In his novel Kokoro Natsume Sōseki wrote the following:

During the first half of the Taishō period (1912–26) which followed on from the Meiji period some of the momentum of this period remained but in the latter half the gulf between rich and poor grew deeper. Socialists maintained that this was the result of capitalism. Those on the right wing believed that it was because the Emperor was surrounded by statesmen who were both cunning and evil. They wanted to carry out a court revolution and subsequently realise an ideal society where an Emperor presided over a nation all of whose members were equal before him (the concept of ‘one lord whole people’). On the other hand the despotism of the militarists became more and more dominant. During the Tokugawa period any farmer or merchant who showed discourtesy towards a member of the warrior class could be reprimanded even to the extent of being killed by him; the military came to adopt the same sort of attitude towards both the government and the people at large. Their watchword was a martial spirit.