Shinzo Koizumi (1888-1966): A Japanese Economist’s Encounter with the West

Among both academics and the general public, especially those of the older generation, Shinzo Koizumi (1888-1966) remains well known as a former president of Keio University and tutor of the future Japanese Emperor. A prolific writer of twenty-six volumes, Koizumi played important roles in the fields of both Japanese liberalism and conservatism after the Second World War. On the academic scene, he translated David Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, and William Stanley Jevons’s Theory of Political Economy, into Japanese, contributing substantially to the introduction of classical and modern economics to Japan. He also had famous debates with Japanese Marxists on the reliability of Marx’s value theory. Although Koizumi is an important figure in the history of Japanese economic thought, his own economics, as well as the influence upon him of Western economic thought, have yet to be scrutinised. Drawing chiefly upon Koizumi’s newly published early diary as an historical resource, I examine his life abroad in Britain and Europe from 1912 to 1916, with special reference to Western influences he encountered. My main concerns are the scholars he met, the books he read, and the lectures he attended during his stay. At the same time, I shall try to describe a young Japanese scholar’s intellectual but enjoyable experience of living in Western countries.