Ando Shoeki - The natural distribution of produce

The "natural" distribution of produce

Andō Shōeki's critique of economy in Tokugawa Japan

The "natural" distribution of produce

Andō Shōeki's critique of economy in Tokugawa Japan

Roman PAŞCAUniversity of Bucharest / Waseda

[email protected]

1. Who was Andō Shōeki?

2. 'Straight cultivation'

3. Shōeki's critique of economy

4. Conclusions


Who was Andō Shōeki 安藤昌益 , after all?

• an original thinker? (Marandjian 2000) • a Shintoist? (Nakamura 1992)

• an obscure physician-scholar? (Totman 1993)

• an agrarian philosopher? a utopian? (Tsuzuki 2000; Morris-Suzuki 1998)

• a fascinating naturalist philosopher? (Berthrong 2003)

• a radical thinker?... (Tipton 2008)


1703: born in the village of Niida (present-day Ōdate City), Akita

1718 (?): local Zen temple - becomes a Zen monk1728 (?): returns to lay life and becomes a doctor –

studies medicine in Kyōto seems to have had special access to information about Holland

and about Western medicine

1740-1741 (?): resides in Edofrom 1744: resurfaces in Hachinohe 八戸 (present-day

Aomori prefecture) lives among the farmers of the fief starts to organize public lectures, or symposia, with several

disciples

around 1763: dies in Hachinohe


Shōeki was only “discovered” in 1899, when an Edo-period manuscript entitled Shizen Shin’eidō 自然真営道 (“The True Way of Nature” ) came into the hands of Kanō Kōkichi (1865-1942)

the manuscripts were moved to the Tōkyō University Library in March 1923; six months later, Tōkyō was struck by the Great Kantō Earthquake: of the 101 volumes of the manuscript, all but twelve volumes were reduced to ashes

his writings have been compared to those of his French contemporary Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) or to those of the French physiocratic school (Nakamura 1993)

the versatility of Shōeki’s discourse: he uses Buddhist terms to criticize Buddhism, he mimicks Confucian fundamental texts, concepts, and scholars to deride Confucianism, and he writes parables of animals, birds, and fishes in order to attack the feudal order of things


concept of paramount importance for Shōeki’s vision of the world: chokkō 直耕 , “straight cultivation”

the first ideograph means “direct, straight”, and the second “to cultivate”, i.e. to till or to work the land.

chokkō is a concept coined by Shōeki and generally used to refer to all activities of labor and production (Terao 1995, 1997). In a broader sense, chokkō is used to refer comprehensively to the sum of all creative activities

the creation movements of heaven are mimicked in and by the labor of human beings, the latter being a form of succession or continuation of the former – therefore, chokkō refers globally to the activities and power of creation of both heaven and human beings


here is how Shōeki himself defines chokkō (1997, I: 64-65):

Since it contains within it the mutual natures of the eight energies, the energy of metal produces the eight planets and the stars of the eight directions. In accordance with the sun and the moon, it revolves through heaven and then descends and moves the Earth; the eight energies are mutual natures – progressive energies unfold in the North-East, South-East, South-West and North-West; regressive energies unfold in the East, West, South and North, thus creating the four seasons and the eight periods. [The energies] ascend to Heaven, and after ascending they descend and, in accordance with the land in the middle, they acquire the three directions – descending (tsū), lateral (ō), and ascending (gyaku) – and create and produce grains (koku), human beings (hito / danjo), the four types of creatures (shirui), and vegetation (sōmoku). This is the creative power (chokkō = ‘straight cultivation’) of the primary matter, beginningless and endless. Consequently, Heaven-and-Earth, the stars, the planets, the sun and the moon – in other words, the Heaven-and Earth which moves in accordance with the three directions – are all manifestations of the energy of the primary matter.


counterpart to chokkō: fukō 不耕 , ‘non-cultivation’.

it refers to the lack, or refusal of any productive and labour activities

also used to express a parasitic way of life based on plundering

compound: fukōdonshoku 不耕貪食 , “non-cultivation and insatiable hunger”) - the way of life of human beings, who steal and plunder more than they can eat.


