Rolf Peter Sieferle

Helga Breuninger (Eds.)

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Europe´s Special Course

A program of the Breuninger Stiftung

Volume 10

Stuttgart 2003 ¿(XURSHV 6SHFLDO &RXUVH¾ A program of the Breuninger Stiftung GmbH, Stuttgart

Editors: Rolf Peter Sieferle, Helga Breuninger

The following volumes have been published (only in German except this volume). Available from the Breuninger Stiftung (internet and adress see below):

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(in Englisch) mit Beiträgen von: Martina Eglauer, Jürg Helbling, Raimund Kolb, Peter Perdue, Rolf Peter Sieferle

%DQG  9HUJOHLFKHQGH 8QWHUVXFKXQJ ]XU ODQJIULVWLJHQ (QWZLFNOXQJ YRQ JHVHOOVFKDIWOLFKHP 6WRIIZHFKVHO XQG /DQGQXW]XQJ LQ gVWHUUHLFK XQG GHP 9HUHLQLJWHQ |QLJUHLFK Fridolin Krausmann, Heinz Schandl, Nils B. Schulz

© Breuninger Stiftung GmbH, Stuttgart 2003 Design: Volker Hann Production: Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt ISSN 1616-1602

Project management ›Europe´s Special Course‹ Breuninger Stiftung Prof. Dr. Rolf Peter Sieferle Breitscheidstraße 8 Universität St. Gallen D-70174 Stuttgart Kulturwissenschaftliche Abteilung tel. + 49 (0) 7 11 / 2 57 88 08 Gatterstrasse 1 fax + 49 (0) 7 11 / 2 57 88 09 CH-9010 St. Gallen [email protected] [email protected] www.breuninger-stiftung.de Content

Helga Breuninger: Preface...... 5 Rolf Peter Sieferle Why did industrialization start in Europe (and not in China)?...... 7 The structure of agrarian civilizations ...... 9 The industrial transformation ...... 16 Models of explanation ...... 21 Single igniting factors...... 30 Preliminary conclusion ...... 75 Bibliography ...... 83 Jürg Helbling Agriculture, population and state in China in comparison to Europe, 1500-1900...... 90 I. Risk management, family types and development...... 93 II. High-level equilibrium trap...... 104 III. Discussion...... 151 IV. A provisional conclusion...... 157 V. References...... 159 VI. Appendix ...... 168 Raimund Kolb About Figures and Aggregates: Some Arguments for a More Scrupulous Evaluation of Quantitative Data in the History of Population and Agriculture in China (1644-1949)200 Preliminary Remarks ...... 200 Population Figures of Qing and Republican Times...... 211 Microdemography...... 221 Population Development and Natural Disasters...... 226 Figures on Cultivated Land in Qing and Republican China...... 235 Concluding Remarks ...... 241 Tables...... 244 Bibliography ...... 264 Martina Eglauer Family and Household in Late Imperial China ...... 276 Chinese terms on family and household...... 278 Chinese sources for demographic research: household registers and genealogies...... 280 Family and household size ...... 282 Marriage...... 286 Endogamy − Polygamy − Remarriage...... 293 Birth rate ...... 296 Adoption ...... 302 Conclusion...... 303 Bibliography ...... 305 Peter C. Perdue How Different was China? Or, Bringing the Army Back In: Coercion and Ecology in the Comparative Sociology of Europe and China...... 311 Why the European Miracle? ...... 312 Energy Sources ...... 314 State-Sponsored Development ...... 317 Why The End of Frontier Expansion Slowed the Dynamism of the Qing State ...... 323 Bibliography ...... 329

Helga Breuninger Preface

The Breuninger Stiftung GmbH is an independent, non-profit organization, founded in 1968 by the German entrepreneur Heinz Breuninger (1920-1980). The Foundation’s aim is the advancement of knowledge and research in the fields of Medicine, Social Sciences, Culture and Economics, using an interdisciplinary approach to tackle complex problems, in particular those concerning world history and shaping the future.

Within this special focus on “world history” the Breuninger Stiftung concentrates on the explanation of the causes and circumstances which led to the modern society. Particular projects are sponsored which will explain how it came to be that beginning in Europe a movement emerged in the last centuries that lead to the transformation of the earlier pattern of agrarian civilizations. The goal of these projects is to consolidate different explanation approaches and also to take a look at the European development “from the outside”.

To explain Europe’s special course toward industrialization that resulted in the making of modern societiy we have to compare its historical features and development with that of other civilizations. The most suitable object for this kind of comparison seems to be China, a civilization that in the eighteenth century in many respects had gained a level equal to the advanced regions of Europe.

