Fascinating stuff. Japan just put his image on the 10,000 yes note.
Shibusawa concluded that Japan’s economic development would require a transformation of values: disdain for commerce would need to give way to a respect for commercial enterprise. This transformation would be impossible without convincing his fellow countrymen that commerce was itself a moral endeavor. ...
Shibusawa’s insight is one that is often overlooked, but it is important. Voluntary commercial activity both requires and cultivates a heightened moral sensitivity in those who engage in commerce, and according value to those who engage in this activity helps build healthy societies. Others have made the same point. The most famous, of course, is Adam Smith, but consider economist Deirdre McCloskey, who argues that “[t]he growth of the market . . . promotes virtue, not vice.” She repeatedly directs our attention to the ways that commercial activity forces us to attend to each other, to understand what each other wants or needs, and to find ways to satisfy those wants and needs.
