Author(s)

Wang Yiming

Corresponding Author

Wang Yiming

Abstract

Kawakami Hajime is a well-known Marxist theorist and socialist activist in Japan’s modern history. He discussed dialectical materialism systematically and studied Marxist economic theory. In the early economic research of Kawakami Hajime, a unique view of labor, which is “gamification of labor” had already formed. Gamification of labor is a means to reduce labor pain, and also a form of labor development. Kawakami Hajime believes that the gamification of labor from primitive societies, abandoned in capitalist societies, will reappear as a new form of labor in communist societies. This paper makes a comprehensive analysis between Kawakami Hajime’s thoughts and the Marxist thought, and analyzes Kawakami Hajime’s assumptions about the unique labor concept of “the gamification of labor” in communist society.

Keywords

Kawakami Hajime; Marx; View of Labor; Laski