The Rise, Decline, and Revitalization of the Marxist Tradition in Japanese Science and Technology Studies

Abstract

Japanese science and technology studies has historically developed under the influence of Marxism, which generally had a great impact on prewar and postwar Japanese social sciences. However, since the late 1970s, the Marxist tradition was taken over by postmodernism and then neoliberalism. The global immiserization of working class recently brought back Marx and his critique of capital. The Marxist tradition should be revitalized by reviewing neo-Marxist works in the 1960s and 1970s, which rightly made science and technology the subject of criticism for the first time.

Keywords:

• Marxism
• Neoliberal Capitalism
• STS

Notes

The original short version of this paper was presented at the workshop in Tokyo organized by Professor Kihara Hidetoshi on 26th August 2010.

[1] Cf. Nakayama, Gotō, and Yoshioka (2001–2006) for general understanding of postwar history of Japanese science, technology and society including discussions and activities of Marxist science and technology studies.

[2] In fact, the first Japanese translation of Science at the Crossroads was published in 1932 by a Marxist research organization, Proletaria Kagaku Kenkyūjo (Science Research Institute), which was founded in 1929.

[3] See Kihara’s paper in this Volume, “Transformation of STS in Neoliberal States: Japanese case.”

[4] Even in this period, there are some important works by scholars who came from the orthodoxy and who are of the student power generation at the end of the 1960s (Kitamura 2003; Watanabe 1990).

[5] See Gotō's paper in this volume, “STS and Marxist Study – Where Are We Standing Now ?”