Obtaining wealth through fair means': putting Shibusawa Eiichi's views on business morality in context.

This chapter locates Shibusawa Eiichi’s views on business morality in the context of broader debates on commercial morality in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, the actual forms of behaviour that gave rise to charges of commercial immorality against Japan, and the practical problems faced by business leaders as they worked to introduce new techniques and forms of business, and to secure within Japan social respect for business and commercial activities. It shows how the Japan’s business and political leaders, as well as the Japanese press, became part of a broader discourse on norms of commercial behaviour, and argues that Shibusawa’s ideas, while in many respects distinct, were also very much the product of their time. Shibusawa was engaging with issues of morality and economy that were of profound concern to his contemporaries inside and outside Japan, and which were highlighted as Japan increased its engagement with the global economy and the transnational spread of ideas.