Prior to that, the value silver coins such as the ch_in and mameitagin had been measured in terms of weight. After the minting of the nanry_nishugin, silver coins became an auxiliary to gold and the gold standard gradually took root. It is very significant that Edo Japan independently moved in the same direction as Europe, which had also adopted the gold standard.
When Japan abandoned its policy of national seclusion and opened its doors to the West in 1854, silver coins known as Mexican dollars were circulating on the seas of Asia. These Mexican dollars, which were exchanged with Japanese silver on the basis of weight, were also referred to as _Western silver_ by the Japanese. When Japan_s ports were opened to foreign trade, the parity of gold and silver in the domestic market was 1 of gold to 5_10 of silver, as compared to a parity of 1:15 in the international market. At Japan_s newly opened ports, therefore, foreign traders were able to obtain gold using silver, which was scarcer in terms of gold than on the international market, returning overseas with vast amounts of Japanese gold money.
In addition to adjusting the parity of gold and silver to the international standard, Japan established a new money system replacing the standard 1-ry_gold coin with the 1-yen gold coin. Unlike the Chinese, the Japanese people did not use _Western silver_ within their borders, confining its circulation to the ports opened to foreign trade. With the enactment of the Shinka J_ei (New currency regulation) by the Japanese government in 1871, Japan adopted a gold standard and issued a 1-yen silver coin, which was mainly used for trade payments. This meant that Japan adopted a multiple-standard system in which it used a gold standard internally and a silver standard externally. The 1-yen silver coin used for trading payments imitated the shape of the Mexican dollar used as the international currency in the China Sea region. A total of 165,000,000 yen_s worth of silver yen were issued until minting was terminated in 1897. The silver yen drove out the Mexican dollars not only at the foreign trade ports in Japan but also from the seas of Asia. Within about 30 years from the opening of Japan_s ports, the silver yen thus came to dominate the markets of East Asia and Southeast Asia.
Separation of Ownership and Management Earlier than in the West
The Bankruptcy of Marx_s Theory of Economic Development
The 20th century saw an ongoing conflict between the market economics of capitalism and the planned economics of socialism, but by the end of the century the former had prevailed.
In March 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the former Soviet Union amended the law on the right of ownership, abolishing state ownership of the means of production and opening the way to private ownership in the name of ownership by the people. Socialism was thus officially repudiated. In the words of the Communist Manifesto: _The theory of communism can be expressed in one phrase: the abolition of private ownership._When private ownership was restored, therefore, socialism collapsed both in name and reality.
Although they have been torn asunder, the former Soviet Union and countries of Eastern Europe have been promoting economic development based on the recognition of private ownership. In 1992, even China announced to the world that it had become a _socialist market economy._ It seems that we are witnessing a reversion from socialism to capitalism, which is impossible according to traditional Marxist historicist theory. However, capitalism was never established in the old socialist bloc in the first place. In these countries, the road to capitalism is a new experiment, and it is already very clear from the social chaos and economic slump in Russia that it is a very thorny path. As well as showing the bankruptcy of Marxist historicism, this series of events highlights another related problem: the question of whether the system of private ownership, which is said to be the golden rule of capitalist society, is actually a necessary condition for capitalistic economic development.
