Beschreibung
This book demonstrates that during Japan's early modern Edo period (1603-1868) an ethical code existed among the merchant class comparable to that of the well-known Bushido of Japan's then-ruling military class, the samurai. There is compelling evidence that contemporary merchants, who were widely and openly despised as immoral by the samurai, in fact acted in highly ethical ways in accordance with a well-articulated moral code. During the Edo period, Japanese society was strictly stratified into four distinct and formally recognized classes: warrior, farmer, craftsman and merchant, with the warriors at the top and acting as the ruling class. By contrast, merchants were at the base of the social order. From the warriors' perspective, the merchants had no virtue: they suffered no risk of injury in training or combat, indulged in little or no manual labor, and existed only to skim profits as middlemen between producers and consumers. They were viewed, to use a contemporary phrase, as "cunning snatchers of commissions", who condescended to the samurai, farmers, and craftsman. They possessed no fixed assets, but rather lived out their daily lives performing vague, ill-defined business dealings. But were these accusations correct? Were the merchants, endlessly criticized by the samurai both in the open and behind their backs, really unethical beings who engaged in unfair business practices? There is ample evidence that negates the ubiquitous slanders of the warrior class and suggests that merchants - no less than the warriors - possessed and acted in accordance with a well-developed ethical code, a spirit that may be called shonindo or "The Way of the Merchant". This book examines whether a comparison of shonindo, depicting the ethical point of view of the merchant class, and Bushido, embodying that of the warrior class, reveals that shonindo may have in fact surpassed Bushido in some aspects. Comparing contemporarily published historical documents concerning both shonindo and Bushido, as well as Inazo Nitobe's classic work Bushido: The Soul of Japan, published in 1900, the author examines how Bushido surpassed shonindo in that warriors were willing to die for their strict ethical code. Shonindo, however, may have surpassed Bushido in that merchants were liberal, willing to expand and extend application of their ethical beliefs into all aspects of everyday life for the overall benefit of society. This ethical code is compared with that of the conservative Bushido, which demonstrably proved not up to the task for the modernization and improved well-being of Japan.
Autorenporträt
Ichiro Horide is Professor Emeritus of Reitaku University, Japan. Edward Yagi, who supervised the overall translation of the manuscript from Japanese to English, is a Professor of Economics and Business Management at Reitaku University. Stanley J. Ziobro II, who converted most of the original Japanese manuscript into English, is an Adjunct Professor in Religion at Trident Technical College, USA.
Herstellerkennzeichnung:
Springer Verlag GmbH
Tiergartenstr. 17
69121 Heidelberg
DE
E-Mail: juergen.hartmann@springer.com
