Michio Morishima - Böcker

Equilibrium, Stability and Growth A Multi-Sectoral Analysis

Theory of Economic Growth

Since the beginning of the 1990s, Japan's economy has faltered and declined. It is turning towards "capitalism from below" despite Japan's weak democracy. This directional change is investigated through a variety of standpoints, using an in depth knowledge of the Japanese ethos, national history, educational background, as well as the sociology of the Japanese economy and business world. The author offers a long term forecast for the future of Japan.

This book brings together in a single coherent framework a research programme begun by the author in the forties. The main model around which the analysis is built is Hicksian in character, having been drawn in large part from John Hicks's Value and Capital. The model is extended so as to include money and securities. In respect of the theory of the firm the model focuses on demand and supply plans, on inputs and outputs, on inventories, and on dependencies between them. The stability of temporary equilibrium is discussed for linear and non-linear cases. Because the concept of structural stability is important for understanding non-linear cases, it is defined and applied to the case of economic motion generated from the temporary equilibrium analysis. The addenda focus on developments in economic theory following the publication of the main model.

This book, by a distinguished Japanese economist now resident in the West, offers a new interpretation of the current success of the Japanese economy. By placing the rise of Japan in the context of its historical development, Michio Morishima shows how a strongly-held national ethos has interacted with religious, social and technological ideas imported from elsewhere to produce highly distinctive cultural traits. While Professor Morishima traces the roots of modern Japan back as far as the introduction of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism from China in the sixth century, he concentrates his observations on the last 120 years during which Japan has had extensive contacts with the West. He describes the swift rise of Japan to the status of a first-rate power following the Meiji Revolution after 1867, in which Japan broke with a long history of isolationism, and which paved the way for the adoption of Western technology and the creation of a modern Western-style nation state; and a similarly meteoric rise from the devastation of the Second World War to Japan's present position. A range of factors in Japan's economic success are analysed: her characteristic dualistic social structure - corresponding to the divide between large and medium/small enterprises - the relations of government and big business, the poor reception of liberalism and individualism, and the strength of the Japanese nationalism. Throughout, Professor Morishima emphasises the importance of the role played in the creation of Japanese capitalism by ethical doctrines as transformed under Japanese conditions, especially the Japanese Confucian tradition of complete loyalty to the firm and to the state. This account, which makes clear the extent to which the economic rise of Japan is due to factors unique to its historical traditions, will be of interest to a wide general readership as well as to students of Japan and its history.

Originally published in 1977, this book is a companion to Professor Morishima's book Marx's Economics which was published in 1973. As he did so successfully with Marx, Morishima intended with this book to change the standard assessment of his subject's contribution to the development of economic thought. The standard view was that Walras provided, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the basis for general equilibrium theory. He was thus regarded as a microeconomist, a founder of marginalism; but Morishima argues that, while Walras certainly made important contributions in that area, it is his attempt to build a macroeconomics on that foundation that should be regarded as his main achievement. This book will provoke great interest amongst all economists and advanced students of economic theory and its history.

This volume was originally published in 1976. The difference types of society in the world - capitalist, socialist, mixed, etc. - have many features in common, despite their dissimilarities. The object of this book is to make clear the economic logic of society in general, which applies to socialist as well as capitalist economies. Taking the Japanese economy as an example, part of the book tries to explain how an actual economy can deviate from the 'ideal' laws of motion, and shows that such aberrations themselves obey certain rules. In a broad sense, it belongs in the domain of the theory of comparative systems. The book is based on lectures which Professor Morishima gave to students at Osaka University in 1967-1968. It is translated from the Japanese by D. W. Anthony.

Professor Morishima concentrates on the three volumes of Das Kapital and their contributions to the major topics of traditional Marxian economics. He provides a rigorous mathematisation of the labour theory of value, the theory of exploitation, the transformation problem, the reproduction scheme, the law of relative surplus population, the falling rate of capital and the turnover of capital. After proving Marxian propositions in a rigorous way, he argues that in order to combine Marx's model with von Neumann's in a new growth theory it is necessary to abandon the labour theory of value. Professor Morishima feels that this sacrifice is well worth making, because it enables Marxian economics to be integrated with orthodox theory into a new Marx-von Neumann theory of growth, and this to make an important contribution to the development of the subject.