In the summer of 2001, the Breuninger Stiftung organized a workshop on these topics on Wasan Island, Ontario. The contributions in this volume were first presented on this workshop and later expanded to longer manuscripts. I wish to thank all the participants in this workshop who took part in an intensive and fruitful discussion: Jürg Helbling, Bernd Herrmann, Thomas Höllmann, Raimund Kolb, John R. McNeill, Kurt Möser, Peter Perdue, Rolf Peter Sieferle and Verena Winiwarter.

5

Rolf Peter Sieferle Why did industrialization start in Europe (and not in China)?

Francis Bacon mentions in his Novum Organum, one of the programmatic texts of the Scientific Revolution published in 1620, three major new inventions which had a tremendous significance, but whose origins remained obscure:1 the printing press, gunpowder, and the compass. They changed literary culture, warfare and navigation in a fundamental way, and many other inventions followed. No political empire, no religious denomination, and no astrological constellation, wrote Bacon, had a greater impact on the human fate than these three mechanical inventions.

Today we know that these three alleged fundamental innovations of early modern Europe had their origins in China. It is presumed that they had been imported to Europe in the late Middle Ages, where they, however, were rapidly adapted and further improved. But if Bacon’s opinion is right that they were the origin of many other innovations,2 why did "modern society" develop in Europe and not in China?

Here we are confronted with a problem that occupies observers since they noticed that something unusual happened in Europe that was dubbed "commercial society", "industrial revolution" or "modernization". How can it be explained that one particular region in the world left the several thousand year-old pattern of agrarian civilization with the consequence that all the other civilizations had to follow this path willy-nilly?

There are two contrasting models of explanation for this process that may be called orthogenetic evolutionism and contingency theory. Both have origins in the nineteenth century, but as explicit explanations they were developed only in the early twentieth century.

The orthogenetic position goes back to eighteenth century theories of historical stages and to nineteenth century social evolutionism, from Turgot, Ferguson or Smith to Spencer. It has a universalistic stance and is based on a simple anthropological assumption: people permanently strive to better their material condition.3 As a consequence they gain knowledge and competence and their dominion of nature becomes more and more efficient. This dynamic expresses itself in many respects, as technological progress, as increasing knowledge, as economic growth, as a process of "civilization" or "modernization" of the

1 Francis Bacon, Novum Organum I, 129: „Quarum primordia, licet recentia, obscura et ingloria sunt“. 2 „...unde innumerae rerum mutationes sequutae sunt“, ibid. 3 E.g.: “I make two assumptions which I will in no way justify here: that mankind is restless and greedy for more of the good things of life, and that essentially this is a quest for greater material rewards”. Mann 1977, 286. 7 world. One basic element of orthogenetic evolutionism is its gradualism. This is the assumption that there are no leaps or breaks in history, no separate societal formations, but an open and continuous progressive flow leading toward the future. This universalistic and adaptive-materialistic anthropology denies the existence of special cultural patterns and relies on the fiction of Homo oeconomicus, so that history can be understood as a unified progressive and teleological process of humanity toward insight, control and wealth.

In the nineteenth century this orthogenetic position could ally with biological theories of evolution that had orthogenetic implications as well.4 However, in the second half of the twentieth century this was no longer possible because the prevailing neo-Darwinism shook off all remains of teleology. As a consequence, the orthogenetic stance could no longer be based on a general theory of evolution, including biological, cultural and social dimensions. Stephen Sanderson, a strict social orthogeneticist, therefore postulates a principal difference between biological and social evolution:

• Biological evolution is divergent, leading to separate and differentiated species (cladogenesis), while social evolution mainly is parallel and convergent.

• Genetic variation is fortuitous, while cultural variation is directed and intentional (as innovation or learning process). Here the "Darwinistic" character of biological evolution is contrasted with the "Lamarckistic" character of social evolution.

• The consequence of these assumptions is: “if we started biological evolution all over again we would get very different results; however, if we started social evolution all over again we would get very similar results (social evolution therefore has a predictive quality that is lacking in biological evolution)” (Sanderson 1995, 7).

This is a bold assertion, even more as an experimental test is not possible. However it shows that the core of the orthogenetic position is its Lamarckism of evolutionary feedback, where evolution is understood as a learning process following the mode of trial and error. When nature has unambiguous qualities, the positively fed back process of acquiring knowledge about these qualities must lead to permanent and continuous improvement in adaptation, and the logical end of this process is optimal adaptation. This is the formal reason why convergent social evolution can be expected (independent Neolithic evolution in different regions of the world; similar structural patterns of agrarian civilizations; ease of technological transfer between cultures; numerous parallel technological innovations in different

4 This is evident with Herbert Spencer, but holds for many nineteenth century social thinkers, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Cf. Lutz 1998. 8 civilizations). The final consequence of this process is the universal validity of "modern society".5

The contrasting position to orthogenetic gradualism stresses the incidence of improbable revolutionary breakthroughs. The major revolutions in world history like the transition to agriculture or the start of industrialization are in this perspective not determined by their initial preconditions. They are unexpected events emerging fortuitously in social areas that were not necessarily unstable or prone to self-transformation.

