China's Potential?

Developmentally China did seem to really stagnate after early Ming. For instance their iron production declined in those years even after stability was reasserted by the Manchus.

How much of that is because of the Manchu, and how much of it is because of the exhaustion of readily accessible sources, lumber for fuel, etc?
 

loughery111

Banned

I have to admit, the British definition of crappy leadership and that of most of the rest of the world don't quite line up. You guys, us Americans, and the Canadians really have had a "holiday from history" for the most part. While not all of our leaders were brilliant and we each had our share of outright morons, they very rarely did permanent, irreparable damage. Baldwin, MacDonald, and Chamberlain being the major exceptions for the British, since if any of them had had a spine WWII would have been called the Western European War and lasted about a year. (This is, admittedly, based on a very incomplete list of British Prime Ministers...)
 
I think we need to rethink this one a little bit. Let's not forget that for the centuries between 300 CE and 1750 CE, China, by and large, was the biggest, most powerful, most advanced, and most prosperous state in the world. While the Europeans' infighting enabled them to develop truly brilliant ways of waging war, it never quite panned out into actual development or material prosperity for their people until after then; for the overwhelming majority of this period, China had something that could be considered a middle class, and its peasants, if poor, were not quite the crushingly poor serfs that characterized most of Europe.

Do you have a source for the last bit? I was always under the impression that the Chinese peasant had a less varied and less healthy diet than the European, and was more vulnerable to a bad harvest.

I'd also argue heavily against the comment that it never developed into development, especially if you extend your period under discussion to 1750 AD. Plenty of things were not only invented, but actually spread across Europe. Blast furnaces, for one thing, had been in use for centuries in China before the Europeans started using them. But when the Europeans did start using them, the impact was far more widespread than it was in China.

The Chinese system worked out very well for internal purposes--which had more to do with centralized control than with meeting the needs of the peasants. But any system which can't keep foreigners from kicking over the apple cart has failed at Task #1 of exercising sovereignty and hence, will not long retain sovereignty.
 

loughery111

Banned
Do you have a source for the last bit? I was always under the impression that the Chinese peasant had a less varied and less healthy diet than the European, and was more vulnerable to a bad harvest.

I'd also argue heavily against the comment that it never developed into development, especially if you extend your period under discussion to 1750 AD. Plenty of things were not only invented, but actually spread across Europe. Blast furnaces, for one thing, had been in use for centuries in China before the Europeans started using them. But when the Europeans did start using them, the impact was far more widespread than it was in China.

The Chinese system worked out very well for internal purposes--which had more to do with centralized control than with meeting the needs of the peasants. But any system which can't keep foreigners from kicking over the apple cart has failed at Task #1 of exercising sovereignty and hence, will not long retain sovereignty.

I'm damned if I could remember the name of the book anymore, I read it years ago. Look around for reading on the economy of the early and middle Ming or most of the Song Dynasty. The wikipedia articles on both topics have tidbits of what I read though they don't address it directly all that often. The Song article did include this tidbit:

"Considerable scholarship has been concentrated on researching the level of living standards during the Song Dynasty. A recent study by economic historian Cheng Minsheng estimated the average income for lower-class laborers during the Song Dynasty as 100 wen a day, about 5 times the estimated subsistence level of 20 wen a day and a very high level for preindustrial economies. Per capita consumption of grain and silk respectively was estimated by Cheng to be around 8 jin (about 400 g each) and 2 bolts, respectively"

As for the development and the 1750 cutoff... truth be told I was thinking more of China when I named it because things went downhill from there. Move that date to 1700 and I can honestly say that most of Europe's people saw very little improvement from any advances it made aside from some food security from the new American crops.

Useful information here, again nothing directly relevant but all of it points to a near-industrial economy with higher standards of living on the whole: http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MING/COMM.HTM
 
Last edited:
I'm damned if I could remember the name of the book anymore, I read it years ago. Look around for reading on the economy of the early and middle Ming or most of the Song Dynasty. The wikipedia articles on both topics have tidbits of what I read though they don't address it directly all that often. The Song article did include this tidbit:

"Considerable scholarship has been concentrated on researching the level of living standards during the Song Dynasty. A recent study by economic historian Cheng Minsheng estimated the average income for lower-class laborers during the Song Dynasty as 100 wen a day, about 5 times the estimated subsistence level of 20 wen a day and a very high level for preindustrial economies. Per capita consumption of grain and silk respectively was estimated by Cheng to be around 8 jin (about 400 g each) and 2 bolts, respectively"

As for the development and the 1750 cutoff... truth be told I was thinking more of China when I named it because things went downhill from there. Move that date to 1700 and I can honestly say that most of Europe's people saw very little improvement from any advances it made aside from some food security from the new American crops.

Useful information here, again nothing directly relevant but all of it points to a near-industrial economy with higher standards of living on the whole: http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MING/COMM.HTM

I honestly don't know much about Chinese living standards, although there has to be something wrong with a sentence that measures annual grain consumption in grams. And is that pre- or post-tax income, and for rural farmers or urban laborers? How much cushion did the population have against bad harvests (major concern, with 1,828 famines in a 1,936 year period in China). Europe had them too. But there was more cushion against a single bad harvest, and the famines tended to be more local events, with a single major exception in the 14th century.

But at any rate, I would dispute the statement regarding Europeans, both for urban populations and rural. Overall standard of living improved measurably -- and there were more opportunities for social mobility as well. Especially if you are taking a 1400 year time period. Maybe from a modern perspective it doesn't seem that way.
 
