Expensive food, insecure jobs and falling farm incomes hurt people in different ways, but each could weaken trust in party leaders.
Inflation means a rise in the general level of prices. During the First World War and its aftermath, living costs rose in Japan. The rice riots of 1918 showed the anger caused by expensive food, even while some businesses made large profits. The 1923 earthquake and the banking crisis of 1927 added to economic insecurity. Workers could lose jobs or face uncertain pay.
Rural tensions also mattered. A tenant farmer worked land rented from a landlord, its owner. Disputes over rent could pit the farmer's need to keep enough income against the landlord's demand for payment. Rural people were not one identical group: owning land, renting it and earning income from different crops affected how hard a crisis hit.
During the Depression from 1929, overseas demand for Japanese goods such as silk fell. Families producing silk cocoons earned less, while rent and debt repayments remained difficult to meet. Falling sales also put jobs at risk. This was different from the earlier problem of rising prices: now people could suffer because the goods they sold brought in less money.
Hardship made party leaders seem unable to protect ordinary people, especially when they appeared close to large businesses. Ultranationalists offered an alternative: stronger national leadership and expansion abroad to obtain markets, land and resources. These promises could gain an audience among dissatisfied people. They did not establish that conquest was necessary or that hardship made people choose war automatically.
Worked example: Why a lower price can still hurt
A household earns its income by selling cocoons used to make silk. Silk prices fall during the Depression.
- If the household sells the same amount for a lower price, it earns less.
- If rent and debt repayments do not fall as much, less money remains for food and other essentials.
- The family may lose trust in leaders who seem unable to help and become more willing to listen to promises of national revival. That explains an opening for military supporters, not a guaranteed choice of war.
Watch out for this
Falling prices during the Depression must have eased the problems caused by earlier inflation.
Cheaper goods can help buyers, but people who sell those goods may lose income. Ask whose prices, wages, rent and debts changed.
Check your understanding
Why could falling silk prices weaken support for party government?
- Lower selling prices reduced farm debts by the same amount, leaving families no worse off.
- Producing households lost income and could blame leaders who seemed unable to protect their livelihoods.
- Cheaper silk reduced household shopping costs enough to restore confidence in leaders.