The classical case of a contingency theory is Max Weber’s construction of a causal relationship between protestant ethics and the ignition of capitalist accumulation.6 Some 1500 years after the Christian Religion came into existence, on the European continent a multiplicity of reforming movements occurred. One of these led to Calvinism in Geneva, which was exported to England. It was in England that, under specific social and political conditions where Puritan sects could flourish, ethical dispositions developed which finally set a process of capitalist innovation into motion. If we consider how easily one of these conditions might have lacked, it becomes clear how improbable this process was and under how many circumstances it might have failed before it became self-sustained. So in the core of contingency theory lies the assumption that the industrial transformation of agrarian societies was “totally unpredictable and surprising” (Macfarlane 2000, 5).

Before we can deal with these models of explanation, the basic problem has to be sketched: What is the nature of agrarian societies? Do they share common features? Was “growth” or “innovation” ubiquitous or a rare exception? And finally: how probable or improbable was the emergence of an industrial society?

The structure of agrarian civilizations

Our initial thesis is that the agrarian civilizations do in fact have something of a structure that makes it possible to describe certain common traits of this mode of production in general terms. In a way, there is an ideal agrarian civilization, as a general pattern that underlies all really advanced agrarian societies.7 When we take a closer look, however, we notice that there are lots of differences between particular civilizations. The fundamental reason for this is that agrarian societies depend much more than other societies on specific environmental

5 This idea is further expanded by neo-universalistic anthropology, e.g. Brown 1991; Pinker 2002. 6 This argument can already be found in Werner Sombart’s "Der moderne Kapitalismus" (1902) where numerous contingent factors are identified. 7 A concise overview can be found in Crone 1989. 9 conditions (nature of the soil, existence of suitable plants and animals, climate, transport facilities, geomorphology, etc.). They are less able to substitute lacking conditions and to modify or even create a favorable environment than industrial societies can do. In addition to these constraints on adaptation comes the impact of autopoietic cultural processes as a result of regionally limited recursive communication with the consequence that numerous functionally equivalent solutions of similar problems emerge. As a combined result of both tendencies the common pattern of agrarian civilizations is much abstracter than that of industrial societies und perhaps even of hunter-gatherer-societies (whose nutritional spectrum is much larger und more elastic than that of agrarian societies).

What is an agrarian civilization? First of all, it is an agrarian society and it shares this property with the simple peasant society from which it has derived and which in a way constitutes its basis. The peasant society lies below the agrarian civilization. It is the trunk out of which it grows and it is the level to which it returns when the high culture collapses. Such a course has happened time and again.8 The collapse of complex agrarian societies is in a way a reduction to their core – the simple peasant society. On the contrary, a return to hunter and gatherer societies can only be observed under very rare circumstances.

The agrarian civilizations have developed a series of specific features that distinguish them from simple peasant societies. Most significant are the city (civitas, from which the term civilization is derived), trade and industry (advanced division of labor), writing, metallurgy, social stratification, religious institutions, government administration, large empires. However, these features are based on the agrarian foundation, which defines the scope that other areas of life possess ranging from the economy to politics and the military to everyday life.

The form that the material interaction between societies and their physical environment takes can be referred to as social metabolism.9 This metabolism, in other words the whole area of production, consumption, technology and population, is ultimately determined by the availability of energy. 10 The energy flow through society defines its material scope of action and to a considerable extent its physical profile (its material structure and its effects on the physical environment, respectively). In terms of world history there have been merely three different social-metabolic regimes characterized by three forms of energy flow:

8 See Eisenstadt 1963; Tainter 1988; Yoffee/ Cowgill 1988. 9 Concerning the concept of social metabolism see the contributions in: Fischer-Kowalski (ed 1997). 10 For an energy explanation of history see Cottrell 1955; White 1959; Adams 1975; Sieferle 1982; 2001. 10 Annual per capita use of energy and material in different social-metabolic regimes11

Energy Material basic metabolism 3,5 GJ hunter-gatherers 10-20 GJ 2-3 t (factor of 3-5) agrarian societies 60-80 GJ 4-5 t (factor of 20) industrial transformation 250 GJ 20-22 t (factor of 80)

The per capita energy expenditure of the human population has increased from era to era approximately by a factor of four to five in the course of the historical development. The starting point is the metabolic basic expenditure of human beings which amounts to 10 MJ per person per day. It characterizes Paleolithic societies before the use of fire. Our species Homo sapiens, however, has always used fire so that the social-metabolic expenditure of hunter and gatherer societies must have been two to threefold above the base of 10 MJ. In agrarian societies it is about 200 MJ per person per day. In the USA the energy expenditure per person per day amounts to about 1,000 MJ at present. This is a hundred-fold increase on the basic expenditure. However, nobody actually believes that these figures can be reached by over six billion people.12