I honestly don't know much about Chinese living standards, although there has to be something wrong with a sentence that measures annual grain consumption in grams. And is that pre- or post-tax income, and for rural farmers or urban laborers? How much cushion did the population have against bad harvests (major concern, with 1,828 famines in a 1,936 year period in China). Europe had them too. But there was more cushion against a single bad harvest, and the famines tended to be more local events, with a single major exception in the 14th century.

But at any rate, I would dispute the statement regarding Europeans, both for urban populations and rural. Overall standard of living improved measurably -- and there were more opportunities for social mobility as well. Especially if you are taking a 1400 year time period. Maybe from a modern perspective it doesn't seem that way.

IIRC, rice was pretty much grown only for the richer people. Millet and sorghum were what the poor ate, and those are much more resistant to drought and pests. Since rice was generally sold and not eaten by the farmers themselves, if the rice crop failed, there were still other grains to live off of.
 
According to the British economist and economic historian Angus Maddison in The World Economy: A Millenial Perspective and The World Economy: Historical Statistics, in regards to material prosperity, Europe reached a nadir around the year 1000 A.D., (when European GDP per capita was actually significantly lower then it had been in the first century A.D.) after a sustained decline since the 4th or 5th century A.D., but from around 11th century on substantial European growth was more or less constant until the late 18th/early 19th century, when it skyrocketed upwards. Western European GDP (PPP) per capita in 1000 A.D. (in 1990 international dollar figures) was around $427 compared to China at around $450, but by 1500 this had already changed dramatically, western Europe GDP per capita having risen to $771 with China’s rising to around $600. By 1700 European GDP per capita again rose dramatically to $997, while China’s remained stagnant around $600, with this divergence becoming even more pronounced by 1820, with $1,202 vs. $600 for western Europe and China, respectively. That is to say, western Europe has historically generally been wealthier then China on a personal income basis, with a substantial and dramatic decline in European per capita income from the 4th century to the 11th leading to a roughly five-hundred to eight-hundred year period of lower personal income for Europe in relations to China. In regards to share of global GDP (PPP), China retained a substantially greater share then western Europe until around 1820 to 1870, largely due to the massive Chinese population boom from about 1700 to 1820 (western Europe and Chinese GDP (PPP) were roughly equal around 1700).

Of course that is not to say that these figures are entirely accurate absolute. Some historians, (chiefly of the so-called ‘California School) among them Andre Gunder Frank, B.G. Wong and especially Kenneth Pomeranz in The Great Divergence argue that until the early 19th century the living standards and per capita incomes in the ‘core’ regions (namely northern France, the Low Countries, and the Yangzi delta and the Kanto plain) were roughly equivalent, although I personally find some of his arguments, especially regarding labor productivity and longevity entirely implausible.
 

loughery111

Banned
According to the British economist and economic historian Angus Maddison in The World Economy: A Millenial Perspective and The World Economy: Historical Statistics, in regards to material prosperity, Europe reached a nadir around the year 1000 A.D., (when European GDP per capita was actually significantly lower then it had been in the first century A.D.) after a sustained decline since the 4th or 5th century A.D., but from around 11th century on substantial European growth was more or less constant until the late 18th/early 19th century, when it skyrocketed upwards. Western European GDP (PPP) per capita in 1000 A.D. (in 1990 international dollar figures) was around $427 compared to China at around $450, but by 1500 this had already changed dramatically, western Europe GDP per capita having risen to $771 with China’s rising to around $600. By 1700 European GDP per capita again rose dramatically to $997, while China’s remained stagnant around $600, with this divergence becoming even more pronounced by 1820, with $1,202 vs. $600 for western Europe and China, respectively. That is to say, western Europe has historically generally been wealthier then China on a personal income basis, with a substantial and dramatic decline in European per capita income from the 4th century to the 11th leading to a roughly five-hundred to eight-hundred year period of lower personal income for Europe in relations to China. In regards to share of global GDP (PPP), China retained a substantially greater share then western Europe until around 1820 to 1870, largely due to the massive Chinese population boom from about 1700 to 1820 (western Europe and Chinese GDP (PPP) were roughly equal around 1700).

Of course that is not to say that these figures are entirely accurate absolute. Some historians, (chiefly of the so-called ‘California School) among them Andre Gunder Frank, B.G. Wong and especially Kenneth Pomeranz in The Great Divergence argue that until the early 19th century the living standards and per capita incomes in the ‘core’ regions (namely northern France, the Low Countries, and the Yangzi delta and the Kanto plain) were roughly equivalent, although I personally find some of his arguments, especially regarding labor productivity and longevity entirely implausible.

Hmm, you have subject matter on hand and it seems reasonable by me. I'd say that what I read in economics classes many years ago subscribed to the latter theory...
 
Of course that is not to say that these figures are entirely accurate absolute. Some historians, (chiefly of the so-called ‘California School) among them Andre Gunder Frank, B.G. Wong and especially Kenneth Pomeranz in The Great Divergence argue that until the early 19th century the living standards and per capita incomes in the ‘core’ regions (namely northern France, the Low Countries, and the Yangzi delta and the Kanto plain) were roughly equivalent, although I personally find some of his arguments, especially regarding labor productivity and longevity entirely implausible.[/FONT]

What of Madisons' claims do you find plausible? In general, I find his sort of microshistory more plausible than constructing a GNP per capita for the entire planet the way Maddison does.
 
Top