大正末期～昭和初期のサラリーマンの模範像 --『実業之日本』における「サラリーメンの頁」を中心に--

Abstract

本稿の目的は, 雑誌『実業之日本』に掲載されたサラリーマンに関する言説から, 大正末期から昭和初期にかけてのサラリーマンの模範像を明らかにすることを通じて, 近代日本におけるサラリーマンの生き方の最初期の段階について考えることである. 大正末期のサラリーマンの模範像は, 給与以上の働きをし, 仕事に対して最善の努力を尽くし, 企業に対して忠実な社員というものであったが, サラリーマンからの反発を受け, 『実業之日本』は模範像の新たな語りを展開する. そこでは, サラリーマンは資本家や経営者に対して協調的な「中層階級」を形成すべきと主張され, 大正末期の模範像と類似してはいたが, 語りにおいては仕事の内容や意義を説明することで, 資本家や経営者に協調的な姿勢をとるように提唱された. 投稿という形でサラリーマン自身によって提示される模範像は, 安楽な家庭生活を送ることを重視するものであった. こうして, 大正末期から昭和初期におけるサラリーマンは, 安楽な家庭生活を享受するという生き方を奨励され, その手段として仕事に専念し, 資本家や経営者に協調的な態度をとることが求められた. このような生き方が大正末期から昭和初期に形成されていたということは, 戦後の高度経済成長下で進展した企業中心社会の萌芽が, すでに芽生えつつあったことの証となりうる.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the early stage of salaried workers and their life-styles, by identifying the model image of a salaried worker from the late Taisho to the beginning of the Showa Periods shown in the articles in "Jitsugyo-no-Nihon". The model image of a salaried worker in the late Taisho Period was a person who did his best in his job regardless of his salary, and was loyal to his company. Salaried workers those days, however, strongly resisted the intension on the management side behind the model image. This led "Jitsugyo-no-Nihon" to anew description of the model image. It argued that salaried workers should constitute 'the middle class' cooperative with shareholders and employers. The newly described model image was similar to that of the late Taisho Period. Focusing the contents and significance of their works, the articles advocated that salaried workers should follow shareholders and employers, while the model image shown by salaried workers themselves in the readers' columns was a person who would value his comfortable family life. Thus, salaried workers from the late Taisho to the beginning of the Showa Periods were encouraged to enjoy their comfortable private lives. As the means for that, they were required to attend diligently to their duties and to be cooperative with shareholders and employers. Establishment of such a lifestyle in this period can prove the rise of the company-oriented-society as early as those days, which rapidly developed under the high economic growth in the post-WWII period.