Abstract
In crude terms, the domain of ‘business ethics’ can be understood to operate around a series of fundamental questions concerning the history, imperatives and potential compatibilities of business practice with ethical theory and moral conduct. Are these domains reconcilable at all? If so, how, in what way and to what extent? Is morality necessary for economic success, or is economic success independent of or indeed at odds with moral consideration? It is perhaps inevitable then that what begin as ethical questions take on political implications and the various positions that are taken up on either side of these considerations fall into questions concerning how and to what extent society might regulate the damaging excesses of capitalist behaviour.
As the broad title of this book would suggest, these questions lie at the heart of this edited collection; however, the way in which they are addressed and worked through contains a fascinating particularity that articulates the global implications of their consideration. As its full title is still only suggestive of – Ethical Capitalism: Shibusawa Eiichi and Business Leadership in a Global Perspective (Fridenson and Takeo, 2017) – the book takes up these concerns by focusing on a figure central to the history of Japanese business. The book is an edited collection of writings which have culminated from a 3-year research project (2011–2013) on Shibusawa’s Eiichi’s Confucian-inspired concept of gapponshugi, and it is through Shibusawa’s espoused and perceived-embodiment of gapponshugi that the analysis is channelled.
Consequently, the book’s concern for ethical conduct in Japanese business is explored through a focus on both the notion of gapponshugi and its specific embodiment in the life and work of Shibusawa Eiichi. It is Shibusawa’s demonstrated belief in the compatibility and potential harmonization of moral and economic imperatives – the Confucian Analects (morality) and the abacus (economy) – that rendered him ‘the father of modern Japanese capitalism’, and it is this focus that brings the various themes and focuses together across eight chapters which amount to an accessible and fascinating compendium of Japanese business ethics in a global context. The book is both a compendium and a starting point for further consideration of global capitalism through a specific national context of influence and positioning.
The central notion of gapponshugi takes its starting point from the notion that not only is it possible for divergent forms of economic productivity, performance and conduct to ‘be’ ethical, but in Japanese custom there is arguably an inherent congruence between the two. At its core, gapponshugi is an understanding of capitalistic principles being consonant with achieving public-oriented benefits and goods. The basis of this position – which is markedly different from Friedman’s classical profit-centred compartmentalization of a business’ social and economic responsibility – is bound up with the Confucian principles that continue to permeate Japanese society and the early education of Shibusawa: As a youth, Shibusawa studied both Chinese and Japanese classics, including the Analects of Confucius … Shibusawa’s values were shaped by the tumultuous events surrounding the end of Japanese feudalism in the middle of the 19th Century, and by Confucianism, the basic principle of the samurai class, who were the ruling elite of the Tokugawa era and later became the main actors responsible for inaugurating the Meiji Restoration. (Takeo, 2017: 4)
The focus, from which the book was derived, is taken up in the second chapter by Kazuhiro (2017: 39–58) who invokes the notion of ‘harmony’ to translate the principles at the heart of gapponshugi to the context at hand. Here, we learn that the harmonization of morality and the economy are not to be seen as the merging of two disparate domains but rather a belief in their inherent compatibility. Crucially, this perspective is treated from a global perspective as also being compatible with the discourses surrounding Western modes of capitalism at the time of this internationalist expansion: Although Shibusawa’s reference point was Confucianism, his concerns nevertheless have a striking resonance with the Christian-influenced discourse on commercial morality that had evolved in the West during the nineteenth century and that had been taken up in Japan beginning in the 1880s. (Hunter, 2017: 94)
Despite the chapters’ relative focuses, Shibusawa emerges as a figure whose vitae (as much as his curriculum vitae) provide the potential source for thinking through the personal implications of ethical conduct in a globalized world. This is not a small implication, either for the study at hand or its specific approach. The challenges of global capitalism, by its very nature, represent the extent to which individuals’, groups’, a society’s and various nation’s conduct and reputation are increasingly underpinned and made accountable through global questions of choice, responsibility and conduct. It is therefore on account of globalism’s potential to overwhelm the individual that the exploration of Japan’s specifically historical, national (identity) and ethical place in global capitalism’s development are channelled through the fascinating and full life of Shibusawa. By accounting for Japan’s specific relationship to the now-established field of ‘business ethics’ through the profile of a man who is said to embody the philosophy he espoused, there is a sense of character to the book that is often lacking in broad comparative analyses of the various so-called alternative ‘forms’ of capitalism. Indeed, it is the personality and character of Shibusawa Eiichi that shines through the collection and brings the themes together with a cultural-historical emphasis.