The fundamental social-metabolic strategy of the agrarian mode of production is to control solar energy flows, essentially on the basis of biotechnology. The energy radiated by the sun is primarily absorbed and combined chemically by the photosynthesis of plants, secondarily converted by animals and finally changed into a form useful to humans. The agrarian system utilizes for this purpose above all living creatures that serve as nutrients, tools, building material, energy converters and transportation means. For this purpose humans try to gain

11 Figures according to Simmons 1989, 379; Fischer-Kowalski / Haberl 1997, 70. Malanima (2001) calculates only 22-30 GJ/py in agrarian societies, but he totally ignores industrial consumption (iron smelting, lime burning, salt boiling etc.). 12 Fischer-Kowalski / Haberl (1997, 70) fix for members of hunter and gatherer societies an annual energy demand of 10-20 GJ; in agrarian societies it is approx. 65 GJ and in an industrial society (Austria 1990) 233 GJ per year, whereby the American numbers are much higher. Expressed in terms of days the energy expenditures are 27, 180 and 620 MJ per person. Presumably Simmons underestimates the energy demand of agrarian societies, but the trend is clearly upwards. 11 control over their vital functions as much as possible: Humans clear woods, cultivate fields, sow and plant, irrigate and drain, burn down and grow, breed and destroy, reproduce and protect those organisms they benefit from and battle against pests, weeds, vermin and predators. So the basic strategy of agriculture is to destroy the original “natural” ecological systems, especially the vegetation, and to cultivate and monopolize for their own beneficiaries the space won in this way.

Thus the agrarian mode of production sets out on an irreversible path of colonizing nature (see Fischer-Kowalski 1997). As an effect of this strategy more and more areas of the natural environment are transformed into an “artificial” condition which makes them more fit for specific human needs. This colonizing, however, does not only require initial work, but a permanent effort is necessary to keep up artificial conditions in view of spontaneous tendencies of nature to regain the colonized zones. Culture’s range of freedom is greatly reduced by colonizing nature. To avoid material decline, societies living in highly colonized worlds are forced to maintain these conditions with heavy and continuous labor inputs.

From the basic features of this solar-energetic regime several fundamental properties of the agrarian society can be explained. First of all, it is energetically sustainable in principle because there are simply no significant energy reserves that can be consumed. The most important agriculturally useful plants, grain or rice, are annuals. In other words they contain an energy supply resulting from the photosynthetic production of one year. Animals become somewhat older, but hardly more than twenty years. Water and wind must be used at the very moment they are available. The greatest energy stock that is available to agrarian societies is the forest. A primeval forest can reach an age of over 300 years, but a regularly exploited forest only has an average age of fifty to eighty years and that is the greatest possible energy buffer available under sustainable conditions.

The first property of the agrarian solar energy system can be derived from these small reserves: Humans intervene in flows because they cannot consume considerable stocks. These flows are small, however, so that energy is basically scarce. Thus, when energy is scarce then everything is scarce. For this reason agrarian societies are always earmarked by shortage and poverty (see Wrigley 1992). The majority of people live at subsistence level and famines occur regularly.

In addition to this, there is another basic feature: solar radiation reaches the earth distributed over a large area. Therefore solar energy systems must cope with an initially low energy density, i.e. they must concentrate energy to be able to utilize it. For this purpose extensive

12 efforts and investments are required. This becomes most apparent when transport is considered. If transported products like wheat or wood are understood as energy carriers, then it is obvious that the energy effort for transportation should not be any higher than the energy content of the transported goods. On principle the energy harvest factor must be positive including transportation expenditure, what means that the distances should not be too long.13 Thus, the consequence is that agrarian societies are always scattered over a large region. Greater concentrations of population or trades are an exception and can only be maintained on the basis of specific geographical or political conditions.

An important consequence of this is the fact that for agrarian societies average values of greater areas are irrelevant. This is also shown by the fact that they cannot develop any tendency for homogenizing in terms of expanse. In a way, agrarian societies form an archipelago with relatively little exchange between the individual “islands of scarcity” so that we always must reckon with great differences between individual regions with regards to culture and style, but also with regards to the economy and technology.

Agriculture as a managed solar energy system is in principle one of negative feed-back: each step into the direction of physical growth destroys the potential of further growth, so that the agrarian economy necessarily approaches a natural limit sooner or later. There can be no perpetual progress in the sense of "economic growth". On the other hand, the final limit to growth is elastic, so that the level of wealth can always be pushed a bit higher and the stationary state is reached asymptotically. This logic of the agrarian system was analyzed by the classical political economists.14 What Mark Elvin15 called "high level equilibrium trap" with respect to China was a common feature of all agrarian civilizations. This agrarian negative feed-back loop was based on two structural features:

1. The law of diminishing marginal returns in agricultural production. This law, resulting from the character of a solar energy system, has the character of a law of nature. It can be temporarily suspended by technological advances, but it cannot be totally overcome.

