Meiji Japan - Gov. Responsible for Economic Development

Resolved: The Meiji Government of Japan was indispensable to facilitating the economic development of Japan in the Meiji Period in the years 1868-1885Facilitate - to make easier or less difficult; help forward (an action, a process,etc.) Economic development -A broad measure of welfare in a nation that includes indicators of health, education, and environmental quality as well as material living standards. [NB: Economic development is NOT the same as economic growth)Indispensable - Absolutely necessary; the sine qua non---------Debate Structure:Round 1: Acceptance / disclosure of sourcesRound 2: Presentation of Opening ArgumentRound 3: Presentation of New arguments / rebuttals (do not be abusive with new arguments)Round 4: Final rebuttals / conclusions NB: Though I will list sources in R1, new sources can be listed in later rounds.-------Burden of Proof:I want to make really, really clear to voters what the resolution means for BOP:If Pro proves that the substantial economic development of the Meiji era would not have occurred without the Meiji government's leadership, he wins. If Con casts doubt on this claim, or shows other factors to, instead, be indispensable / more important, he wins. 'Substantial economic development' simply means that without government action we would have seen a far less modernised Japan.-------Acceptance Conditions:I have made this debate impossible to accept currently. If you wish to accept, PM me or leave a message in the comments. I am looking to debate a reasonably experienced, competent debater who has some idea of Japanese history. To be very clear - I know a fair bit about this topic. See my sources list below. I can give an opponent access to most of these resources if necessary. PM me for information about what resources I can give you access to. As the challenger, feel free to use any resource you like. Also, I am willing to be fairly flexible with the resolution. I can debate both sides of the resolution. I could change the word 'indispensable' to 'on balance' or something similar. I am also open to shifting the dates of the date. I could make it the whole Meiji Period (1868-1912), yet then the wording may need to be shiftedI don't want a semantics war. Definitions and BOP are NOT up for contention. If there is confusion, please message me prior to accepting the debate. Repeat - semantics is not a valid counter argument. Go and argue how it was the Tokugawa economic development that paved the way for Meiji development, or the Western powers, of Japanese entrepreneurial development ... or surprise me. Just no semantics. We all know what indispensable and facilitate mean. SourcesNB: I am unlikely to use many of these sources! I simply offer these as references. NB2: Both sides are free to engage in heavy use of historiography and the deconstruction of historians! I studied this topic for my major work in the NSW History Extension course where the primary focus was on the construction of history, not history itself Bailey, Paul J. Postwar Japan: 1945 to the Present, Great Britain, Blackwell Publishers, 1996. Beckmann, George M. The Modernisation of China and Japan, Japan, Harper & Row, 1965. Collier, Douglas. 100 Great Kings, Queens and Rulers of the World , Great Britain, Odhams (Watford) Ltd., 1967. Cooper, E.M. Japan: An Historical and Cultural Introduction, Australia, Pergamon Press Australia, 1970. Craig, Albert, and Edwin Reischauer. Japan (Revised Edition), Australia, Allen and Unwin Australia, 1989 Crawcour, Sydney. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 5 : The Nineteenth Century (Ch. 9), Great Britain, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pg. 616 Cullen, L.M. A History of Japan, 1582-1941, Great Britain, Cambridge University Press, 2003. Gluck, Carol. Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period, USA, Princeton University Press, 1985 Gluck, C. ‘Japan’s Modernities, 1850s-1990s’, in Ainslie T. Embree and Carol Gluck, eds. Asia in Western and World History, 1997, pp. 561-593 Fletcher, Arnold, Arthur J. May, and C. Harold King. A History of Civilisation: One Volume Edition, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969. Fujitani, Takeshi. ‘The Monarch in Japan’s Modernity’, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan. California U.P., 1996, pp. 155-194 Fujitani, Takeshi. ‘Inventing, Forgetting, Remembering: Toward a Historical Ethnography of the Nation-State’. In H. Befu ed., Cultural Nationalism in East Asia: Representation and Identity, 1993, pp. 77-106. Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present, New York, Oxford University Press, 2003 Goto-Jones, Christopher. Modern Japan A Very Short Introduction, Great Britain, Oxford University Press, 2009. Hane, Mikiso. Modern Japan: A Historical Survey, USA, Westview Press, 1986. Howe, Christopher. The Origins of Japanese Trade Supremacy: development and technology in Asia from 1540 to the Pacific War, London, The University of Chicago Press, 1996. Jansen, Marius B. The Making of Modern Japan, USA, Harvard University Press, 2000. Morris Suzuki, Tessa. Re-inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation, 1998, chs 1 and 2 Nakamura, James. Agricultural Production and the Economic Development of Japan, 1873–1922 , Princeton University Press, 1966 Ohno, Kenichi. The Economic Development of Japan: The Path Travelled by Japan as a Developing Country, Tokyo, GRIPS Development Forum, 2006. Preston, P.W. Understanding Modern Japan: A Political Economy of Development, Culture and Global Power, Great Britain, SAGE Publications, 2000. Sheridan, Kyoko. Governing the Japanese Economy. United Kingdom, Cambridge Polity Press, 1993. Tipton, Elise K. Modern Japan: A social and political history, Great Britain, Routledge, 2002. Walthall, Anne. Japan: A Cultural, Social and Political History, USA, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006. Whitney, John. Japan: From Prehistory to Modern Times, Singapore, Tuttle Publishing, 1971. Journal Articles Bassino, JeanR08;Pascal. The Growth of Agricultural Output and Food Supply in Meiji Japan: Economic Miracle or Statistical Artifact?, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 54(2), 2006, pp. 503-520 Bhatawdekar, M. V. Economic Growth and Educational Development: Lessons from the Case of Japan, Economic and Political Weekly, 7(35), 1972, pp. 1793-1801 Colcutt, Martin. Marius Berthus Jansen (1922-2000), The Journal of Asian Studies, 60(2), 2001, pp. 621-622 Crawcour, Sydney. The Tokugawa Period and Japan's Preparation for Modern Economic Growth, Journal of Japanese Studies, 1(1), 1974, pp. 113-125 Hauser William B. Some Misconceptions about the Economic History of Tokugawa Japan, The History Teacher, 16(4), 1983, pp. 569-583 Nakamura, Naofumi. Meiji-Era Industrialisation and Provincial Vitality: The Significance of the First Enterprise Boom of the 1880s, , Social Science Japan Journal, 3(2) ,2000, pp. 187-205 Sussman, Nathan and Yishay Yafeh, Institutions, Reforms, and Country Risk: Lessons from Japanese Government Debt in the Meiji Era, The Journal of Economic History, 60(2), 2000, pp. 442-467 Tipton, Frank B. Government Policy and Economic Development in Germany and Japan: A Skeptical Reevaluation, The Journal of Economic History, 41(1), 1981, pp. 139-150 Yasuba, Yasukichi. Standard of Living in Japan Before Industrialization: From what Level did Japan Begin? A Comment, The Journal of Economic History, 46(1), 1986, pp. 217-224----. I thank The_Mestari for accepting this debate. I look forward to a good fight.