Through its cultural-historical emphasis, the chapters are haunted by ‘Anglo-American’ forms of capitalism rather than being articulated as a direct proxy or standard framework. Although Kazuhiro’s (2017) introduction to gapponshugi as a notion of harmony between morality and economy uses Adam Smith for comparative means (pp. 54–55), the emphasis remains with Shibusawa’s Confucian-inspired doctrine of enterprise’s foremost concern being with imperatives for public goods. This appears to be because Smith’s tenets of enlightened self-interest are rooted in a cultural sensibility that is not shared by Shibusawa: ‘Simply put, the difference is in whether the pursuit of public welfare is expected of entities engaged in economic activities. Shibusawa believed it was; Smith did not’ (Kazuhiro, 2017: 51). Shibusawa was not an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, and his influence in the national alignment of Confucian principles into a broad framework for ethical conduct is revealed as not being just for Japan’s reception as an ethical actor on the world stage, but the ethical influence these principles may have in the world and Japan’s stake in world development. While Kazuhiro’s analysis remains with the individual sensibilities articulated in the private works of Shibusawa and Smith, Huntley’s (chapter 5) contextualization of Shibusawa’s views demonstrate that the private convictions of Shibusawa were not limited to a mere private belief, but rather the timely influence that Christian discourse was having on commercial morality in the late 18th century. It is in this capacity that the book provides a welcome and accessible introduction to the importance of a nation’s philosophical underpinnings in the specific formations of capitalism and its implications for contemporary business conduct today.
In chapter 4, ‘Capitalism by the “visible hand”’ (Matao, 2017), Matao addresses Shibusawa’s leadership qualities and his role as a national ‘business leader’ (zaikaijin). Through his industrial philosophy of gapponshugi, Shibusawa’s significance is considered as being of one who facilitated ‘organized’ forms of entrepreneurship which led to the proliferation of joint-stock companies in Japan. Matao gives the cultural-historical sense of how this specifically Japanese ‘leadership-type’ was borne out of a cultural-historical global context, which was part of a dialectic of the industrial standards of Western progress based on the individualistic orientation of Protestant Christian values. Matao presents an argument that subtly undermines the ‘theory of moral sentiment’ which underpinned Smith’s later treatise on The Wealth of Nations. In doing so, it is revealed that rather than some metaphysical force (or ‘invisible hand’) tending the market and its people’s self-serving destiny, it is the organizational and ‘leader-type’ entrepreneurial activities of business leaders and individuals like Shibusawa that secure the fate of a nation and its people’s economic and ethical trajectory. In this capacity, Shibusawa’s embodied principles become both context and example of what today are recognized as ‘community-centred entrepreneurs’ (Ranis, 1955; referenced in Matao, 2017: 90). In turn, this gesture and concern for ethical conduct – despite the global connotations of its influence – is revealed to lie with ‘the individual’, and the individual’s responsibility towards civil society.
The responsibility of each individual to his or her society is central to gapponshugi, and is marked in contrast to the notion of personal responsibility and accountability as it is understood in ostensibly Western terms and national contexts. By focusing on Shibusawa, the context surrounding Japan’s exposure to the emergingly dominant ways in which Western civilization was organized are addressed with a full articulation of the challenges facing individual nations’ relation to the imperatives of global trade and internationalisation. In doing so a rich and intellectually fascinating series of chapters make up this collection, all of which go beyond exploring mere ‘alternatives’ brought about by ‘comparative’ means.
In many ways, avoiding the temptation for linear comparison is the key strength to this collection. In Takeo’s editorial introduction, a sensitive contrast is drawn between so-called ‘Anglo-American’ models of capitalism and ‘Japanese-German’ equivalences. However, the national orientations of ethical conduct and perceptions of what constitutes ‘wealth’ according to Eastern and Western perspectives are embraced with the necessary nuance needed to account for the global make up of the world Shibusawa aided Japan’s alignment towards. It is through such an embracing of the subtlety between East and West, individual and collective, economy and morality, public and private, Smith and Shibusawa, that this book succeeds in providing a solid basis on which the intersection between two different cultural histories, civilized characters and ethical imperatives have and continue to come together as a mutual influence.
It is therefore as much a thought-provoking introduction to the global context of business ethics as it is a compendium of focused English-language essays on an individual who was central to Japan’s culturally specific entry into international society. It provides both a cultural-historical account of the conditions underpinning the specific ethos of Japanese capitalism at the turn of the century, and in doing so represents a timely gesture towards ways in which we might think through the fundamental questions of ‘business ethics’ from an evermore integrated and global perspective.