American Occupation, Market Order, and Democracy: Reconfiguring the Steel Industry in Japan and Germany after the Second World War

Engagement with American practices and ideas in the period after the Second World War differed in Germany and Japan compared to in many of the other political economies considered in this volume, because both were militarily occupied countries. Thus, in addition to the diffusion (or in any case, incursion) of American industrial ideas, principles of organization, and technologies by way of markets, scholarly and technical writings, and elite circulation, American ideals were also imposed on Germany and Japan by military governors during the first decade after the war. By analysing the process...

Engagement with American practices and ideas in the period after the Second World War differed in Germany and Japan compared to in many of the other political economies considered in this volume, because both were militarily occupied countries. Thus, in addition to the diffusion (or in any case, incursion) of American industrial ideas, principles of organization, and technologies by way of markets, scholarly and technical writings, and elite circulation, American ideals were also imposed on Germany and Japan by military governors during the first decade after the war. By analysing the process of restructuring in the steel industries in both occupied countries, this chapter examines the complexity of the notion of ‘imposition’ in the context of this military occupation. The main argument is that the American occupation dramatically changed both societies by forcing them to grapple with American ideas of social, industrial, and political order.