[anonymous908213]

This was mostly a nice read, I do enjoy these kinds of slice-of-life blogs. I think it might have been a bit better without making claims about the economic future and history of rice farming or whatever, if the author doesn't even speak the language it's unlikely they have any real insight to offer and whatever shallow information they got off a random Youtube video is liable to be spreading misinformation that misleads uninformed readers than being actually informative. Farming a rice field does not a rice economist make.

There is one particularly funny point I'd quibble on:

> This was part of a system to discourage communism initially by encouraging ownership of business and preventing absentee landlords accumulating large tracts of land where people who work the fields would be forced into renting.

I'm dubious about the credibility of this assertion, but it is amusing to think that the goal would be to "discourage communism" by a policy that is essentially communistic in nature, in the true definition of the economic system (ownership of the means of production, ie. you own your own labour rather than renting it out).

I am, of course, nitpicking. It's rather easier for me to write comments complaining about things than praising them at length, but I was entertained by the view into the author's experiences and anecdotes.

[alech]

One thing that’s worth noting though is that Japan is known for having a large degree of small business ownership, and it’s also a pretty well documented effect that high rates of small business ownership = high rates of support for capitalism, because small business owners themselves get a taste of capitalism and see it’s benefits.

[ForHackernews]

It's true, every small business owner enjoys larping as a capitalist until it comes time to declare bankruptcy https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistan...

[fer]

How is that communistic?

The reasoning behind Gentan was that a landless peasantry was more likely to revolt. It's not dissimilar to pre-1929 kulaks, though the kulaks were encouraged/enabled to become a relatively wealthy/middle class peasantry who employed people and were directly involved in the production without owning large swathes of land, acting as a kind of a social dampener against a revolution.

Unsurprisingly the Soviet Union killed the kulak model and moved to collective farming[0], which was arguably actually communistic.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization

[orthoxerox]

Kulaks were the stated problem, the real problem were the middling farmers. If you're a smallholder with a surplus of land, your production is very elastic.

You can plant cash crops and sell them to buy industrial products. Or you can plant crops that boost your quality of life directly: fruit, vegetables, tobacco, animal fodder.

The "price scissors" (low price of wheat, high price of goods) meant that middling farmers stopped planting wheat that the USSR needed to feed the cities and to pay for imports. To make the peasants plant wheat again the Soviets took away their land in the name of economy of scale (collectivization), but the real goal was to limit the size of personal plots.

[kubanczyk]

> The reasoning behind Gentan was that a landless peasantry was more likely to revolt.

So, it was an anti-revolutionary policy. Which at that time of history worked as well as an anti-communist policy.

> Unsurprisingly the Soviet Union killed the kulak model and moved to collective farming[0], which was arguably actually communistic.

Soviet Union, whatever it had preached, implemented state capitalism - concentration of the means of production under a single owner.

It's important for me to use words precisely. If somebody implies, for example, that capitalism is the opposite of communism, that's just snatching the words and waving them like banners.

[fer]

>Soviet Union, whatever it had preached, implemented state capitalism - concentration of the means of production under a single owner.

Lenin preached for state capitalism as a transitory state towards socialism. It's an integral part of the communist ideas, part of the direction even if not part of the ideal final state.

[kubanczyk]

Sure. Historically, at times people had free trade. At times we had no monopolies at all. At times there were really few laws. We had democracy and free speech and more. Various components of "The West" had been tried before.

All these did not compare with the sheer effect of capitalism: let's concentrate the production, let's scale it so big that every worker will become a hyper-narrow specialist. You bet it's unsexy take today, but it was universally understood in Lenin's times that it's a path not possible/feasible to withdraw from. That's the one magic ingredient that seems absolutely required.

[numpad0]

The non-oral version of the explanation author received is likely 農地解放, a postwar US/Allied military led land reform.

The core idea of it, I think, is that those landlords must have been the mainsails of prewar Japanese military dictatorship regime and its expansionism under the strong leadership of its emperor, and breaking up land ownership will make it complicated for Japan to re-consolidate power and/or to somehow become closer to the Soviets.

I guess it did serve its core purpose of keeping China/Russia at bay, considering Japan has been extraordinary antagonistic to neighboring, and/or openly communist and/or totalitarian regimes, despite running on a rather ethnocentric communism-from-first-principle political system...

1: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BE%B2%E5%9C%B0%E6%94%B9%E9...

[CobrastanJorji]

You have to remember that in 1950, the US had a tremendous influence in Japan, to put it mildly, and also in 1950, the US was rabidly, performatively anti-communist. When McCarthyism was getting started stateside, we were also carrying out a "Red Purge" in Japan.

Anyway, yeah, in this context, Japan passed the Agricultural Land Act of 1952, which was intended to turn land owned by a few rich landlords into small, independently owned private farms. That may sound like the opposite of capitalism, and it is, but as I understand it, the idea was to turn what were basically serfs into a proper middle class, by redistributing the wealth and means of production directly down to them, which would then prevent communism from being as appealing. I don't know about the logic, but I guess it worked, since Japan isn't communist?

[ForOldHack]

Your choice of adjectives "rabidly" particularly underscores the times.

[Pay08]

This mostly seems like an anti-manorialism idea, which falls under the umbrella of every modern economic system.

[stereolambda]

> I'm dubious about the credibility of this assertion, but it is amusing to think that the goal would be to "discourage communism" by a policy that is essentially communistic in nature, in the true definition of the economic system (ownership of the means of production, ie. you own your own labour rather than renting it out).

You are meant to "own the means of production" not in an actual, but more ideal sense. Owning a farm or workshop to the exclusion of other people makes you petit bourgeois and this is bad. Communism promotes collective farms. AFAIK Poland was the only European Eastern Bloc country to tolerate small private farms, as a concession to obstinate peasants after the death of Stalin.

Promoting small individual farms is a more Georgist, populist capitalist or possibly strictly conservative policy. Not speaking to its economic sense though.

[adrian_b]

The communist policy everywhere was to rob the small farmers and small business owners of everything they owned and force them to become quasi-serfs.

The socialist/communist economy is the final extreme stage of monopolistic capitalism, towards which USA and other Western countries have been continuously evolving during the last quarter of century. The economy of USA in 2026 is much more similar to the economy of one of the former socialist countries in 1976 than it resembles the economy of USA in 1976.

Small farmers and businessmen were the main enemies of communism, everywhere.

So what Japan enacted was indeed a good anti-communist policy.

Fighting against big companies and supporting small businesses is the opposite of communist policies.

There were a lot of great differences between true communism and what the communists themselves claimed communism to be. There were also a lot of great differences between true communism and what communism has been claimed to be in USA.

Source: I have grown up in a country occupied by communist invaders, so I know what true communism is.

[huijzer]

> to think that the goal would be to "discourage communism" by a policy that is essentially communistic in nature

War is peace,

Freedom is slavery,

Ignorance is strength

The point, as I see it, being that politicians like to make contradicting statements. Good for sales you could say. It is possible to cut through such lies by using logic, good on you for doing that. Unfortunately, many people take such statements as true and mostly get confused by it.

[ahartmetz]

That doesn't seem strange to me at all. You give the people some of the things that they want from communism so that they will be content without communism. It's exactly what Bismarck did in Germany around 1900 (unemployment benefits, retirement funds and health insurance) and it was widely considered a success. Perhaps that was even an inspiration for Japan