 1930s Japan and its Afterlife, examines how the discourse on technology, as a response to World War I, became a matter of “tactics of managing human life”, to borrow Royama Masamichi’s words. While this period is often characterized as a period of antimodernism and antirationalism, the thinkers behind the institutionalization of industrial mobilization sought to envision “technology of managing human life” as a tactic and rationale to bolster the role of the people, rather than the military. Technology as the way to bolster state power through various forms of biopolitical intervention in this sense has never been a unilateral move, but moments of negotiation about what it means to become “human resource” in the age of total war. If everyone is to become part of the war effort, should not the people have more say over politics? More broadly, Kant theorized that if the people had to be mobilized for war they would opt not to start war. There is a theme about war involvement and implication on politics. While industrial mobilization in the end became dominated by the militarization discourse, the involvement of the people in total war gave some leverage for politicians and bureaucrats to envision a civilian-led mobilization program. If there is a latent connection between becoming human resource in the age of total war and leverage over international politics, then how does the postwar condition change this condition when war is no longer allowed? While biopolitical intervention continues in the form of social welfare and public health, how does discourse on technology change?