著者

浜渕 久志

出版者

北海道情報大学

雑誌

北海道情報大学紀要 (ISSN:09156658)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.9, no.2, pp.111-132, 1998-03

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Earning differentials were so large in Japan before the Second World War that there were many profoundly rich families. Their economic power can be measured by the amount of land they owned in addition to their share holdings and others things. As much of this data is incomplete or unobtainable, accurate comparisons among the profoundly wealthy of that era are difficult. This is a major reason why few papers have been written giving a historically comprehensive view of wealthy Japanese families. The primary object of this paper is to further investigate this pre-war period and these affluent families. Our data was primarily obtained from Teikoku Koshinsho : the databank of a private credit research foundation. They estimated the values of the properties and made the consequent following ranking. Their list comprised some 151 families who had a net worth of ten million yen or more in 1933. Observing their origins and businesses, we can classify them as 28 families stemming form the big four Zaibatsu, 20 peers of daimyo descent, 23 merchants, 14 shipowners, 6 bankers, 21 landlords, 12 mine-owners, 10 manufacturers, 6 Japanese saki and 1 soy sauce-brewers, 8 salaried managers and 2 others.