by Stephen Davies
We live in a world that has been shaped by a process that began some 250
years ago in northwestern Europe. We often call it the Industrial Revolution
because one of its most dramatic features was the appearance of industrial
manufacture with the rise of the factory system. However, this was only one
element and not the most significant. Moreover, concentrating on
industrialization suggests that the change is now complete. The process
continues.
It has several important aspects, which are mutually reinforcing. The most
obvious is continuous intensive economic growth. Intensive growth is marked by
constant innovation and increased efficiency: doing new things and doing more
with less. Extensive growth, the historical norm, means more of the same and
doing more with more, that is, with no increase in efficiency or productivity.
Another important part of the process is continuous technological innovation
and improvement. This both reflects and encourages a growth of theoretical
knowledge. (See Joel Mokyr’s The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of
the Knowledge Economy.) Yet another part is the development of increasingly
complex economic institutions and instruments.
All historians recognize the existence and importance of this phenomenon.
However, they disagree about many other related matters. In particular there is
no real agreement about how this process started and why it happened in Europe
rather than some other part of the world. Why not in the Islamic world or in
India? Above all, why not in China? The last question is the truly difficult
one. As Kenneth Pomeranz points out in The Great Divergence: China,
Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy, economically China was
on an equal footing with Europe until the mid-eighteenth century or later. In fact,
for the greater part of human history China was by far the most innovative and
technologically advanced of the great civilizations. The list of important
inventions first made in China is almost endless. So why did the revolutionary
process not start there?
Actually, it did start in China before it did in Europe. As Eric Jones has
pointed out in Growth Recurring: Economic Change in World History, China
had an “industrial revolution” comparable to that of eighteenth-century
Europe—some 800 to 900 years ago. It happened under perhaps the most maligned
yet fascinating of China’s imperial dynasties, the Song.
The Song reunited China following the division and chaos of the Five
Dynasties (907–960). The dynasty was founded by two remarkable brothers, Song
Taizu (960–976) and Song Taizong (976–997). They introduced a number of
important changes in the economic policy and organization of the Empire. One
was a measure that gave peasant farmers true property rights in their land,
above all the right to sell it. The result was the emergence of a market in
land, which led to the consolidation of smaller farms and the appearance of
commercial agriculture. Even more important was their fiscal policy.
Traditionally the Chinese state had depended on taxes levied on the peasantry,
most often paid in kind. Song Taizu laid down the principle, “Agrarian taxes
must not be increased.” Consequently, the Song came to depend increasingly on
taxes on trade and so systematically encouraged it.
This had dramatic results. China rapidly became a highly monetized economy.
In 750 only 4 percent of all taxes was paid in money, but by 1065, 50 percent
was paid that way. In 1024, in the reign of Song Renzong, the widespread use of
paper money began. Initially, paper notes had a strict three-year limit and
were convertible into cash or specified quantities of commodities. With time,
checks, promissory notes, and bills of exchange were all used. By the end of
the dynasty, the amount of paper money in circulation was equivalent to 70
million strings of cash, or 70 billion copper coins.
Dramatic Economic Growth
Agriculture, trades, and manufacture all grew dramatically. It is clear,
particularly from the agricultural evidence, that this was intensive, not
extensive, in nature. Thus while the population doubled between 960 and 1020,
the output of rice more than doubled. In 1078, China produced 125,000 tons of
cast iron, more than the rest of the planet put together. This would not be
surpassed until the 1790s, in Britain. A whole range of technological
breakthroughs and improvements were made. These included movable type printing
(1000), the blast furnace (1050), mechanical water clocks (1090), paddlewheel
ships (1130), the magnetic compass (1150), water-powered textile machinery
(1200), and most dramatically, huge oceangoing junks with watertight bulkheads,
a carrying capacity of 200 to 600 tons, and a crew of about 1,000 (1200).
The period also saw rapid urbanization, most notably in cities such as
Kaifeng, Liaoyang, and Hangzhou. One aspect of this was the deregulation of
markets as part of the policy of encouraging commerce. Previously markets had
only been allowed in specified places under tight control. Under the Song,
towns and cities had street markets, shops on the major streets and thoroughfares,
and specialized shopping areas with products from all over the empire and
beyond. Two other aspects of Song policy were related to this phenomenon. One
was the encouragement of import and export trade. In 964 total revenues from
exports amounted to 500,000 strings of cash; by 1189 they came to 65 million
strings. The other aspect was free movement throughout the empire, encouraged
by another Chinese invention, the motel.
By the 1260s China had reached a level of technological sophistication and
economic development that Europe would not achieve until the late eighteenth or
early nineteenth century. All the above-mentioned features of the process that
produced modernity can be found in Song China, which was clearly being
transformed in the way that our world has been and continues to be. However, it
did not continue. Instead Chinese society stabilized. It remained superior or
equal to European society until about 1800, but the dynamic process stalled.
That it did not continue is truly a tragedy. If it had we would be living in a
“Chinese” world rather than a “Western” one. We would also be much richer and
more knowledgeable.
Why did it not continue? As Jones says, this is the big and important
question for economic historians. As ever, there are many answers. This is,
however, not just of interest to historians, for the answers may have a
considerable import for ourselves and our own position.
