Land, labour and market forces in Tokugawa Japan

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines the markets for land and labour in traditional Japan, where peasant families accounted for 80 per cent of the population; it focuses on the extent of these markets and how they operated. The survey of evidence, both literary and statistical, indicates that, while the size of the factor markets was small and limited, lease arrangements for farmland and the markets for seasonal labour and the rural–urban transfer of manpower functioned rather well. It is therefore suggested that market forces must have played an indispensable part in the process of Tokugawa Japan's proto-industrialization and Smithian growth.