NORTHEAST ASIAN HISTORY FOUNDATION 10/2022
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Kim In-ho, Professor at Dong-eui University
Getting Over with Slogans and Prejudices
I made a promise to myself that I swore to keep when I was writing this book. It was to step away from selfish and paranoid research, such as development theory and exploitation theory, and pursue research that reveals universal exploitation without using the words like exploitation or expropriation and research that reveals market-destructive consequences even based on the market theory, as Professor Heo Su-Yeol always points out. This book intended to reveal the economic fault and the destruction of the market economy by objective standards, even without introducing the spectrum of slogans and ideologies.
With this in mind, this book analyzed 'the industrial policy of the Japanese Government-General of Korea, which tried to be loyal to the political, military, and economic purposes of the empire while actively responding to the cunning demands of the capital and the market at the time, aimed at the massive speculative demand and the accumulation of excess profits by taking advantage of the urgent need for war supplies.’ In the process, I summarized various research results thoroughly and tried to look at the history of industrial policies throughout the colonial period instead of the industrial history centered on the period during and after the 1930s. By period, I divided the content into the conception, making, execution, strategy, etc., of the Government-General’s ‘industrial policies’ and examined the actual conditions by region, business category, and industry. Through these considerations, I ultimately intended to clearly show the 'truth' of the industrial policy of the Japanese Government-General of Korea, which caused the devastation of the Korean people and hardships for the reconstruction of the Korean economy after liberation by obeying the instructions of the mainland government and immersing themselves in the extraction of goods based on the sacrifice and deprivation of the Korean people in reality while arguing that they promoted the advancement of independent industry and increased production and development on the surface.
Limitations of Research Centering on Policy History
Most of the previous studies on the history of industrial policies maintained that industrialization in the past was crippled and destructured with no connection to Joseon’s industry. By period, they focused on exposing the exploitative and deceptive facts on the topics, such as ① 1910s = the strict control of the establishment of companies based on 「Company Decree」, ② 1920s = securing export markets for products of the mainland, ③ 1930s = industrialization policy to overcome the economic crisis and secure raw materials in response to the national movement crisis, and ④ 1940s = development of logistics base and military industrialization.
Since these research trends focused on the content of the policy and the reality of expropriation devised by the Japanese Government-General for specific purposes, they inevitably lack approaches to the market flow, connection with industry, or industrial reproduction structure and the market mechanism that actually worked. As a result, in several cases, they were reluctant to admit various data showing indicators of modernization.
The mechanistic position that ‘if it is a colony politically, then it is a complete system of expropriation economically’ was preferred. The organization, government-general, was understood as a predatory power that only represented the mainland’s position without any doubt and pursued policies only for the Japanese people. For this, they were very sensitive to the Governor-General’s discrimination in policies or expropriation of resources and manpower but were not generous in understanding the reality of changes such as the market system, accumulation structure, and management rationalization. The scheme of explaining the imperativeness of national liberation increased while setting the historical awareness preceded by hope, aspiration, and purpose at the head. It inevitably resulted in ‘overinterpretation.’
Emergence of Market Theory
However, a research trend that it is difficult to see the reality of the industry based on the research that fell into 'policy determinism' and habitually focuses on the unilateral interpretation of 'exploitation and mobilization' without understanding the economy is more sensitive to the market logic rather than the policy emerged since the late 1980s. This is the so-called development theory. Using quantitative analysis of various institutions accompanying the market mechanism and market economy as a weapon, it explored the weaknesses of the research based on ‘policy determinism.’ They completely opposed the research that deploringly promoted the cause of national liberation while clinging to a research climate that centered on policy or institutional history that had little significance or phrases built on an exploitation discourse. Instead, the research was intensified in the area of transplanting the market factor, ‘the best teacher opening the road to modernization,’ and the accumulation of the market system. They emphasized various liberal aspects of the colonial economy while producing quantitative research outcomes on capitalistically standardized market economy factors.
There was also a trend of negating the studies of economic history by the existing historical academic circles that viewed industrial history as an extension of security issues or national movement in the colony and eventually seeing the Japanese governor-general as a 'coordinator' who tried to reflect the colonial reality while fighting against the mainland for colonial rule. In addition, it highlighted the aspect of persevering in the discrimination and adapting to the market economy system instead of the capital of Koreans who were routinely discriminated against and oppressed. In the end, some research described that the free market system was created and expanded, and the air of modern industrialization overflew as industrial connections and social division of labor advanced further during the Japanese colonial period.
Worries about Writing and Conclusion
In the current situation, it should also be noted that the development theory itself fell into a serious “development paranoia” and into the arrogance of ignoring the research results produced by many researchers, just as the existing historical circles criticized the development theory as a history that saw what it wanted to see and chose what it wanted to choose. For this, I sought ways to integrate the perception of the development theory in market determinism and the various constraints of the view of the historical academic circles in policy determinism on colonial industrialization. Although some important achievements can be seen in the development theory, such as the revitalization of the industrial products market in Joseon and the advancement of industry connections, until the 1930s, the truth is that the market could not function normally during the wartime period when the shipbuilding industry grew significantly.
This book summarizes the industrial policy of the Governor-General as follows. It made clear that the industrial policy of the Japanese Government-General focused on ① industrialization centered on the mainland of Japan, excluding the possibility of independent industrialization of Korea, ② discriminative industrialization that clearly showed superiority and inferiority by ethnicity, ③ fragmented and localistic industrialization jumping on warfares, ④ industrialization centered on the production of crude substitutes lacking industrial connection, and ⑤ industrialization of 'austerity and obedience' that reigned over the sacrifice of the labor force, market system, and order rather than the enhancement of the ability of Koreans who should be the main agents of investment and labor. In other words, it was the ‘industrialization of only particular war-related industries that destroyed people and the market’ that cost the disruption of the industrial structure, routine ethnic discrimination, and the sacrifice of Koreans centered on market distortion and austerity according to the colonial policy. In a word, it was the 'industrialization centered on the Japanese and the mainland Japan completely otherized from Koreans.'
In fact, in the industrial circles during the Japanese colonial period, only the Japanese, who were the main agents of all goods, could accumulate the necessary achievements. However, the statistics at the time, which were given a great mission to promote the virtues of colonial rule, could not properly record the truth about the collapse of the Korean industry. It may not be a crime of statistics, but this book made it clear that the development theory rather jumped on such statistics to disguise disruption as growth and privilege and discrimination as market and free competition glorified the delivery of rice to the government and hauling of people as building modernity, and it distorted the imperial exploitation tools that robbed the poor into a build-up of modern means of production, which was the root of the problem.
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