The role played by the state in the development of capitalism in Japan

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that Japan's transition from feudalism to capitalism did not follow the classical Western pattern of a bourgeois revolution led by an ascendant merchant and industrial class. Instead, the driving force was a section of the old feudal ruling class — the samurai aristocracy — which, facing the threat of colonisation by more advanced imperialist powers, consciously adopted capitalist industrialisation as a defensive strategy to preserve its own position. The Japanese bourgeoisie was too weak, cautious, and dependent to lead this transformation, so the state — controlled by former feudal elements — took on the task of building capitalism from above. This demonstrates that the path to capitalist modernity is not uniform but is shaped by the uneven and combined development of the world economy, a dynamic theorised by Trotsky in his theory of Permanent Revolution.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws centrally on Trotsky's theory of uneven and combined development and the theory of Permanent Revolution. The key insight is that once a handful of advanced capitalist nations dominate the world market, the gradual emergence of a native bourgeoisie in less developed countries is blocked off. The local bourgeoisie becomes tied to and dependent upon foreign imperialist capital, rendering it incapable of leading its own bourgeois-democratic revolution. In such conditions, the task of smashing the old feudal order can fall to other classes — in Russia's case the proletariat, in Japan's case a modernising faction of the old feudal aristocracy itself.

The article also deploys a sophisticated, non-formalist conception of the state. Drawing on Trotsky's 1937 article "Not a workers' and not a bourgeois state?", it argues that the class character of a state cannot be determined simply by the social origins of its personnel. The semi-feudal Prussian monarchy executed the tasks of the bourgeoisie "in its own manner"; the Japanese samurai-led state built capitalism. What defines the state is the direction of its activity — whether it is clearing the ground for capitalist accumulation or not. This is a dialectical rather than a mechanical-materialist approach to the state.

The article also implicitly engages with the Marxist theory of imperialism, showing how external military and economic pressure from the West (the Opium Wars in China, Perry's gunboat diplomacy) forced the Japanese ruling class to choose between colonisation and rapid industrialisation.

Conjunctural Relevance

Although published in 2011, the article's argument resonates strongly with the current conjuncture. The most obvious parallel is with China. The Chinese Communist Party, like the Meiji oligarchs, emerged from a revolutionary rupture but has presided over the most rapid capitalist industrialisation in history while maintaining authoritarian political forms. The article explicitly draws this analogy, noting that Japan's ruling class "copied the West in terms of economic reform" but did not adopt Western political institutions — "the cabinet of oligarchs remained 'transcendental' – a law unto itself – and freedoms were very much within limits."

The article also speaks to the broader question of "late development" in the Global South. The argument that state intervention is not a deviation from capitalist development but often its necessary precondition — especially when coordinated investment across multiple sectors is required — directly challenges neoliberal orthodoxy. The example of Japan shows that the state can play a decisive role in overcoming the coordination problems that market forces alone cannot solve in a late-developing economy.

The post-war role of US imperialism in completing Japan's bourgeois revolution — imposing land reform and democratic institutions to pre-empt revolution — remains relevant to understanding how imperialism shapes the political superstructures of client states. The article notes that MacArthur's reforms were driven by fear of the spread of Stalinism, particularly to China.

Where the Argument Continues

The article explicitly signals its own limits. It mentions that the German case — where the Junkers under Bismarck promoted industrialisation from above — is "material for another article." This suggests a broader comparative project within the IDOM corpus, examining how capitalism developed in different national contexts without classical bourgeois revolutions.

The article also touches on but does not develop the full logic of Permanent Revolution — that where the proletariat carries out the bourgeois revolution, it passes over to socialist tasks. This is the central subject of Trotsky's The Permanent Revolution and of numerous IDOM articles on the Russian Revolution and on contemporary struggles in the Global South.

The question of Japan's prolonged crisis since the late 1980s is mentioned but not analysed. This connects to IDOM's broader work on the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, overaccumulation, and the limits of state-directed capitalism.

Connections

• Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution — The theoretical foundation for the argument that the classical bourgeois revolutionary path is blocked in late-developing countries.
• Trotsky, "Not a workers' and not a bourgeois state?" (1937) — The key text on the non-formalist definition of the state's class character, directly cited.
• Marx, Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist") — The classical account of primitive accumulation and the role of the state in England, against which the Japanese case is contrasted.
• Engels, The Peasant War in Germany — For comparative analysis of the German path, which the article flags as a parallel case.
• IDOM articles on China — The analogy with China's state-led capitalist development is explicit and invites comparative reading.
• IDOM articles on the state — The broader Marxist theory of the state as an instrument of class rule, and the distinction between the state's form and its content.

Key Quotes

1. "Once a few advanced industrialised capitalist nations had emerged on the scene of history, these tended to dominate the rest of the world. Hence, the phenomenon of imperialism. The existence of powerful industrial countries, with a high level of productivity and advanced technological methods, meant that the path of gradual emergence of a local bourgeoisie was blocked off in the lesser developed countries."

2. "The Japanese bourgeoisie was weak and did not directly guide this process... the government was disappointed at the lack of private entrepreneurs. It ended up having to establish many enterprises by itself."

3. "If one ask the correct question, i.e. in which direction was that state going, the answer would be unequivocally towards capitalism, and that is what would finally define the fundamental nature of that state."

4. "The semi-feudal Prussian monarchy executed the most important tasks of the bourgeoisie, but executed them in its own manner, i.e., in a feudal, not a Jacobin style. In Japan we observe even today an analogous correlation between the bourgeois character of the state and the semi-feudal character of the ruling caste."

5. "The American imperialists had good reason to push for such reforms as within Japan itself a powerful trade union movement had developed, together with a large Communist Party. It was to cut across such developments that the Americans pushed for what amounted to the final completion of the Japanese bourgeois revolution."

6. "Two of the most advanced industrial powers on the planet, Germany and Japan, emerged from their feudal past not through classical bourgeois revolutions, of the French type, but through a process that was dictated by the needs of the ruling elite of a system that could no longer defend its interests by clinging on to feudalism."