Home » Issues » 2019/1 (Vol. 20) – Economic Philosophy in Japan » Continuity and discontinuity in the socio-economics of Yasuma Takata

Continuity and discontinuity in the socio-economics of Yasuma Takata

By

Shigeru Kitajima

and

Hiroki Yokota

Abstract

This article has the following three objectives. The first is to display the thought and behavior of Japanese thinker Yasuma Takata (1883-1972), almost unknown in the West, who formulated a sociological theory and a socio-economic theory. The second is to examine how his thought and his behavior related to Japan wrong-doing during World War II and the issue of “responsibility/irresponsibility”. The third goal is to show that Takata’s thought actually remains deeply connected with modern Japanese currents of thought, as indicate thinker Masao Maruyama and fiction-writers Kenzaburo Ôe and Yasunari Kawabata.

JEL codes: B15, B31, N45

Keywords