This book is a stimulating and original introduction to the economics of industrial society. It is intended for use as a student text, but will also be of interest to all those - whether students or teachers - looking for new ways of understanding the economic problems of industrialised countries. It provides an effective critique of current economic theories, and develops an original model of the economics (whether neo-classical, Marxist, or Keynesian) of modern industrial society. Throughout the book the analysis is oriented towards the solution of problems in the real world, and towards explaining the operation of economic institutions in different countries. The work looks at the way individual markets operate, the determination of foreign exchange rates, the problem of unemployment, and the fiscal and monetary policies needed to tackle unemployment. This book analyses the case of an industrial country entirely dependent on other countries for its raw materials.

This book, together with Marx's Economic and Walras' Economics, completes a sequence of titles by Professor Morishima on the first generation of scientific economists. The author's assessment of Ricardo differs substantially from the established views adopted by economists and historians of economic thought. While economists such as Pasinetti, Caravale and Samuelson have concentrated on macroeconomic interpretations of Ricardo, and historians of economic thought have emphasised his labour theory of value, Morishima takes a different course. In this book the author concentrates on Ricardo's main work, The Principles, and shows that his economics is the prototype of mathematical economies without the symbols and formulae. Morishima then translates Ricardo's economics into mathematical language to find a general equilibrium system (very similar to Walras') concealed within. The analysis also contradicts the conventional view that marginalism emerged in opposition to classical economics, showing instead that Ricardian analysis is firmly based on marginalist principles, using prices, wages and profits rather than labour values. The book ends with a discussion of the historical character of economic theory and an attempt to specify the epoch of Ricardian economics.

Contemporary general equilibrium theory is characteristically short-run, separated from monetary aspects of the economy, and as such does not deal with long-run problems such as capital accumulation, innovation, and the historical movement of the economy. These phenomena are discussed by growth theory, which assumes a given or shifting production function, and in turn cannot therefore deal with the fundamental problem of growth, namely how the production function is derived. Thus traditional theories have a common weakness in that they divorce real economic growth from the activities of the financial sector. This book provides a much-needed synthesis of growth theory and monetary theory. Professor Morishima draws on the work of Schumpeter, Keynes and the pre-war neoclassical economists to formulate a capital-theoretic general equilibrium theory.

Contemporary general equilibrium theory is characteristically short-run, separated from monetary aspects of the economy, and as such does not deal with long-run problems such as capital accumulation, innovation, and the historical movement of the economy. These phenomena are discussed by growth theory, which assumes a given or shifting production function, and in turn cannot therefore deal with the fundamental problem of growth, namely how the production function is derived. Thus traditional theories have a common weakness in that they divorce real economic growth from the activities of the financial sector. This book provides a much-needed synthesis of growth theory and monetary theory. Professor Morishima draws on the work of Schumpeter, Keynes and the pre-war neoclassical economists to formulate a capital-theoretic general equilibrium theory.

This book brings together in a single coherent framework a research programme begun by the author in the forties. The main model around which the analysis is built is Hicksian in character, having been drawn in large part from John Hicks's Value and Capital. The model is extended so as to include money and securities. In respect of the theory of the firm the model focuses on demand and supply plans, on inputs and outputs, on inventories, and on dependencies between them. The stability of temporary equilibrium is discussed for linear and non-linear cases. Because the concept of structural stability is important for understanding non-linear cases, it is defined and applied to the case of economic motion generated from the temporary equilibrium analysis. The addenda focus on developments in economic theory following the publication of the main model.

This volume examines central questions about the nature of economic theory, its historical development and its explanatory power. What determines economic distribution - can pure economic theory itself explain the fundamentals of distribution or is a broader economics incorporating theories of power in society necessary?