The actual historical story can be told
straightforwardly. Despite its strengths, Song China never developed an
effective military system. Instead it relied on mercenaries, diplomacy, and
paying off outside threats. In 1126 a people from beyond the Great Wall, the
Jurchen, overran all of North China and captured Kaifeng and Liaoyang. The dynasty
was saved by another great emperor, Song Gaozong, who moved the capital to
Hangzhou. The loss of Northern China did not prove fatal, but it was a
foretaste of something much worse.
In 1162 a man was born in Central Asia. His name was
Temujin, but he is remembered by the title he took in 1183—Ghengis Khan. He
united all the Mongol tribes by 1204 and created a uniquely powerful and
effective military system. In 1206 he declared himself “Khan of Khans,” and by
1215 he had conquered the Jin empire. By the time he died in 1227 he had
created the largest empire in human history. The Song resisted Mongol attacks
for many years, but finally between 1268 and 1279 the Mongols, led by Kuhblai
Khan and his great general Bayan, conquered the whole of China. They established
a new dynasty, the Yuan, and ruled until 1368. This was a catastrophe for
China, made worse by the devastating impact of the Black Death. By 1370 the
population had fallen to half of its level under the Song.
In 1368 the peasant rebel Zhu Huanchang proclaimed
himself Emperor, taking the name Ming Hongwu, so founding a new dynasty, the
Ming. Hongwu ruled from 1368 to 1398, and the dynasty was consolidated by his
son Ming Yongle (1403–1424). It faced increasing difficulties from the late
sixteenth century; in 1644 the last Ming Emperor hanged himself in the gardens
of the imperial palace.
A new dynasty then came to power, the Qing. It was
Manchu, not Chinese, but it adopted Chinese ways. Initially successful, the
early Qing Emperors, such as Kangxi (1661–1722) and Qianlong (1736–1795), are
seen as among China’s greatest rulers. The dynasty ruled China, but under
increasing pressure from both internal revolt and European imperialism, until
it was overthrown in 1911.
Thus despite recovery and success under the Ming and
Qing, China never recovered the dynamism it had known under the Song. In
science, technology, and economic productivity it gradually lost its leading
position.
Why did this happen? The simple explanation is the
Mongol conquest. However, China recovered from that disaster under the Ming by
most measures, and the institutions created under the Song were still extant
when the Mongols were expelled in 1368.
It has been popular to blame cultural factors,
particularly the impact of the (allegedly) conservative, backward-looking, and
anti-trade philosophy of Confucianism. Authors taking this view, such as David
Landes, contrast the way European culture encouraged innovation with the
conservatism and systematic resistance to change that they see in Chinese
culture. Again though, this will not wash. Confucianism had been an important
part of Chinese culture since the formation of the Chinese state. It was the
dominant, official ideology under the Song. So why did it only come to have
such a retarding effect after that dynasty?
Contingent Reasons?
Another response, put by scholars such as Kenneth
Pomeranz, is that China after the Song continued to develop, but failed to
maintain its lead over Europe for purely contingent and accidental reasons.
Pomeranz puts great stress on one factor, that China’s coal reserves were both
geologically inaccessible and geographically remote, making a steam-powered
industrial revolution like the one in Europe impossible.
This argument has some force, but again there are
serious problems. While Ming and Qing China did see continued development in a
number of areas, there were many others (such as maritime technology) where not
only did innovation cease, but entire technologies were abandoned. Most
importantly, this argument misunderstands European economic history. The role
of steam power in the “Industrial Revolution” is now known to have been
exaggerated; there was no single sudden technological breakthrough.
In fact the Mongols were to blame, but indirectly. The
real reason for China’s loss of momentum was the response of the Chinese elite
to the shock of barbarian conquest. The Ming Emperors believed that Song policy
had produced a weak, divided polity and had undermined the stability of
traditional Chinese society.
In reaction they introduced a set of policies that
deliberately reversed many of the key features of the Song. Those policies were
continued and even intensified under the Qing. The consultative government and rule
of law found under the Song were replaced by a highly centralized and
autocratic government, entirely dependent on the Emperor.
Long-distance trade was discouraged, as was overseas
trade, and after 1430 all trade by sea was stopped. In general the Song policy
of relying on taxes on trade and encouraging it (to bring in revenue) was
reversed, and the traditional agrarian taxes were restored. The Ming and Qing
sought to make peasant farmers the basic unit of society; free movement was
stopped. Several technologies were abandoned or deliberately abolished. The
Ming encouraged the formation of large regional merchant cartels, which were
favored by the state and given monopolies over key commodities such as lead,
iron, and salt. In general, the policy was to discourage and regulate
innovation and to promote social stability at the expense of growth.
In the medium term this policy was a success, partly
because after about 1600 China had no serious competitors in Eastern Asia. In
the long run, however, it led to the series of catastrophes that afflicted
China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
What does this tell us? First, it shows that modernity
and its benefits are not inevitable or irreversible. An “Industrial Revolution”
was cut off and reversed in the fourteenth century by deliberate policy.
Second, as Joel Mokyr points out, this was possible
for one reason. Unlike Europe, China was not politically divided. Instead there
was a single state, headed by one ruler. This made it possible for the state to
stop economic progress in a way not possible in a system of competing
sovereignties such Europe.
This has clear implications for our own times.
No comments:
Post a Comment