Tokugawa Yoshimune: The Kyoho Reforms

Over the course of the Edo period, fifteen men cycled through the most influential position in Japan’s ruling class. Each of these shogun left their own indelible impact on the socioeconomic and political landscape of Tokugawa Japan. Yet, while their policies had profound short term impacts on the internal growth of Japan, the Edo period is still often dismissed by historians as a period of stagnation[1].

Japan remained behind Western powers for a vast majority of the time as a result off its “underdeveloped social and economic systems”[2]. Still, it would be remiss to suggest that these policies were purely detrimental within this period of diminished growth. Tokugawa Yoshimune, for example, brought to Japan a series of reforms that attempted to correct Japan’s unreliable economy. From 1716 to 1745 Yoshimune presided over a series of economic and social reforms, better known as the Kyoho reforms (Gordon 42)[3]. While these reforms were short lived, the interplay between Japan’s shift to import substitution and impending globalization poised Japan for inevitable economic hardships.

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