A Historial Transformation from
Feudalism to 'Capitalism'
Michio Morishima
Discussion Paper
No. JS/86/138
1986
The Suntory Centre
Suntory and Toyota International Centres for
Economics and Related Disciplines
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, UK.
Tel. 020-7955 6698
NB: This PDF was retrospectively created in February 2004 of the STICERD
discussion paper previously published in 1986.
Abstract
'Where feudalism ends, the capitalist regime commences.' This familiar and prima
facie self-evident statement is the proposition which I want to examine in this paper. I
would argue as follows: Even given the uniformity of feudalism everywhere in the
world (i.e. if it has always appeared in its purest form with no deviation from the
logically constructed ideal type), it must have appeared in combination with many
other elements such as, for example, whether a country has an oceanic or
continental climate, the types of weapons available in a society, the type of religion
most influential in the lives of the people there, and so forth. These additional
elements must also play significant roles; so where combinations vary, different
types of economy (or society) must be obtained after any transition from feudalism to
a more developed mode of production. It may thus be conjectured that even if
feudalism were unique, capitalism as a result of the transition would not be unique.
The present paper aims to confirm this conjecture by comparing aspects of the
history of Japan with that of England.
Keywords: Japan, England, feudalism, capitalism, history.
© by Michio Morishima. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two
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