Susumu Nishibe

Susumu Nishibe (西部 邁, 15 March 1939 – 21 January 2018) was a Japanese critic, conservative and economist. He was a professor of Socioeconomics at University of Tokyo. He criticized modern economics, progressivism, and rationalism, and advocated theories on mass society, conservatism, and the independence of Japan from the United States.

Susumu Nishibe
西部 邁
Born(1939-03-15)March 15, 1939
Oshamambe, Yamakoshi District, Yamayoshi, Hokkaido, Japan
DiedJanuary 21, 2018(2018-01-21) (aged 78)
Ōta, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Academic background
EducationSapporo Minami High School
Alma materUniversity of Tokyo (Bachelor, Master)
InfluencesEdmund Burke, Joseph Schumpeter, Yukichi Fukuzawa, José Ortega y Gasset, Tsuneari Fukuda
Academic work
DisciplineSocioeconomics, Political philosophy, Mass society Studies
School or traditionNeoconservative[1]
InfluencedShinzo Abe, Shoji Nishida, Keishi Saeki, Satoshi Fujii, Takeshi Nakano, Teruhisa Se, Kenji Sato, Keita Shibayama

Early life and education

Susumu Nishibe was born on 15 March 1939 in Oshamambe, Hokkaido. His father was a son of a Buddhist monk in Naganuma, Hokkaido.

After graduating from Sapporo Minami High, he attended the University of Tokyo in 1958, where he practiced far left student activism as a member of the Communist League (共産主義者同盟, abbreviated as "Bunto" from a German word "bund") and also participated in the Anpo Protests (安保闘争), however he broke with the left in 1961.

Then he majored in theoretical economics under Motō Kaji (かじ もとお、嘉治 元郎) and got a Doctor of Economics from the University of Tokyo. It was at the suggestion of Masahiko Aoki that he went to the graduate school.

Academic career

After that, he was successively an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics, Yokohama National University and the College of Arts and Science, of the University of Tokyo.

In 1975, he published his first book, "Socio-Economics" (ソシオ・エコノミックス, Soshio Ekonomikkusu), in which he criticized modern economics by introducing the methodology of sociology and other disciplines. After that, he moved to the United States to study at the UC Berkeley and then at Cambridge. In 1979, his experience note "Into the mirage" (蜃気楼の中へ, Shinkirou no nakae) was published. After returning to Japan, he began to criticize advanced mass society and Americanism, and defend Western conservative thoughts as a conservative critic since the 1980s. In 1986, he was appointed a professor of Socio-Economics at the College of Arts and Science of University of Tokyo. He also taught as a visiting professor at The Open University of Japan.

Death

Nishibe died of suicide on 21 January 2018.[2] It was suspected that the suicide was assisted.[3]

See also

References
  1. Yoda, Tomiko (2006). Yoda, Tomiko; Harootunian, Harry (eds.). Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present. Duke University Press. p. 26. ISBN 0-8223-3813-0. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  2. "Conservative critic Susumu Nishibe dies at 78 in apparent suicide". The Japan Times. 2018-01-22. Retrieved 2023-05-25.
  3. "Death of conservative critic Nishibe may have been assisted suicide: police". Japan Today. 2018-03-15. Retrieved 2023-05-25.
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