From Introduction:

In 2024, the new 10000 Yen banknote will feature Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931), the so-called ‘father of Japanese capitalism’. This has motivated the publication of many books and re-edits of his works in modern Japanese, and the NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) even launches a TV drama series about his life. A couple of years ago, the Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation, together with Canadian institutions, sponsored a research group working on his intellectual legacy and finally publishing a volume of collected papers. In November 2013, a public symposium was held at the headquarter of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development OECD to present this research to a wider public.

In this essay, I want to put this resurgence of interest in Shibusawa in the context of ongoing debates about the future of capitalism. For example, the ‘Institute of Seizon and the Life Sciences’ has held a series of conferences on these topics since 2013, resulting in a volume ‘Where will capitalism go? The future of capitalism and humanity’ to which a grand-grandson of Shibusawa also contributed. This institute focuses on issues of human ‘existence’ (‘seizon’) in an interdisciplinary way and invited scientists and business representatives to explore the topic of capitalism in a series of events open to the public. The book addresses a broader readership and includes many aspects, reaching from neuroscientific insights into human nature to current issues in Japanese economic policy facing demographic transition. Such a broad perspective is also characteristic of the various other contributions that I consider here.

Although these debates focus on Japan, they rarely seem to involve mainstream economics research in Japan, and most do not establish a relationship to international debates on these matters, such as in the global ecological economics movement. For example, at the 2019 fall meeting of the Japanese Economic Association at Kobe, topics of systemic transition, sustainability and climate change were conspicuously absent. Yet, there is a distinct Japanese context that drives the direction and topics of the discourse in an innovative way. Therefore, I think that they are also highly relevant beyond Japan. As the former President of Tokyo University, Hiroshi Komiyama, once stated, Japan might be a ‘kadai senshinkoku’, ‘a country advanced in emerging issues’.