Kōzō Uno (, Uno Kōzō; 12 November 1897 – 22 February 1977) was a Japanese Marxian economist. His work, which sought to create a purely "scientific" reading of Karl Marx's critique of political economy, was highly influential in postwar Japan and led to the formation of the "Uno School" of Marxian thought.
Uno is best known for his three-level methodology for the study of capitalism, which he developed to separate what he saw as Marx's pure economic theory from its historical and empirical illustrations. This method consists of: (1) the "theory of principles" (genriron), which outlines the logic of a "purely capitalist society" abstractly; (2) the "stages theory" (dankairon), which analyzes the historical development of capitalism through mercantilism, liberalism, and imperialism; (3) the "analysis of the present situation" (genjō bunseki), which examines the concrete details of contemporary capitalism.
In his major work, Principles of Political Economy, Uno reconstructed Marx's Capital to fit this three-level approach, arguing that Marx had improperly mixed these levels of analysis. Uno's reconstruction prioritized the sphere of circulation over production and was critical of Marx's introduction of the labor theory of value. His work and that of his followers, such as Thomas T. Sekine and Makoto Itoh, has been influential in Anglophone Marxian debates, but has also has been criticized for by some for 'removing the critical core of Marx's work, particularly the theory of commodity fetishism', in favor of an equilibrium-based model of capitalism.
Biography
Early life and education Uno was born in 1897 in Kurashiki, a town in Okayama Prefecture, Japan, to a merchant family. At the time, Kurashiki was notable for its modern spinning mill industry and its history as a major merchant site during the Edo period. In 1918, he enrolled at Tokyo Imperial University to study economics, graduating in 1921. After graduation, he took a position at the Ōhara Institute for Social Science, affiliated with Hosei University in Tokyo.
The academic environment in Japan at the time was largely influenced by anti-Marxist, German-style liberal economics. Seeking to deepen his interest in Karl Marx and "scientific socialism", Uno traveled to Berlin, Germany, in 1921. He spent two years there studying Marx's Capital and the works of Vladimir Lenin, reading them in the original German as complete Japanese translations were not yet available. He returned to Japan in 1924 and became an associate professor of economic policy at Tohoku Imperial University.
Pre-war debates and persecution Between 1933 and 1937, Uno became deeply involved in the "Debate on Japanese Capitalism" (Nihon shihonshugi ronsō), a major intellectual conflict within Japanese Marxism concerning the nature of the Meiji Restoration and the path to a socialist revolution. The debate was split between two main factions: the Kōza-ha (Lectures-group), which was loyal to the Comintern and Japanese Communist Party line that Japan was still semi-feudal and required a two-stage revolution; and the Rōnō-ha (Labor-farmer-group), which argued that Japan was already a fully capitalist country and was ready for a one-stage socialist revolution.
Although not a direct member, Uno was closely associated with the Rōnō-ha. As the Japanese government grew increasingly ultranationalist and repressive, both factions faced severe persecution. In 1938, during the "Popular Front Incident" (Jinmin sensen jiken), more than 400 members and associates of the Rōnō-ha were arrested, including Uno, who was briefly detained. While many other Marxist academics were purged from their positions, Uno was able to secure a private research post at Tōhoku Imperial University in 1941.
Post-war career and influence After World War II, Uno's academic career flourished. In 1947, he was appointed professor of economics at the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University (later the University of Tokyo), where he taught until his retirement in 1958. During this period, he became a prolific writer, publishing his seminal Theory of Value (Kachiron) in 1947 and his most famous work, Principles of Political Economy (Keizai Genron), in 1950–52.
His work was marked by a deliberate detachment from the official ideology of the Japanese Communist Party and the Comintern, and his outspoken anti-Stalinism earned him significant respect and a large following. This following evolved into the Uno School (Uno Gakuha) of political economy, which became one of the dominant streams of social science in post-war Japan. Many well-known Marxist economists, including Makoto Itoh, Thomas T. Sekine, and the intellectual and cultural historian Karatani Kōjin, were his students or were heavily influenced by his work. After retiring from the University of Tokyo, Uno continued to teach at Hosei University until 1968. He died in 1977.
Economic theory Uno's work was a radical re-interpretation of Marx's critique of political economy. He argued that Marx's Capital was methodologically "impure" because it mixed the abstract, logical analysis of capitalism with concrete historical narratives and empirical data, particularly from 19th-century England. To remedy this, Uno proposed a strict methodological separation of the study of capitalism into three distinct levels of analysis.
Three-level methodology Uno's signature contribution to Marxian theory is his three-level methodology (sandankairon). This framework is designed to create a "scientific" political economy by systematically separating its different layers of abstraction.
