日本型社会的合意の形成と展望: 経済復興運動と政労使体制の形成

The Formation and Prospects of a Japanese-Style Social Consensus: The Economic Reconstruction Movement and the Formation of the Political-Labor-Management System

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to analyze the background and development of the economic reconstruction movement, a national movement during the reconstruction period, and to clarify the nature of industrial democracy in Japan immediately after World War II. Research design, data, and methodology: This paper agrees with the assessment that the Katayama-Ashida Cabinet promoted experimental policies in a way that differed from the state-led social management that had been in place before World War II. However, this paper focuses on the actions of the various actors who prepared for and then had a significant impact on social management after the policies of the Katayama-Ashida Cabinet were implemented. Results: The economic revival movement was proposed by labor unions and developed in cooperation with management organizations and in communication with the government. This was different from the wartime Industrial Patriotic Movement, in which the government took the lead and workers and managers followed, as there were no labor unions organized by the workers themselves. In the early post-war period, the decision-making process for production activities in Japan was carried out in a way that differed from the wartime period, and a new trend of Japanese industrial democracy was created, in which the government communicated with labor based on the cooperative relationship between labor and management that had been established. Implications: The cancellation of the February 1st strike, which is said to have led to the “reverse course” in Japan immediately after World War II, occurred in the middle of the development of the economic recovery movement. As far as the development of the economic recovery movement is concerned, the assessment that the Japanese labor movement split from immediately after World War II until January 1947, but then declined due to the cancellation of the February 1st strike, needs to be reconsidered.