Traditional Co-operatives in Modern Japan: Rethinking Alternatives to Cosmopolitanismand Nativism

The history of contract co-operatives in Japan, from the eighteenth century to the modern era, illustrates how local people have created long-standing institutions ensuring solidarity and security in times of emergency. Village cooperatives, developed entirely outside the framework of public administration or legal regulation, were based on moral contracts of mutual protection against misfortune. Functioning over hundreds of years, they have reflected an ethic of reverence for life which is neither traditional nor modern, nor circumscribed to cultures of East or West. It is a universal value particularly worthy of emphasis in these times of sharpening cultural division and conflict.