The Proletarian Gamble: Korean Workers in Interwar Japan

by Ken C. Kawashima, Harry Harootunian (Series Editor), Rey Chow (Series Editor)

Koreans constituted the largest colonial labor force in imperial Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. Caught between the Scylla of agricultural destitution in Korea and the Charybdis of industrial depression in Japan, migrant Korean peasants arrived on Japanese soil amid extreme instability in the labor and housing markets. In The Proletarian Gamble , Ken C. Kawashima maintains that contingent labor is a defining characteristic of capitalist commodity economies. He scrutinizes how the labor power of Korean workers in Japan was commodified, and how these workers both fought against the racist and contingent conditions of exchange and combated institutionalized racism. Kawashima draws on previously unseen archival materials from interwar Japan as he describes how Korean migrants struggled against various recruitment practices, unfair and discriminatory wages, sudden firings, racist housing practices, and excessive bureaucratic red tape. Demonstrating that there was no single Korean “minority,” he reveals how Koreans exploited fellow Koreans and how the stratification of their communities worked to the advantage of state and capital. However, Kawashima also describes how, when migrant workers did organize—as when they became involved in Rōsō (the largest Korean communist labor union in Japan) and in Zenkyō (the Japanese communist labor union)—their diverse struggles were united toward a common goal. In The Proletarian Gamble , his analysis of the Korean migrant workers' experiences opens into a much broader rethinking of the fundamental nature of capitalist commodity economies and the analytical categories of the proletariat, surplus populations, commodification, and state power.

Genres: Japan, History, Politics, Japanese History, Labor, Nonfiction

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Kawashima's thesis is an important one for studies in labor. Those who have been put in tentative employment, with contingent prospects of fulfilling their labor, are also proletariat. What's important is that labor studies in history tend to rely on proletarianism via their relationship to permanent labor (i.e. within the factory). Kawashima effectively demonstrates through very careful research that the unemployed and underemployed are also victims of commodification of their labor. It's also extremely important that the author chose to research Koreans in Japan, which has the doubling effect of ethnic discrimination in addition to the exploitation of labor. Of course, this doesn't mean that Japanese laborers weren't also exploited—anyone who's studied Interwar Japan should know that things weren't necessarily so pleasant for the common Japanese—however, Koreans tended to receive the brunt end of the situation via a variety of factors.

Kawashima specifically points to six different factors that highlighted the challenges for Korean laborers (in addition to the global proletariat outside of the context of this specific study). The first is the cause of mass migration from Korea to Japan to find work, caused largely in part by colonial policy, resulting in a surplus of labor within the market. The next chapter details the so-called "virtual pauperism" that results from an excess of labor in the market. The third chapter details the issue of labor recruitment wherein Korean recruiters, acting as intermediaries between the contracting companies, exploit their fellow countrymen, obfuscating the colonizer/colonized binary. The fourth focuses on the issue of housing, wherein we see a cyclical relationship where Koreans are forced to live in squalor due to their financial situation, reinforcing Japanese stereotypes of the "unhygienic" Korean, making it even harder to obtain lodging. The fifth focuses on the influence of Japan/Korea harmony organizations and their semi-political influence (receiving funding from Japanese politicians, but serving the interests of pro-Japanese Koreans). Notably, this chapter focuses mainly on the Sōaikai (相愛会) and the former leader (the first Korean elected to Parliament) Pak Ch'um-gum. This organization managed to coerce laborers to to join, functioning both within and without the power of the state (which is largely where I believe Kawashima challenges Foucault's notion of "Power"). Finally, the sixth chapter details unemployment relief programs, namely the UERP, and how this government institution half-heartedly fulfilled its duties, essentially relegating many aspects, such as the required "work books" to the previously introduced Sōaikai. This relegation maintained the status-quo for laborers, essentially keeping them within their marginalized position, rather than providing any real sort of relief (essentially giving the hope that they could find work while providing only the bare minimum).

The six chapters interact with each other and paint a very full picture of the status of the Korean worker in Interwar Japan. Furthermore, Kawashima helps redefine common conceptualizations of the working class, making this book useful to those who have interests in labor theory outside of Japanese/Korean history. I would normally give this book four and a half or five stars, but there were a few bothersome aspects. First, some sections could be repetitious, showing that the author reused some of his own sources. I found this to be unnecessary, as I read through the whole book. Next, I occasionally found typos (a particularly jarring example was the conflation of 民衆 and 民主 within pages of each other). Finally, there were a few points where I'd wished the connection to the thesis was a little more clear. Otherwise, I'd say this book presents a very fresh perspective and highly recommend it to anyone interested in labor theory, post-colonial studies, or Japanese/Korean history.

[Benemint · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is interesting in that it is explicitly a conversation with Marxist theorists. Meticulous and detailed, but not necessarily nuanced. His point is quite straightforward, I thought, and was not very surprising if we read it as a history book, not a theory book. His explanation of the push factor (the economic hardship in Korea) was also straightforward to the extent I thought there must be some new research that has challenged Gi-Wook Shin's book. But he didn't give any reference other than Shin's and Yonsei-school scholars'. Where did Shin's nuances go?! Thus after the first chapter I became unsure of to what extent I should swallow his theory-heavy interpretations of Korean workers and Korean day laborers. Everything seems so absolute--the evilness of the state and those in Soaikai as opposed to good and innocent Koreans under exploitation. Again, I find that lack of nuances rather refreshing and interesting, though.

[Hieyoon Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good research with rare materials on korean lived in japan during the interwar period. The author sctutinizes carefully the particular circumstances and conditions in which the labor power of korean populations in japan was commodified.

But if he really want to differenciate 'power' (of Foucault) from labor institutions and social networks, i think he should have explained geneologies of terms he uses (i.e. contingency, commodification) in the introduction.