Download or read book Ordinary Economies in Japan written by Tetsuo Najita and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2009-09-16 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Ordinary Economies in Japan directs our attention to a subordinate yet powerful theme in modern Japanese economic thought that appeared unobtrusively in the mid-Tokugawa period and found expression in the formation of voluntary, non-hierarchical associations of commoners who purposively organized their self-help activities apart from state authority. Tetsuo Najita's compelling analysis of kô is groundbreaking and explains a great deal about Japanese modernization that economic historians have overlooked or undervalued."—Stephen Vlastos, University of Iowa