SATO, Nobuhiro.

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Keizai yoryaku ("Economic Digest"). A late Edo period manuscript copy of this economic treatise, where the political philosopher Sato Nobuhiro (1769-1850) outlined his concept of "political economy" (keizai) for the first time. His ideas "exercised, directly and indirectly, a considerable influence among Meiji political oligarchs, economists, and intellectuals throughout the nation's modernizing years" (Marcon, p. 265).In 1828, Nobuhiro was hired by the lord of Satsuma Domain to reinvigorate their economy. To do so he introduced his new idea of keizai, modelled on Western and Confucian philosophies. As he wrote in the introduction to Keizai yoryaku: "Keizai means managing the nation, developing its products, enriching the country and rescuing all its people from suffering" (Marcon, p. 270). His plan assured direct samurai control over agricultural production, promoted the farming of cash-crops, and developed food self-sufficiency, making Satsuma one of the wealthiest regions in the country.After being implemented to great success, Nobuhiro's ideas spread quickly around Japan. Over the following half-century his policies of developing local agriculture, centralizing the profits of industry to enrich the nation overall, and properly transmitting knowledge to future generations, helped to lay the groundwork for Japan's rapid modernization and militarization in the Meiji period.

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