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The Political Economy of Chinese State Intervention During the New Policies Period (1068-1085)

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The Political Economy of Chinese State Intervention During the New Policies Period (1068-1085) Ideas in Practice: the Political Economy of Chinese State Intervention During the New Policies Period (1068-1085) The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Luo, Yinan. 2015. Ideas in Practice: the Political Economy of Chinese State Intervention During the New Policies Period (1068-1085). Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:14226107 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Ideas in Practice: The Political Economy of Chinese State Intervention during the New Policies Period (1068-1085) A dissertation presented by Yinan Luo to The Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts January 2015 © 2015—Yinan Luo All rights reserved Advisor: Professor Peter K. Bol Author: Yinan Luo Ideas in Practice: the Political Economy of Chinese State Intervention during the New Policies Period (1068-1085) Abstract I take the New Policies period (1068-1085) to be a critical juncture in Chinese history during which, for the first time, the Chinese state initiated systematic intervention into the market. This period witnessed the failure of plans to shape the collective action of bureaucrats and coordinate market actors through a host of organizing mechanisms. I explain why the policy makers in this historical process failed to incorporate and organize the ideas and interests of social actors, political elites and relevant bureaucracies into the state‘s authoritative action. I argue that this failure was an outcome of the interaction between the political philosophy of the drafters of the New Policies and their historical context. In particular, it was a result of the incapacity of the drafters‘ worldview to correctly explain and resolve unexpected problems in the policy environment, including the influence of political philosophies that were in fundamental conflict with the ideas of Wang Anshi, as well as the reaction of political elites to the New Policies, the rationales and behavioral modes of bureaucrats in financial markets and state monopolies, and unpredictable changes in the marketplace that bedeviled bureaucrats. iii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... V INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................... 1 PART ONE THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGIN OF STATE-BUILDING DURING THE NEW POLICIES ERA (1068-1085) ....................................................................................71 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 71 CHAPTER ONE WANG ANSHI'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY ON STATE-BUILDING .......................... 77 PART TWO THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS AND POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF DEBATES ON THE RURAL CREDIT POLICY (1069-1071).......................................... 129 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 129 CHAPTER TWO THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF THE DEBATES ON THE RURAL CREDIT POLICY ......................................................................................... 140 CHAPTER THREE FROM TOLERATION TO EXCLUSION: POLICY FORMATION MECHANISMS AMONG POLITICAL ELITES DURING THE RURAL CREDIT POLICY MAKING PROCESS (1069-1071) ............ 192 PART THREE STATE INTERVENTION IN THE SALT AND TEA MARKETS DURING THE NEW POLICIES PERIOD (1071-1085): PERSPECTIVES AND PRACTICE ..................... 255 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 255 CHAPTER FOUR CHANGING POLICY PARADIGMS IN THE CONTROL OF POND SALT VOUCHER PRICES DURING THE NEW POLICIES PERIOD (1072-1080) ............................................................ 258 CHAPTER FIVE REGULATION AND BUREAUCRACY IN THE STATE MONOPOLY OF TEA AND SALT MARKETS (1080-1085) .............................................................................................. 320 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 383 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................... 393 iv Acknowledgements This dissertation owes a deep debt to my two mentors, Peter K. Bol and Peter A. Hall, who have guided my intellectual odyssey during my life as a Ph.D student at Harvard. I learned from Professor Bol that history is a process in which different choices emerge and are eclipsed. I can still remember the question he asked me nine years ago: why did certain choices prevail during some historical periods while others disappeared? I will keep that question in mind throughout my future work as a historian. I believe that the power of historians is rooted in our discovery of the past choices, paired with optimism about the hopes that we human beings hold on to as we face the future. This dissertation is the result of one phase of my exploration into that question. Although he is best known as a great scholar in the field of modern comparative political economy, Professor Hall‘s ideas on ontology, methodology, the relationship between ideas and institutions, and the state-market relationship have greatly influenced my thinking about eleventh-century China. I believe that his thoughts will provide inspiration and wisdom to other scholars of my generation who are devoted to promoting dialogue between different academic disciplines to celebrate the significance of Chinese history to the modern social sciences. I was also privileged to have Anthony Saich and Daniel Ziblatt as my teachers and readers of my work. Professor Saich provided useful feedback that triggered me v to rethink the connection between the Chinese state in the pre-modern and modern periods. Professor Ziblatt introduced me to the field of state-building in the summer of 2007, and his work on European state-building and democratization helped build the solid basis for my studies in the field of comparative politics. I would also like to express my gratitude to my other teachers for their encouragement and guidance, including Deng Xiaonan, Yan Buke, Ge Zhaoguang, Charles Hartman, Huang Kuanchong, Paul Smith, Huge Clark, Xue Lan, Wu Yongping, Roderick MacFarquhar, Nancy Hearst, Song Jaeyoon, Elizabeth Perry, Zhu Tianbiao, Ralph Thaxton, Kathleen Thelen, Michael Szonyi, and Vivien Schmidt. I also would like to thank Tina, Macabe and Javier for their thoughtful comments and candid challenges. My original research was supported by a Harvard-Yenching Doctoral Scholarship, a Harvard GSAS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, a Fairbank Center summer research grant, the Chinese Government Scholarship for Oversees Chinese Students, and The China Times Cultural Foundation. I deeply thank Jorge Espada at the Harvard Asian Center and Lydia Chen at the Harvard Fairbank Center for their generous sharing of the academic resources in those centers. I also thank Jim Zigo, my department coordinator, who has helped me during the past seven years with great patience. I thank Alexander Akin for his critical reading and editorial assistance on my dissertation. My parents have always stood behind me and provided every possible support in every moment when I encountered great difficulties. There is no way to thank them vi enough, but I will devote my whole life to taking care of them. vii Abbreviations of Titles SHY XCB SS QSW viii INTRODUCTION In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. -James Madison In the early summer of 1944 the Vice-President of the United States, Henry Wallace, paid an official visit to China, a country that had experienced a century‘s turmoil, disease, warfare and disasters, yet sought her rejuvenation amid the hard times of the Second World War. As a key member of President Franklin Roosevelt‘s New Deal movement, Wallace had been noted for his initiation of the ― Ever-Normal Granary‖ plan that distributed farm loans while he was the Secretary of Agriculture (1933-1940). The plan represented the first systematic intervention by the U.S. government into the agricultural credit market to stabilize commodity prices, oversee farm income goals and provide non-recourse loans to farmers.1 On 22 June 1944, Wallace gave a speech at the luncheon party hosted by the Chinese National Government. We have some notion of his comments from a Chinese translation published in a contemporary newspaper, which quotes him as stating, in part, It was ten years ago that I learned for the first time about the famous Chinese New Dealer who lived about 900 years ago, Wang An-shih. Under very great difficulties he was faced in the year of 1068 with problems which, allowing for the differences between historical periods, were almost identical to the problems met by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. The methods that he 1For an introduction to Henry
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