The Mercantile Ethical Tradition in Edo Period Japan

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Ichiro Horide

   Pages 1-27

3. Why Study the Ethical Thought of Merchants in the Edo Period Japan?

   • Ichiro Horide

   Pages 29-34

4. From “Bushido” to “Shonindo”

   • Ichiro Horide

   Pages 35-59

5. Case Analysis of the Shonindo

   • Ichiro Horide

   Pages 61-179

6. Shonindo: Characteristics and Criticisms

   • Ichiro Horide

   Pages 181-216

7. Conclusion

   • Ichiro Horide

   Pages 217-225

8. Back Matter

   Pages 227-233

   PDF

This book demonstrates that during Japan’s early modern Edo period (1603–1868) an ethical code existed among the merchant class comparable to that of the well-known Bushido. There is compelling evidence that contemporary merchants, who were widely and openly despised as immoral by the samurai, in fact acted in highly ethical ways in accordance with a well-articulated moral code.

Japanese society was strictly stratified into four distinct and formally recognized classes: warrior, farmer, craftsman and merchant. From the warriors’ perspective, the merchants, at the base of the social order, had no virtue, and existed only to skim profits as middlemen between producers and consumers. But were these accusations correct? Were the merchants really unethical beings who engaged in unfair business practices? There is ample evidence that negates the ubiquitous slanders of the warrior class and suggests that merchants – no less than the warriors – possessed and acted in accordance with a well-developed ethical code, a spirit that may be called shonindo or “The Way of the Merchant.”

This book examines whether a comparison of shonindo, depicting the ethical point of view of the merchant class, and Bushido, embodying that of the warrior class, reveals that shonindo may have in fact surpassed Bushido in some aspects. Comparing contemporarily published historical documents concerning both shonindo and Bushido, as well as Inazo Nitobe’s classic work Bushido: The Soul of Japan, published in 1900, the author examines how Bushido surpassed shonindo in that warriors were willing to die for their strict ethical code. Shonindo, however, may have surpassed Bushido in that merchants were liberal, willing to expand and extend application of their ethical beliefs into all aspects of everyday life for the overall benefit of society. This ethical code is compared with that of the conservative Bushido, which demonstrably proved not up to the task for the modernization and improved well-being of Japan.

Ichiro Horide is professor emeritus of Reitaku University. Edward Yagi (Reitaku University) and Stanley J. Ziobro II (Trident Technical College) collaborated in the translation of the original Japanese manuscript into English.

• Bushido
• Business ethics
• Edo period
• Japan-style management
• Merchant ethics
• Business and religion
• Virtue

• Reitaku University, Kashiwa, Japan

  Ichiro Horide

Ichiro Horide is Professor Emeritus of Reitaku University, Japan. 


Edward Yagi, who supervised the overall translation of the manuscript from Japanese to English, is a Professor of Economics and Business Management at Reitaku University. 




Stanley J. Ziobro II, who converted most of the original Japanese manuscript into English, is an Adjunct Professor in Religion at Trident Technical College, USA.

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