2. The principle of population. Better subsistence chances tend to increase the number of consumers with the consequence that an increase of per capita wealth is self-destructive. This process, however, can be modified by human behavior such as birth control.

13 Bairoch (1993, 60) estimates that the price of wood duplicated by transport over land every 2-4 km, while over water it was every 10-16 km. 14 Edward Wrigley has stressed this in several publications, e.g. Wrigley 1994. 15 The concept of high level equilibrium trap was jointly developed by Mark Elvin and Radha Sinha (personal communication by Mark Elvin). 13 These conditions provide that agrarian societies did not experience continuous economic growth, but moved from one oscillating state of equilibrium to another. They did have technical innovations but no continuous process of innovation with a positive feed-back developed. Hence the various “inventions” did not accumulate steadily and self-enhancing (as was the case during the industrial transformation), but often remained single events that were sometimes even forgotten again. In general, the spread of technical and economic innovations, which did take place sporadically, was hindered by the inherent shortage of energy and material. Basically, the agrarian system tended to remain at a stationary state that could find an equilibrium on different metabolic levels.

These properties were also true for the agrarian civilizations, although there were some additional attributes. As complex civilizations they had some special characteristics like the contrasts between town and country, lord and servant, many mechanical devices (sailing boat, water mill), metallurgy and numerous cultural techniques (writing, calendar, astronomy, calculation, theology, literature, arts, architecture, etc.). Nevertheless the majority of the population remained peasants (80-90%) who lived scattered in various regions, and who had only very superficial contact to the high culture system.

The socio-economic basis of the agrarian civilizations was the tributary appropriation of surplus. This means that the producers (mainly peasants) had to regularly contribute a part of their product as rent, tribute or tax of which a “ruling class” with its retinue of specialists and servants was supported and provided for. The result was a fortifying vertical social differentiation, normally in the following categories: peasants, landlords (aristocracy), warriors, priests (scholars), the court (rulers, bureaucrats), craftsmen, merchants. In addition there was usually an underclass that could include up to 10% of the population earning their livelihood as wage laborers, barterers, beggars or thieves.

Institutionally, the ruling system developed a “state”16 that could control its subjects by force, but many agrarian empires also tended toward expansion. The subjection and annexation of foreign territories is explained by the fact that the revenues of their rulers ultimately stem from agriculture. Thus, the safest way to wealth and power lied in the acquisition of land and of those who till it. An obvious method for doing such was by military conquest. This expansion movement resulted time and again in the rise of empires which only in exceptional cases continued to exist over a longer period of time.

16 It is controversial, if and in how far it is appropriate to use the term „state“ when referring to the ruling centers of agrarian civilizations, or if we are actually dealing with a genuine European-modern phenomenon here. See Reinhard 1999; Creveld 1999, in contrast to the Max Weber tradition cf. Breuer 1990. 14 A rich and dynamic agrarian society was finally either conquered by booty-seeking predators or it took the path of conquest itself until its forces were exhausted. The former course was taken by China, the latter one by Rome. Here lies the origin of an important political trap that comes in addition to the economic limits. The disruption of production by predation increases in the same measure as wealth grows. This is a specifically political-military negative feedback-loop, which leads to severe destruction of wealth and forms a further obstacle to economic development in addition to declining marginal returns and a tendency toward population growth.

When these energetic, demographic, and political limits are combined, the results are the fundamental flaws of agrarian societies. Hunger, epidemics, war and exploitation put a heavy strain on the economy as soon as tendencies toward growing wealth and dynamics become visible. Agrarian societies are caught in a trap from which they normally cannot escape. From this perspective industrialization was a highly improbable singularity blasting a pattern that worked for almost 10,000 years.

These negative, restricting features of the agrarian regime that prevented longer periods of economic growth, lasting for more than a couple of decades, can be summarized as follows:

1. The dependence on the life cycles of a small number of useful organisms had the consequence that people were quite helplessly delivered to natural fluctuations. Frequent crop failures, resulting in famines, can be understood as a temporary breakdown of the agrarian strategy of biotechnology. This is as a secondary danger or loss of control in respect to the intended dominion over nature. Theoretically, these problems could have been solved by improved infrastructural technology like storage or transportation, but these measures were usually impeded by the nature of the political system (being an organization of predators). Subsistence was non-elastic. Predators strived to keep their level of surplus even when harvests were bad, with the consequence that crop failures often resulted in famines that might have been relieved by better distribution. However, an agrarian welfare state is a rare exception – although not totally impossible as some episodes (not only in Chinese history) demonstrate.

