SDHF Newsletter No.317 Urgently Assembled Symposium “International Historical Controversy over Professor Ramseyer’s Essay” Professor Ramseyer’s Video Message

Urgently Assembled Symposium
“International Historical Controversy over Professor Ramseyer’s Essay”
Professor Ramseyer’s Video Message

International Research Institute of Historical Controversy (iRICH) held an urgently

assembled Symposium, “International Historical Controversy over Professor Ramseyer’s Essay,” on April 24, 2021, at the Seiryo Kaikan in Tokyo.
The program and the purpose of the Symposium can be found:

Program: URL:　 https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Ramseyer0E.pdf
PDF:　 https://www.sdh-fact.com/essay-article/1736/
Ramseyer message: URL: https://www.sdh-fact.com/essay-article/1736/
PDF: https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Ramseyer1E.pdf

In December of last year, law and economics Professor Mark Ramseyer, Harvard Law School, posted a scholarly essay, “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War,” on the International Review of Law and Economics’ website. His aim was to analyze the relationship between comfort women and entrepreneurs in terms of “game theory,” based on the fact that comfort women were licensed prostitutes, which has been thoroughly demonstrated by academics in Japan.
Following this, fierce rebuttals erupted in South Korea and the US from scholars and activists. They published a “Letter by Concerned Economics Regarding “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War” in the International Review of Law and Economics, which demanded that Prof. Ramseyer’s paper be withdrawn. More than 3,500 academics signed the letter.
It is rather obscene that academicians these days, rather than debate, shrilly demand that scholarly studies be immediately suppressed because the message does not follow their cherished beliefs. Amazingly, these same academics are the ones who shrilly demand freedom of expression. But when these fashionable academics see something they loath, that is, the truth, they become our guardians of human rights and attack and debase unpleasant truths. Critics of Ramseyer’s paper were thoroughly rebuffed during the April Symposium.
In a previous newsletter, we pointed out totalitarians disguised as scholars (No.314). An American professor sent me a letter, attempting to refute my view. He claimed that: “leading scholars have already clarified the flaws of flaws of Ramseyer’s troubling paper, and you may wish to follow relevant literature (see attached).”
What was attached was a 30 page missive which he wrote.
I asked him to show evidence of “forced conscription of Korean woman for comfort woman”. He cited a footnote, but his evidence was nothing of the sort. In the end, this professor’s 30 page manuscript failed to substantiate the all too common claim that the Japanese military forcibly conscripted Korean women. His references were based on nothing more than fantasy.

MOTEKI Hiromichi, Acting Chairman
for KASE Hideaki, Chairman
Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact