Wrestling for power: The state and economy in later imperial China, 1000--1770.

详细信息   

• 作者：Liu ; William G.
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：2005
• 导师：Bol, Peter K.
• 毕业院校：Harvard University
• 专业：History, Asia, Australia and Oceania.;Economics, History.
• ISBN：9780542392009
• CBH：3194430
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：24861037
• Pages：435

文摘

This thesis aims to compare later imperial China's market economy and state finance in two transitional periods: the Tang-Song transition (starting from the eighth century to the twelfth century, and the Ming-Qing transition (starting from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century).;My study suggests a divergence of the market economy between the Song and post-Song times. The size of the Song market economy in the twelfth century was only exceeded by the Qing economy in the 1770s, while in terms of real income per capita the Song lead remained even thereafter. This comparison also indicates that the early Ming period (1368-1450) was a turning point that caused this Song-Ming divergence: prices dropped to a level as low as that of the seventh-century China; meanwhile real wages declined dramatically even when the aggregate population decreased by one-third in the late fourteenth century.;My study also demonstrates divergent paths in later imperial China's state building. First, the Song state can be termed the fiscal state , as its statehood was largely ensured by administration through market means. Secondly, the early Ming regime demonstrated another kind of powerful state administration, which I define as the despotic state , by exerting direct control over populace and resources. The third kind, the physiocratic state is true only for the Chinese state from the sixteenth century down to the early twentieth century, a well-known story of a state with quite limited power.