The Hand that Measures the Product is the Hand of Democracy: "Kurashi no Techo" and the Politics of the Consumer Movement in the 1970s

The Hand that Measures the Product is the Hand of Democracy: "Kurashi no Techo" and the Politics of the Consumer Movement in the 1970s

Sunao Takeuchi--a representative member of the Consumers' League of Japan--reported on the product testing that "Kurashi no Techo" began immediately after the war, saying, "I would like to see more items added, like the Consumers' League of America. But this was not a mere request to the magazine. There resided in it a political will** of citizens to illuminate the truth for themselves in a marketplace overshadowed by corporations.

From the 1950s to the 1970s. Japanese society was buoyed by rapid economic growth, and the country was overflowing with goods, and life was touted as having become more affluent. Rice cookers, televisions, refrigerators, and synthetic detergents. Behind the scenes, however, environmental pollution, pollution-related diseases, product accidents, and all manner of concerns were quietly creeping in. Someone had to question the "safety" and "performance" claims of the companies.

Kurashi no Techo, edited by Hanamori Yasuji, took on this role. The magazine, which did not carry advertisements, was devoted to product tests, and remained fastidious about words. Readers knew. To choose is to choose a way of life.

Since the 1930s, the "Consumers Union in the U.S.," as Takeuchi calls it, has similarly eschewed advertising and examined products from the consumer's point of view. What we see there is a rebellion against the composition of power behind "buying. Behind the freedom to choose is the right to accurate information.

In the pages of that magazine in the 1970s, we see the eyes of sei-katsu-sha looking back at society through the act of measuring household tools such as rice cookers and detergents. There was the power of citizens' voices to sway corporations. It was another "form of democracy" nurtured by the hands of the common man, unaware of the eyes of the state.