The "theory of principles" (genriron): This is the most abstract level. It studies the fundamental economic laws of capitalism in a hypothetical "purely capitalist society" (junsui shihonshugi), free from all historical contingencies or non-capitalist elements. This level is concerned only with the internal logic of capital, comprising the three major classes of capitalists, workers, and landowners. The "stages theory" (dankairon): This middle level of analysis applies the pure theory to the concrete historical development of capitalism. Uno divided this development into three stages, each characterized by a dominant form of capital and a corresponding state policy: mercantilism (merchant capital), liberalism (laissez-faire and industrial capital), and imperialism (finance capital). This level accounts for the "impurities" of real-world capitalism, such as uneven development between nations. "Analysis of the present situation" (genjō bunseki): This is the most concrete level, dealing with the empirical analysis of contemporary capitalism in specific countries or periods. This level, according to Uno, serves as the basis for direct "socialist practical action".
Uno believed that by separating these levels, political economy could achieve scientific coherence, something he argued Marx's Capital lacked because it conflated all three.
Reconstruction of Capital In his Principles of Political Economy, Uno undertook a major reconstruction of the architecture of Marx's Capital to align with his three-level method. He argued that Marx's presentation was flawed, particularly his decision to introduce the labor theory of value at the very beginning of Capital. Uno considered this "premature", contending that the substance of value (labor) could only be properly understood after the forms of circulation (commodity, money, capital) had been fully developed.
Consequently, Uno's Principles inverts the structure of Capital, Volume I. It begins not with the process of production but with the "Doctrine of Circulation", analyzing the forms of commodity, money, and capital as logical prerequisites to production. For Uno, the "commodity economy"—a society dominated by commodity exchange—is the defining feature of capitalism, and its logic must be established before analyzing the labor process. This stands in contrast to Marx, for whom the specific social relation of production between capital and wage-labor is the foundation of the capitalist mode of production.
Law of value and crisis theory Uno's understanding of the law of value also diverges significantly from traditional interpretations of Marx. For Uno, the law of value functions as a "corrective process" that ensures a general social equilibrium between supply and demand. In his view, capitalist production, despite its "anarchistic" nature, is fundamentally oriented toward satisfying "society's needs" through the mediation of price movements. This view has been criticized as positing a harmonious, self-regulating market, thereby downplaying the inherent contradictions and crisis tendencies of capitalism that were central to Marx's analysis.
Uno's theory of crisis is, accordingly, a theory of business cycles rather than a theory of the inescapable, secular crisis of capitalism. He argues that crises are primarily caused by labor power shortages during periods of prosperity, which lead to rising wages, a squeeze on profits, and a subsequent depression. During the depression, new, more productive technologies are introduced, a relative surplus population is created, and the conditions for a new phase of prosperity are established. This cyclical process, regulated by the "law of population", allows capitalism to be self-sustaining. This contrasts with Marx's view that the law of value is a "law of crisis" and that the constant formation of a surplus population is not a solution but a symptom of capital's fundamental contradiction.
Legacy and criticism Uno's work established a major school of Marxian thought in Japan and gained significant international attention, particularly in the Anglophone world through the translations and elaborations of his students Thomas T. Sekine and Makoto Itoh, and later by scholars like Robert Albritton. The Uno School is characterized by its adherence to the three-level methodology and its focus on constructing a "pure theory" of capitalism based on Uno's reading of Marx.
However, Uno's project has faced significant criticism. According to the scholar Elena Louisa Lange, Uno's reconstruction of Marx amounts to a theory of "value without fetish". By bracketing Marx's critique of commodity fetishism—the idea that social relations in capitalism appear as relations between things—Uno's theory loses its critical core. Lange argues that Uno's methodology "resorts to the framework of classical and neoclassical bourgeois 'economics' which no longer offers an incentive to change or question the capitalist mode of production".
Critics contend that Uno's emphasis on the forms of circulation, his focus on use-value as the driver of the economy, and his conception of the law of value as a mechanism for equilibrium lead to an apologetic and functionalist understanding of capitalism. In this view, capitalism appears as a rational, self-regulating system that successfully satisfies social needs, while its inherent contradictions, exploitative nature, and tendencies toward crisis are downplayed or explained away as features of "impure" historical reality rather than as essential to capital's logic.
Major works Kachiron (Theory of Value, 1947) Keizai Genron (Principles of Political Economy, 2 vols., 1950–1952; abridged version, 1964). Translated into English by Thomas T. Sekine in 1980. Kyōkōron (Theory of Crisis, 1953) Keizaigaku Hōhōron (The Methodology of Political Economy, 1962) Keizai Seisakuron (The Types of Economic Policies, 1936; final version, 1954). Translated into English by Thomas T. Sekine in 2016.
Publications As author Theory of Economic Policy, Vol. 1 [経済政策論 上巻] (Kōbundō [弘文堂], 1936; reprinted 1948; 2nd ed. 1954; reprinted in SW7). In the 1954 edition, "Vol. 1" was dropped from the title. Prolegomena to the Agrarian Question [農業問題序論] (Kaizōsha [改造社], 1947; 2nd ed. Aoki Shoten [青木書店], 1965; reprinted in SW8; reprinted Kobushi Bunko [こぶし文庫], 2014).