2. High population density lead to the spread of parasitic microorganisms. Epidemics, often zoonoses, were an unavoidable consequence of the agrarian mode of production, because they go together with sedentary life, high population density, and close contact with animals. Epidemics were undesirable side-effects of the dominant biotechnology. There may have existed a "learning curve" of the human immune system which increased

15 competence in coping with infectious disease, but this tendency was counteracted by aggressive strategies of the microbes (Ewald 1994). However, there also may have existed a historical trend toward co-evolution and endemism, accompanied by better hygienic measures (Le Roy Ladurie 1973, McNeill 1976).

3. Regular warfare was the consequence of private property and territoriality, which are both necessarily connected with agriculture.17 Its major social result was the differentiation of a class of predators, that is experts of violence who claim privileges and skim off resources. Their function may extend to more complex areas than just parasitic exploitation. They may produce some social services, like organization of labor for infrastructural purposes, peacekeeping, defense and the provision of a "high culture" that is produced by them or at least favored by a sophisticated level of consumption.

The predator pattern seems to be closely related with the agrarian regime, but there was also a path (developed in repeated attempts) to a formation called "commercial society" (in contrast to “feudal” agrarian society) by Adam Smith. This is a society under the rule of law that succeeds to overcome essential elements of the agrarian regime without totally leaving it. At the margins of agrarian society some of its essential features can be moderated: provisions are stabilized, diseases are alleviated by immunity and hygiene, war comes under civil control and a calculable legal system is established. Here preconditions are developed which (in retrospect) play an important role for the emergence of the industrial regime.

The industrial transformation

In this perspective, industrialization is a transitional phase into a new social-metabolic regime that works on a different basis. The classical model of "industrial revolution" was developed by Marx. In his view, European agricultural society was primarily a "feudal" society. This was a formation of production and exploitation with a certain amount of structural stability in which, however, forces were at work that undermined this order ("development of productive forces"). The "industrial revolution" catapulted this society into a new order or societal formation that Marx called "capitalist". "Revolution" thus transformed one structural entity into another. This new structure can be analyzed as a system as well, as "capitalist mode of production" or (in a different terminology) as "modern industrial society".18

17 Warfare can also be found in simple hunter-gatherer or horticultural societies, but it is less frequent there and does not result in social stratification, cf. Keeley 1996. 18 On the concept of "industrial revolution" in economic history see the differentiated remarks in Landes 1999 16 The point of this kind of model is that two structures, each of which has its particular form, are confronted; they form a systematic whole whose functional logic can be described theoretically. This becomes clear in concepts that identify "economic growth" as a central feature of the industrial society. According to authors like Kuznets, Gellner or Jones there once was a pre-industrial society that did not know any growth (or only sporadically), while industrial society is marked by steady and continuous economic growth, not only in quantitative terms, so that a growing population can be sustained, but also as an increase in per capita income and consumption.

It is important to notice that European societies have indeed experienced such a continuous growth both in quantitative as in qualitative terms within the last approximately 200 years. This is an indisputable empirical fact.19 But the question remains that if these are properties of a system in balance or if we are still in the midst of a phase transition which lasts far longer than theorists like Marx could imagine.

It can be easily demonstrated that physical economic growth with a considerable rate is not possible over longer time periods.20 It lies in the nature of the exponential function that practically infinite values are reached in finite time. The height of the growth rate is not decisive at all unless it would be very small, but then it could not work as a controlling parameter. There is only quite a small time corridor for continuous growth with a considerable rate. If this rate shall really be effective and perceptible by contemporaries, it should not be lower than 1%. If it were larger than 3%, astronomical figures would be reached within very short time (5% over 200 years results in a growth factor of more than 17,000). The conclusion is that the historical scope for real (physical) economic growth lies between 1% and 3% over 200 to 300 years. This means that economic growth as we know it today is limited to a rather short time period with the logical consequence that it cannot be the characteristic of a longer lasting structured system. It is restricted to a phase transition which transforms the economy into a state that must be stationary again, at least in physical terms like population size, energy flow and material throughput.

