Susumu Nishibe
Susumu Nishibe was a Japanese critic, conservative and economist. He was a professor of Socioeconomics at University of Tokyo. He criticized modern economics, progressivism, and rationalism, and advocated theories on mass society, conservatism, and the independence of Japan from the United States.
Early life and education
Susumu Nishibe was born on 15 March 1939 in Oshamambe, Hokkaido. His father was a son of a Buddhist monk in Naganuma, Hokkaido.After graduating from Sapporo Minami High, he attended the University of Tokyo in 1958, where he practiced far left student activism as a member of the Communist League and also participated in the Anpo Protests, however he broke with the left in 1961.
Then he majored in theoretical economics under Motō Kaji and got a Doctor of Economics from the University of Tokyo. It was at the suggestion of Masahiko Aoki that he went to the graduate school.
Academic career
After that, he was successively an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics, Yokohama National University and the College of Arts and Science, of the University of Tokyo.In 1975, he published his first book, "Socio-Economics", in which he criticized modern economics by introducing the methodology of sociology and other disciplines. After that, he moved to the United States to study at the UC Berkeley and then at Cambridge. In 1979, his experience note "Into the mirage" was published. After returning to Japan, he began to criticize advanced mass society and Americanism, and defend Western conservative thoughts as a conservative critic since the 1980s. In 1986, he was appointed a professor of Socio-Economics at the College of Arts and Science of University of Tokyo. He also taught as a visiting professor at The Open University of Japan.