Cooperatives and grassroots developments

Tessa Morris-Suzuki*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    2 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Early Japanese cooperatives were spontaneous initiatives inspired partly by village traditions and partly by foreign models. But the nationwide spread of cooperativism was a top-down process driven by Meiji modernizers who studied German models and saw this as the best means to strengthen the nation’s rural foundations. By 1923, Japanese cooperatives had 2.6 million members, placing the country among the world’s leading centres of cooperativism. Both prewar and postwar, Japanese cooperativism was characterized by the interplay of top-down and bottom-up forces. In the 1920s, state-sanctioned cooperatives were challenged by peasants’ unions and worker-run co-op stores; postwar, the power of the giant agricultural cooperative association Nokyo was challenged by grassroots groups with alternative visions of a rural future. This chapter explores the contending roles of cooperatives in Japan from their beginnings in the early Meiji era to contemporary consumer and alternative lifestyle co-ops.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationRoutledge Handbook of Modern Japanese History
    PublisherTaylor and Francis
    Pages310-323
    Number of pages14
    ISBN (Electronic)9781317599043
    ISBN (Print)9781138815186
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2017

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