In a world history perspective this indicates that we presently live in a unique situation whose end may lie in a not too distant future of perhaps one or two centuries. In retrospect, this has

19 Maddison (1995) concludes that the economy of 16 industrial nations grew with an average rate of 2.5% between 1820 and 1992. 20 Snooks (1994) calculates very low rates of economic “growth“ in England extending over a millennium, but of course these growth rates of about 0.3% are much lower than annual fluctuations of (agricultural) production so that they must have remained unnoticed by contemporary observers. In my opinion it does not make much sense to talk about growth rates when we can not deal with regular or continuous phenomena but merely produce statistical artefacts calculated between 2 or 3 data points. 17 some consequences. Periods of qualitative growth may have existed in the past for several reasons. In these cases people not only experienced population growth, but even an increase of per capita consumption of energy and material. This was possible under two conditions:

1. In a pioneer or frontier situation people can exploit a hitherto unused resource which suddenly becomes available in superabundance and whose consumption feeds economic growth. For example, this was the case when the Maori came to New Zealand about a thousand years ago. They encountered a fauna of large birds unable to fly who had never seen a mammal before, let alone a primate. The Maori had discovered a hunter’s paradise: a huge amount of game without the instinct to run away and thus easy to prey on. However, this bonanza did not last very long (although it may have been for several generations). If there had been Maori economists they would have developed theories of economic growth. At some time this episode came to an end and the Maori had to find more sustainable methods to earn a living that were not based on the consumption of exhaustible stocks.

2. Technological progress offers the opportunity not just to consume stocks more rapidly but to tap into inexhaustible flows with a higher efficiency. This is an import strategy of innovation in agrarian societies. When people succeed in cultivating new crops, in finding new ways of rotation or in enhancing the part of plant biomass that is useful for human purposes, there can be sustained growth. This economic growth based on technological innovation, however, is always confronted with the problem of diminishing marginal returns. A sustained path of economic growth would depend on a dynamic, in which (cost neutral) technological efficiency can be increased faster than marginal returns decrease. This would be a theoretical escape from the agricultural trap of stagnation, but there is no historical case that this strategy has succeeded for a longer time. However, for shorter periods of some decades or even two or three generations such a growth regime supported by innovation was viable even in the agricultural past.

The period of industrial growth in the midst of which we are since the last 200 years is based on a combination of these two strategies. The use of fossil energy initiated a typical pioneer situation in which a large stock has been discovered that is consumed in a short time. In this respect, there is no principal difference to the Maori strategy. But there is also the second strategy: fossil energy sources can only be used because appropriate technology is available. Without the steam engine and suitable smelting techniques for iron and a variety of other technical processes and devices the sporadic use of fossil energy sources would not have

18 transformed into a fossil energy system. Arabs still would graze camels above petrol deposits and people in Europe still would be hungry and freeze above huge carbon seams.

The secret of industrialization lies in the combination of both strategies that reinforce each other and whose combination formed the new growth pattern. Industrial society not only consumes stocks like the Maori, but in the course of this consumption it develops new technologies so that a positive feed back loop between consumption and innovation emerges. Industrial transformation is not just a short unique delirium in which natural stocks are squandered; it is also an epoch of rapid and accelerating technological innovation. The important point is that the physical foundation of technological innovation is the mobilization of material fed by energy availability. Most technological inventions that may lead to higher energy efficiency in the future would have been impossible under the conditions of severe energy scarcity inherent in the agricultural mode of production.

This is the reason why industrialization is not just a bubble that will burst when fossil stocks are exhausted (this was Jevon’s vision),21 with the consequence that people will have to return to the state of poverty and immobility connected with the agrarian mode of production and to a second solar energy system that will bear the gruel marks of predatory rent seeking again. The heritage of the fossil age is not just empty deposits, but also a large amount of know-how that might not have been acquired without this historical detour of squandering resources.

The following elements of this historical process can be summarized:

1. The physical core of the industrial transformation is a change of the social-metabolic regime. In contrast to widespread theories of "modernization", this identifies a level of description that is unequivocal. The nature of this transformation can be empirically demonstrated in energetic and material terms (Krausmann 2001, Schandl / Schulz 2001, Sieferle 2001).

2. When we look for the historical origin of this social-metabolic transformation we have to concentrate on the emergence of the fossil energy system. It can be found in the combination of the following processes (cf. Sieferle 1982/2001; Wrigley 1988):

- The use of steam pumps in coal mining enabled the supply of fossil energy sources to grow and stabilize since the first decades of the 18th century.

- Melting and freshing of iron with coke built the technological-energetic fundament for the growth of a "mineral" economy since the middle of the 18th century.

19 - The construction of steam railways and steam boats emancipated transportation from the restrictions of bio-converters since the early 19th century.

These three elements had to be present almost simultaneously so that the sporadic and local use of fossil sources that is common in agrarian societies since ancient times22 could develop into their permanent, growing and ubiquitous use and a fossil energy system could emerge. It is evident that these three elements were closely related to each other. Steam pumps are a precondition to increase coal production. Iron melting with coke depends on coal and air pipes driven with steam. Steam engines consume coal and are built with iron. Coal, iron and steam thus form a physical and technological unit in which none of the three may be lacking.

