Kyōhō reforms
The Kyōhō reforms ( Japanese 享 保 の 改革 , Kyōhō no kaikaku ) were issued during the Kyōhō - era (1716-1736) by the Tokugawa Shogunate under Tokugawa Yoshimune . The reforms were intended to stabilize the state finances of the shogunate government and consolidate the order of estates of the Edo period .
In the previous Genroku era (1688–1704), which is also referred to as the “golden era”, the shogunate lived beyond its means and tried to finance the excesses through a deterioration in coins , i.e. inflation . A more secure basis should be created through a tax reform. The main source of income was still the taxation of the rice fields, but now the income was no longer used as the basis, but the field size.
The samurai were the ruling class in the Edo period , including farmers, artisans and merchants, in that order ( Shi-Nō-Kō-Shō ). The merchants had come to considerable wealth in the hundred years or so of peace that the Tokugawa rule had enforced, and they clad themselves in fine silk. The samurai, on the other hand, who were socially higher, were dependent on the rice payments of their masters, the daimyo , and could only afford a dissolute lifestyle if they were deeply in debt. These debts have now been declared null and void, a tactic that the shogunate would employ more often throughout history. As a result, the merchants raised their interest rates to hedge themselves, which made the situation worse. In order to combat the supposed usury, the merchants were also forced to display their prices publicly.
In order to further consolidate the order of the estates, so-called thrift edicts were issued, which prescribed for each estate what was allowed according to its status. The order of the stalls was already heavily regulated, so samurai, craftsmen, merchants and entertainers (theaters, gambling houses and brothels) each had their own district in the cities. Only samurai were allowed to carry weapons. This has now been tightened, especially in clothing and house building. Farmhouses, for example, were only allowed to be thatched. It hit the merchant's booth particularly hard, which had aroused the envy of the samurai with its wealth. The traders were forced to wear burlap. The traders then had clothes sewn that were made of coarse linen on the outside and lined with fine silk on the inside.
The brain behind the edicts was Ogyū Sorai (1666-1728), a supporter of the so-called old school ( 古学 , kogaku ) heavily from the Neo-Confucianism was affected. His school saw agriculture as the basis of production, and with it the nobles who own the land and the peasants who work the land. Craftsmen simply process this generated value and dealers distribute it. There are parallels here to European physiocratism . Later reforms, which continued to try to enforce the old class order against the growing influence of the merchant class and pre-industrialization, were then also called reforms in the Ogyū style.
Although Ogyū became the most influential economic theorist of the Edo period, his Kyōhō reforms were doomed to failure. There was already a great famine in Japan in 1732, triggered by a plague of locusts. The shogunate had to empty its rice granaries so as not to lose its subjects, and allow individual provinces to act economically themselves, which was frowned upon according to pure Confucian doctrine in order to ensure their survival. Only with the Kansei reforms (1788–1793) did the conservative forces regain the upper hand for a while.