Capital As Will and Imagination

Mark Metzler is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan.

• Introduction: Inflation and Its ProductionsChapter 1. The Revolution in Prices1.1 Faustian Capital / 1.2 World War I and the Political Economy of Twentieth-Century Inflation / 1.3 Postwar Stabilization / 1.4 The Great Inflation of the 1940s / 1.5 Exporting Inflation / 1.6 The Inflation Comes HomeChapter 2. Dramatis Personae2.1 "The Schumpeter Vogue" / 2.2 At the Monetary Bonfire / 2.3 The Marxists / 2.4 The Capital Creator / 2.5 The SchumpeteriansChapter 3. What Is Capital?3.1 When New Capital Comes onto the Stage / 3.2 The Distribution of Promises / 3.3 Credit Inflation the Mechanism of Capitalist Development / 3.4 Capital as Indication / 3.5 The Capitalist Process as an Ideal–Material CircuitChapter 4. Flows and Stores4.1 Energy, Capital, and Debt / 4.2 Flows of Production / 4.3 Stores of Promises / 4.4 Saving Follows from Investment / 4.5 Power and PlanningChapter 5. Japanese Capitalism under Occupation5.1 Imagining Postwar Development / 5.2 First Responses: Burning, Looting, and Printing / 5.3 The Amplification of Monetary Flows / 5.4 The Constriction of Material-Energetic Flows / 5.5 Liquidating Japanese CapitalismChapter 6. Inflation as Capital6.1 The Ishibashi Line / 6.2 The ESB Line: "Modified Capitalism" / 6.3 Inflation and Social Leveling / 6.4 Taxation as Monetary Regulation / 6.5 The Limits of Modified CapitalismChapter 7. Interlude (Deflation)7.1 Joseph Dodge and the Theory of Capital Restriction / 7.2 The Sphere of International Capital / 7.3 Ministers of Restriction / 7.4 "The So-Called Stabilization Panic" / 7.5 Inside Money and Outside Money / 7.6 The World Economic CrisisChapter 8. The State-Bank Complex8.1 Banking as Economic Governance / 8.2 Superdirect Finance / 8.3 The Privatization of the Positive PolicyChapter 9. The Turning Point9.1 A Schumpeterian Turning Point / 9.2 Social Sources of Keynesian Stabilization / 9.3 The Second Try at Global Postwar Stabilization: Some Interim Conclusions / 9.4 Dollar Capital as Divine Providence / 9.5 "Dangerous Delusions"Chapter 10. High-Speed Growth: The Schumpeterian Boom10.1 The Restoration of the Business Cycle / 10.2 "The Postwar Is Over": The Schumpeterian Boom Begins / 10.3 Ishibashi and Ikeda: The Ascent of the Positive Policy / 10.4 The International Circuit: The External Capital ConstraintChapter 11. High-Speed Growth: Indication and Flow11.1 The Domestic Circuit: Imagined Capital for Real Growth / 11.2 Monetary "Flows," "Leakages," and "Absorption" / 11.3 Credit Creation as Planning; Planning as Credit Creation / 11.4 The Investment Doubling PlanChapter 12. Conclusions: Credere and Debere12.1 Norms and Exceptions / 12.2 Stocks of Debt and Debt-Destruction Crises / 12.3 Autodeflation / 12.4 Mirrors and MiraclesAppendixTable A-1. Basic indicators of money and credit, 1868–1965Table A-2. Credit creation and industrial investment, 1940–1965Table A-3. Prices and wages, 1936–1965Table A-4. Indicators of manufacturing production, 1936–1965NotesReferencesIndex

Metzler has produced an incisive work full of stimulating insights into the capitalist development process as well as new and challenging ways of thinking about Japan's economic performance since World War II.- Steven J. Ericson (Journal of Japanese Studies) This richly detailed study of the financial roots of Japan's high-growth era and meditation on the high costs of the ensuing bubble collapse is highly recommended for not only students of Japanese financial history, but anyone interested in the role of states and banks in the future of world capitalism.- John Sagers (The Journal of Asian Studies) While maintaining a theoretical emphasis on these Schumpeterian principles of economic growth, Metzler also gives us a rich description of how one economy, that of early post-war Japan, executed the Schumpeter.... In this analysis, Metzler displays a careful, thorough examination of sources.... It is refreshing to see a book that emphasizes the role of the Ministry of Finance (mof) and the Economic Planning units.- Tom Roehl (The Journal of Interdisciplinary History) Capital as Will and Imaginationis a Schumpeterian guide to the postwar economic miracle in that the inflationarycreation of credit was theorized by Schumpeter (over a century ago!). Indeed, Metzlerpresents compelling reasons for why we should be paying attention to Schumpeter'sideas right now.Thought-provoking, intellectually curious, and at timesdownright challenging, Capital as Will and Imagination tests the reader's knowledgeand interpretation of the events that have come to characterize and define modernJapanese history. Replete with astute references and finely drawn observations, it is awork of great wisdom and intellect, a must for all those who seek to understand themiracle of Japan's postwar economic growth.- Simon James Bytheway (Momumenta Nipponica)