• Axes of Comparison
• The Social Model
• The Regional Picture Concerning Ownership, Contracts and Markets
• Time and Period
• Themes and Plans for the Second Year

The three organizers met on March 3, 2000 and reviewed the activities of 1999. It is not possible to summarise into a single topic the diverse issues brought up in the various papers and reports, but the organizers would like to take the opportunity here of giving their thoughts in anticipation of the second year of the programme (report by MIURA Toru).

1. Axes of comparison

The study group called “The Potentials of Comparative Study” has been inaugurated with the purpose of “comparing regional phenomena from a fundamental standpoint,” taking up the three themes of ownership, contracts and markets. ”Fundamental” might seem to imply that we have had in advance new hypotheses about the fundamentals characteristic of those regions, and. axes of comparison for them. Our intention is in fact the opposite: to discover common axes by comparing phenomena. Nor is our purpose the discovery itself of these axes, for we think that a operative concept which is better able to explain specific phenomena is enough. In sporting terms, this is like discovering the rules that underlie a game from the game’s actual development, in order better to understand and enjoy it.

Why should we take this roundabout method, discovering a game’s rules from its development? Not only are the rules of human society different from the rules of sport, so that it is difficult to identify them uniformly, but, returning to the metaphor of sports, most players do not actually start playing having memorized the rules of their game, but rather pick up those rules (including in the broadest sense tactics and strategy) gradually as they take part. In addition, the rules themselves are modified as equipment improves and the players’ strength and techniques change, or as the needs of spectators come into consideration. Thus for the players, the rules, even though they might be self-evident, are not unchanging, but can be learned, discovered and reformed. The rules of human society too may be considered as things to be discovered, not only by researchers but also by the participants.

When we watch a game without knowing the rules, we come across instances which are incomprehensible. Once a friend who knew nothing about baseball was watching it on television and was perplexed by giving a batter a walk. This is analogous to off-side in soccer and rugby. It is impossible to understand why a player hasn’t passed the ball to a team-mate in the vicinity of the goal if you don’t know about the off-side rule. Conversely, you can understand rugby and soccer more deeply if you know about off-side being an infringement. It is when we meet with incomprehensibilities that we say that the action is not logical. Of course then what we need to do is search for the background rule, not judge what has happened from the stance of the spectator, an outsider.

Even within the same sport, there are differences. For example, American baseball places emphasis on hitting hard from the very first ball, whereas Japanese baseball is more concerned with defensive play. They say that in the early period of American baseball the pitcher would send up easy-to-hit balls and players took delight in the hitting contest. In Japan, where baseball was introduced in the latter part of the nineteenth century as a school sport, its purpose was seen as both physical and mental training, and defensive play was prized as a means to win. There is no reason to think that American baseball is the “true” baseball while Japanese baseball is somehow retarded. The two forms of the game, though having the same rules, have developed as different games because of their different historical and social environments. In order to understand the play and the strategy it is necessary to look at the historical and cultural context that form their background.

What we are seeking is to discover the rules of the game (society) from the actions of the individual players. This could be termed “methodological individualism.” Among the rules are both those which are local and those which have a greater universality. Also, even a game conducted by the same rules can be expected to develop an individual character according to differences in players and grounds. It is on the basis of such an understanding that when different teams play against each other we have to ask what is meant by fair rules and the ground itself.

2. The social model

The neo-classical economic model is well-known as a social model based on methodological individualism. This posits an individual (homo economicus) who behaves rationally in order to maximize his own profit (satisfaction), while the provision of free market transactions serves to advance social equilibrium and economic development (maximization of utility). Here the key is the formation of a unified free market, and the state is expected to play a neutral role, providing full information and protecting free transactions. This model appears to have gained strength as a method for explaining the contemporary global market economy.

There are however three points of criticism that must be considered:

2-1 The human individual lives in a world where meaning and feeling exist as well as utility, and it is difficult to separate them. Cannot the postulate of “rational individual” be set up to include values which are other than utilitarian? (Certainly that possibility is included within game theory.)

