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{{Short description|Japanese social class}}
[[File:Kusakabe Kimbei - 97 Farmer's House.jpg|thumb|Japanese farmers from the [[Meiji-period|Meiji period]]]]'''''Heimin''''' (平民) is the Japanese word for [[commoner]]. The word first came into use towards the end of the [[Edo period]] to denote people who were born without any social privileges, contrasting them with ''[[shizoku]]''. ''Heimin'' mostly consisted of farmers, [[artisans]] and [[merchants]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bowen|first=Roger|title=Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan|publisher=University of California Press|year=1984|pages=146}}</ref>
== History ==
During the [[Meiji Restoration]], Japan began a period of rapid [[industrialisation]] and [[Westernization|Westernisation]]. By the 1880s, the [[samurai]], who were once [[de facto]] in control of Japan, had lost a major part of their significance and power, which coincided with the rise of the ''heimin'' class.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Xu Lu|first=Sidney|title=The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, 1868-1961|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2019|pages=104}}</ref> In accordance with the new period of Westernisation, Japan's social values changed, and economic status was eventually considered more important than a person's family history.
[[Tokutomi Sohō]], in his essay ''Youth of the New Japan (Shin Nihon no Seinen)'', argued that the traditionalist outlook of Japan's [[aristocrats]] was stifling economic development, as ''heimin'' suffered from discrimination and unemployment – in 1891, only 50% of Japanese politics and economics college graduates were able to find employment.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Xu Lu|first=Sidney|title=The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, 1868-1961|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2019|pages=105}}</ref> Furthermore, only 2% of the population was allowed to vote, of which most were "landowners and capitalists".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Tierney|first=Robert|title=Monster of the Twentieth Century: Kotoku Shusui and Japan's First Anti-Imperialist Movement|publisher=University of California Press|year=2015|pages=105}}</ref> Sohō believed that Japan would not be able to thrive unless aristocratic "[[Parasitism (social offense)|social parasites]]" relinquished their control over the country's politics and economy.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Xu Lu|first=Sidney|title=The Making of Japanese Settler Colonialism: Malthusianism and Trans-Pacific Migration, 1868-1961|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2019|pages=106}}</ref> Sohō also coined the term heiminism, to describe his advocacy for Japanese industrialisation and [[democratisation]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Tierney|first=Robert|title=Monster of the Twentieth Century: Kotoku Shusui and Japan's First Anti-Imperialist Movement|publisher=University of California Press|year=2015|pages=101}}</ref>
== See also ==
*''[[Heimin Shinbun]]'', a socialist newspaper active in Japan from 1903 to 1905
*''[[Kazoku]]'', Japanese nobility from the Meiji period
== References ==
<references />
[[Category:Japanese historical terms]]
[[Category:Meiji Restoration]]
[[Category:Politics of the Empire of Japan]]
[[Category:Social class in Japan]]