恐慌下江南製糸業の再編再論

Abstract

The old orthodox theory about the modern economic history of China aimed at proving the inevitability of the transformation of China into a socialist country. In an article on sericulture and silk-reeling industry in Chiangnan district in the 1930's published in this journal eleven years ago, the author tried to criticize such an orthodox view. But that article did not go far enough in its criticism, and contained some factual errors. The present article is an attempt to rectify the insufficiency of my previous article by focussing on the silk-reeling industry. The prevailing view in that period was that silk-reeling industry which received fatal blows from the world crisis could not make a full recovery without large-scale readjustment and reconstruction. It was with this view in the background and with the initiative from government organizations that a plan, Chiang-Che Lienhe Ssuch'ang Chihua 江浙聯合糸廠計劃, was undertaken to bring about the close cooperation among the main silk-reeling firms in Chiangsu 江蘇 and Chechiang 浙江 and to run them in a unified way. But that plan collapsed, because it came into conflict with the interests of the biggest private capitalist group in the silk-reeling industry, the Yungt'ai 永泰 group of the Hsueh 薛 family. Taking over this plan, the government of Chechiang province operated a kind of large-scale public enterprise with considerable success, until the opposition from other private firms drove it to failure. In Chiangsu province Hsueh family established a "monopolistic" enterprise, Hsingyeh Silk-reeling Co. 興業製糸公司, and produced enormous profits. This enterprise broke up after a short period because of the conflict among the capitalists over the distribution of profits. Such a large-scale public enterprise and a "monopolistic" enterprise, which were quite unusual in view of the nature of the silk-reeling industry, were the product of the peculiar conditions of China facing the world economic crisis with the insufficient accumulation of capital. They were the transient product of the process of China's way out of the economic crisis. And as such they were not the elements which would develop irreversibly into state monopoly capitalism.