The economics of social reform across borders: Fukuda's welfare economic studies in international perspective

Abstract

This article examines how, in the course of modernization, Japan learned from Germany and Britain about ideas and institutions concerning social reform, and attempted to implement and develop them at home. It focuses on Fukuda Tokuzo, a pioneering liberal economist and social reformer, who studied under the German historical economist Lujo Brentano, and who was also inspired by the British scholars Alfred Marshall, A. C. Pigou, and J. A. Hobson. By examining how Fukuda's ideas and work were developed and assimilated in Japan, this article shows how Japanese social reformers navigated the two key strands of economic thinking that witnessed a process of globalization during this period: neoclassical welfare economics, on the one hand, and an ethical-historical style of economics, on the other. It shows how the latter was stronger in a latecomer country to modernization such as Japan.

Introduction: International Interdependencies and the Impact on Social Policies

“…Historical studies have provided insights into why and how Asian countries imported European and US concepts and ideas and adapted them to national needs (Nishizawa 2014). But imperial contexts did not exert a unidirectional influence: New Zealand's pension scheme for example was decisive for the remodelling of the Old Age Pensions Bill in Britain in 1908 (Rogers 2014).…”