<論文>近代日本における経済エリートの心性 : 四人の企業家のテキストをめぐって

Abstract

Existing studies of ambition and the desire to gain wealth and to improve one's position in society during the Meiji-Taisho era have focused mainly on success attained through the educational system. Other routes have been neglected. Referring to books written by four famous entrepreneurs in the Meiji-Taisho era, this article examines an often neglected route to success in life: entrepreneurship. This new attitude promoted a mania for new enterprises beginning at the close of the Tokugawa era. After showing their motivations for improving their positions in society, and examining their role models and ideas about their own success, we will see that their desire to make money was much stronger than previously reported by scholars. Then, analyzing the entrepreneurs' texts in a sociological framework, we will find among them a common moneymaking spirit that paradoxically consists of acts that improve their own minds by reducing their moneymaking aspirations. The main part of this article will interpret this paradoxical spirit as a result of two social conditions of the period during which they wrote their texts: economic prosperity, and the increase of young men who were unable to find success through the educational system. On one hand, entrepreneurs' texts encouraged young men to concentrate on making money rather than improving social position. On the other hand, they helped to cool down the fevered moneymaking aspiration among young men. Finally it will be pointed out that attitudes about making money were influenced by the social conditions.