18th century Japan: the peasants were beginning to be drawn into the mercantile economy and encouraged to give first priority to the production of cash crops and marketable products (as demonstrated by Hanley 1997 and Bendix 1999)

their involvement with the natural world was being reduced, their dialogue with it growing weaker, and production had become a goal in itself, robbing labor of its human meaning.

Shōeki: if only the ruling classes would cease to rob the laborers of their surplus, the fruits of straight cultivation would pass from person to person until they were widely distributed and shared (but not sold, or traded)

not recognizing the importance of the distribution of goods here, nor thinking of production as a primary principle - he is offering a new definition of labor


the usurpation or parasitism of the fruits of ‘straight cultivation’ of another violates the relationship of functional reciprocity of spontaneous activity and surplus action in the circulation of Nature, as manifested by both Heaven and human beings

one who refuses to cultivate but instead lives off the fruits of others’ labors, a parasite, robs the laborer not only of his material produce but of his labor’s meaning – that is, he disregards ‘straight cultivation’

straight cultivation’: a restoration and representation of the multivalent and symbolic meaning of labor

giving and taking should by rights share mutual natures; like polarities, one cannot exist without the other - they are a unified whole


for Shōeki, land, like Nature, simply is, it merely exists as an offspring of the flow of energies circulating between Heaven and Earth; it cannot be sold or traded and, moreover, it is intrinsically productive

there is no currency or commercial trade; the only exchange is a barter of the natural products of different regions, centered on 'straight cultivation' and without any financial implications

the exchange of ‘produce’ should not have a commercial motivation, neither a moral one - the natural, equal distribution of produce is the only (right) way not to disrupt the equilibrium of the forces and energies that interact within the World of Nature

4. Conclusions

Shōeki's parable of the fish (1995, VI: 203):

In the World of Fish there is no gold and no silver; therefore, there is absolutely no greed, no delusion, no thievery and no war. How wonderful that is! Sadly, however, because of the use of gold and silver in human society, there is no end to greed, delusion, thievery and war.

4. Conclusions

Shōeki does not have the revolutionary impulse of overthrowing a certain social system and replacing it with his own; rather, in his own words, he is merely describing a possible alternative

in other words, Shōeki’s discourse is not a performative utterance in the Austinian sense, but an epistemological one.

Bibliography Andō, Shōeki. 1997, ©1982. Andō Shōeki Zenshū (“The Complete Works of

Andō Shōeki”), vol. I, ed. by Gorō Terao. Tokyo: Nōsangyoson Bunka kyōkai Andō, Shōeki. 1995, ©1982. Andō Shōeki Zenshū (“The Complete Works of

Andō Shōeki”), vol. VI, ed. by Gorō Terao. Tokyo: Nōsangyoson Bunka kyōkai Bendix, Reinhard. 1999. “Preconditions of Development. A Comparison of

Japan and Germany”, in Malcolm Waters (ed.): Modernity. Critical Concepts, vol. I: Modernization. London and New York: Routlegde

Berthrong, John. 2003. “Confucian Views of Nature”, in Helaine Selin & Arne Kalland (eds.): Nature Across Cultures. Views of Nature and The Environment in Non-Western Cultures. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers

Hanley, Susan B.. 1997. Everyday Things in Premodern Japan. The Hidden Legacy of Material Culture. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press

Marandjian, Karine. 2000. “Unseen paradise: the image of Holland in the writings of Ando Shoeki”, in Bert Edström (ed.): The Japanese and Europe: Images and Perceptions. Richmond: Japan Library (Curzon Press Ltd.)

Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. 1998. Reinventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation. New York: M. E. Sharpe

Nakamura Hajime. 1993. Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, edited by Philip P. Wiener. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Tipton, Elise K.. 2008. Modern Japan: A Social and Political History. New York: Routlegde

Totman, Conrad. 2003. Early Modern Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press

Tsuzuki Chūshichi. 2000. The Pursuit of Power in Modern Japan, 1825-1995. Oxford: Oxford University Press

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Ando Shoeki - The natural distribution of produce