IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/bushst/v64y2022i5p904-922.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Korean kuzuya, ‘German-style control’ and the business of waste in wartime Japan, 1931-1945

Author

Listed:
  • Chad B. Denton

Abstract

This article shows how wartime conditions transformed the waste business in Japan. Hygiene regulations from 1900 to the 1920s followed by an influx of Korean migrant labour disrupted the traditional waste trade. The conquest of Manchuria opened up new export markets for Japanese waste and increased the demand for munitions, causing scrap metal prices to skyrocket. These new economic conditions created opportunities for Korean-owned waste businesses. In 1938 the Japanese Ministry of Commerce and Industry imposed a control system on kuzuya scrap dealers consciously modelled on Nazi Germany to keep scrap prices as low as possible and to prevent criminal activity through extensive surveillance. These price controls privileged wholesalers and harmed waste-pickers; Koreans remained in the trade because of their cheap labour. Economic mobilization under conditions of total war after 1941 temporarily rehabilitated the marginalized image of kuzuya in government propaganda, but the end of the war shattered that illusion.

Suggested Citation

  • Chad B. Denton, 2022. "Korean kuzuya, ‘German-style control’ and the business of waste in wartime Japan, 1931-1945," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(5), pages 904-922, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:64:y:2022:i:5:p:904-922
    DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2020.1857739
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2020.1857739
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00076791.2020.1857739?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:64:y:2022:i:5:p:904-922. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FBSH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.