2-2 Can we imagine the individual separated and isolated from the group and human relationships? Is there a way of defining the individual within such relationships?

1-1 The “full information” which presupposes market equilibrium seems to be unrealistic. The market seems rather to be a society which is not at equilibrium and where there is a disparity of information.

Our sense of “methodological individualism” is as a way to throw light on the processes and rules which, while emerging from the individual, form society and the social order. Here, unlike the monotonous neo-classical model, we expect to find features related to regionality and historicity coming to the forefront in regard the individual and society.

3. The regional picture concerning ownership, contracts and markets

In the study group it has been pointed out that both premodern Chinese society and Islamic society possessed a common feature, in that they were what may be called “market societies” or “contract societies,” in the sense that individual private rights of ownership were traded freely by means of contracts. It is thought that there, compared with the premodern societies of Europe and Japan where ownership by groups was dominant, the private rights of individuals and their trade were developed from early on as economic behaviour. However, although there was a time in Chinese society when “free contractual features” in effect developed, they were supported by a finely balanced sense of the total welfare (KISHIMOTO’s report). Also, in Islamic society, Islamic law, both realistic and flexible, and the social pressure derived from it, were necessary to uphold individual contracts (IWATAKE’s report). The way the social system (law, custom, social organization, culture) guaranteed rights of private ownership and contracts have a regionality and historicity different from those of modern western nations.

KISHIMOTO also suggests that whereas in China there was no public system that supported rights and contracts and that the social order itself was private and voluntary (made up of networks), in Islamic society faith and the law gave rise to a confidence in the social order. KATO states that there was formed in premodern Islamic society a system (money, law, credit), a social order and a spirit (meta-principle) which protected the existence of the market. My own opinion is that Islamic law did exist as a support system for rights and contracts, but that its effectiveness, both theoretical and actual, depended on human relations. In this sense, the social order can be considered similar to China’s, being private and based on networks.

In the reports on South-East Asia (SUGISHIMA, NISHIO), there was the view that private rights of ownership and the concept of contracts were foreign ideas (from either modern Europe or Islam). There was also the opinion (TAKAYA Koichi, MOMOKI Shiro) that a characteristic of the South-East Asian world is that it exhibits an originality in that how foreign factors are introduced, absorbed and made to function, in contrast to the “self-formed” worlds of China and India, with their original principles. If we cite this argument, we should be able to find the potentials of comparison, not by making classifications according to whether or not private ownership or contracts existed or where they derived from, but in their degree and functioning.

4. Time and period

It cannot be disputed that the political (the sovereign state, the nation state) and economic (capitalism) systems that were born in modern Europe have exerted a decisive influence on world history. What is an issue is what changed and what did not change through the modern system, that is, the question of continuity and non-continuity.

Even if we agree that it was in the modern periods that the European political and economic systems exerted their influence, this does not mean that modern nations and capitalism are the goal of world history. In terms of the economic system, Polanyi’s three types (reciprocity, redistribution and ports of trade) and Braudel’s three tiers (material culture, exchange and capitalism) show that commercial transactions are historically diverse in form and that capitalism is a system which has come into being in an historical context. We seek to uncover the historical individuality of regions, not by setting up regional society in opposition to capitalism and modern systems, but through their contacts and correspondences.

5. Themes and plans for the second year

We will continue the themes of ownership, contracts and markets during the second year (2000) and plan to develop the discussion in the following ways:

5-1 We will make a comparative examination of how the social system guarantees ownership, contracts and markets. This will provide a point of contact between the three themes. We will not simply ask how (rights of) ownership were guaranteed but think about in what way the social order and authority were formed through guaranteeing ownership (rights).

5-2 We will expand the discussion by taking up as appropriate areas outside China, South-East Asia and the Middle East (Japan, Southern Asia, Central Asia, Africa, Europe and America).

5-3 The June seminar will provisionally be called “The Order of Markets formed through interactions.”

The December seminar will take up the theme of “Justice.”

5-4 An international workshop will be held on September 24th, to which scholars from abroad will be invited, and where we will seek to develop new points for discussion.