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TREND ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN
Author(s) -
TOMINAGA KEN'ICHI
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
the developing economies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.305
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1746-1049
pISSN - 0012-1533
DOI - 10.1111/j.1746-1049.1969.tb00537.x
Subject(s) - feudalism , ideology , civilization , backwardness , social mobility , social stratification , sociology , social change , law , history , social science , political science , politics , economic growth , economics
I. THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL MOBILITY IN JAPANESE SOCIETY In the years that followed the end of World War II, Japanese intellectual circles became preoccupied with the exposure of so-called "traditional," " pre-modern," or "feudal " elements said to be surviving in Japanese society. These years were marked by a rapid change of the value system of the Japanese people ; that is, the refutation and negation oi the prewar system of social thought, based on the Emperor and family system as fundamental sources of authority, was pictured as the principal ideological task confronting the nation. The overwhelming consensus at that time was that Japan had still not succeeded in modernizing herself, a conclusion which was perhaps belabored to the point of exaggeration.l Among the social scientists, the "semi-feudal" analysis of Japanese society promulgated by the Koza School of Marxists in the early Showa years was revived and became the theoretical basis fo'r a string of attacks on the " backwardness " of modern Japan.2 As long as this derogatory set of preconceptions dominated Japanese sociological thought, there was little opportunity for the development of empirical studies on social mobility. As is well known, the sudden flower-