Industrial Development of Japan During Meiji Era 1868-1912

Abstract

Fear of economic exploitation and political domination by the industrially advanced West provided the necessary incentive for the industrialization of Japan. Before the Meiji Restoration Japan was confined in a pool of stagnation and poverty. Her feudal barriers suppressed growth and change and tended to freeze labour and capital in traditional occupations. When the Meiji Government came into power 1868, she succeeded in creating the political and economic framework Indispensable for capitalist development and provided the necessary impetus to industrialization. On the foundation of a peasant agriculture economy was erected a super structure of large-scale enterprise in very short period.