The technological and economic macro-inventions of the eighteenth century culminating in the emergence of the fossil energy system were based on several mental and socio-political preconditions as well:

• In the mental respect, a scientific world view and an experimental style connected with modern natural philosophy shifted innovation from tinkering to methodological invention.23

• In the socio-political respect, the predatory pattern dissolved with the transition to a "commercial society". Its major features were the transformation of the state into a service institution for civil society, providing property rights and the rule of law, the consequence of which was the dominance of individual achievement (instead of status), functional differentiation of society and social mobility. 24

The dissolution of the predatory pattern as a major tendency of European history in Early Modern Times is a prerequisite to industrialization. It would, however, have finally failed if the social-metabolic transformation would not have taken place. Without the transition to the fossil energy regime, the highly developed commercial society would have soon ended in the trap of a stationary state, as predicted by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo or John Stuart Mill. In the social respect, nineteenth century "capitalism" and "pauperism" had the ambiguous feature that the heritage of master and servant, of exploitation and luxury was still visible, albeit transformed into an economic relationship. They finally lost their character as differences of kind and became mere differences in degree. Finally they were substituted

21 In his book „The Coal Question“ (London 1865) Jevons predicted that the British fossile reserves would be exhausted in litte more than one century. 22 Even in China, cf. Hartwell 1962, 1967. Pomeranz 2000 puts this into proportion. 23 This is stressed by Goldstone 2000, mainly based on Jacob 1997. 24 This is the point of Macfarlane 2000, following arguments developed by Ernest Gellner 1995. 20 by new differences like those between inclusion and exclusion that could no longer be interpreted as a dialectical unity and a transfer "from below to above", but that is another story.

Models of explanation

The non-orthogenetic school of explanation for this transformation starts with the consideration that it was really a "riddle" (Macfarlane 2000) or "miracle" (Jones 1987) that Europe could succeed in escaping the seemingly unavoidable agrarian trap. Let us first look at Macfarlane’s explanation which is a typical case for a contingency position. He starts with the consideration that somehow the constellation of economic, political and cultural features must have changed in Europe, so that a centrifugal development could set in. The solution of this problem may be found in structural disembedment. When political power, culture (viz. religion) and economy are amalgamated into one solid complex, they have to change simultaneously if a fundamental alteration shall take place. This, however, is extremely improbable. But if these spheres are functionally differentiated, transformation is easier. When the social importance of descent or status is weakened, other spheres can gain weight, like technology, economy, individual achievement, or science.

The game of power may play an important role in this process. Agrarian civilizations seek to centralize power and try to control independent elements. The economy is subordinated to political power and ideas are controlled by church or state. When these endeavors are successful and efficient control over society is established, transcending dynamics can be prevented. Each innovation encounters a particular problem: It changes the rules of the game while the game goes on, thus producing not only new winners but also losers. This is the reason why any innovation will meet the resistance of those who gain from the status quo. This resistance can be easily overcome in situations of danger and severe competition. Under stable and peaceful conditions, however, the forces of immobility and inertia are strong, so that innovation can be avoided with the consequence that the system petrifies.25 Therefore, if the forces of competition were stronger in Europe than they were in China this might have been an element favoring the transformation.

Following Montesquieu, Macfarlane notes a socio-political special development in Europe which goes back to medieval feudalism and whose roots lie in ancient Germanic traditions. The core of this special development was an individualistic, egalitarian disposition leading to

25 See the classical model by Olson 1965 21 a political system based on contractual relations and not so much on descent or status. This resulted in a specific social and political balance system in which no power gained supremacy. This pattern was particularly strong in England. The island successfully avoided the feudal anarchy of the barons, developing a "centralized but not too centralized monarchy" with the consequence, "that by the 13th century England was a wealthy, powerful, well- governed land, with a rapid growing technology, trade links, strong armies and booming towns. ... It was basically, like the rest of Europe, a Germanic kingdom with an engrafting of a more developed centralized feudalism" (Macfarlane 2000, 277).

Since the later Middle Ages, European development took divergent directions. The old fruitful and creative feudal balance was heavily disturbed and tendencies toward despotism developed that were common in most agrarian societies. However, there were several exceptions and foci of resistance: northern Italy, German territories, free town republics, and above all England. In the eighteenth century despotism advanced. The "general crisis" of the seventeenth century demonstrated that the dynamic world of medieval feudalism had entered a negative feedback loop. Most of Europe was on the path to a high level equilibrium trap, common to most advanced agrarian civilizations. Only two major exceptions remained in the last decades of the seventeenth century: Holland and England. Holland, however, was too small, had too few resources of its own and mainly concentrated on financial operations and not so much on production. As there was always the military threat from England and France, the costs of defense were relatively high. As a result, only England was spared despotism. "It was a miracle, but it happened" (Macfarlane 2000, 281). Why?

• All attempts to establish absolutism failed (John Lackland, Henry VIII, Charles I, James II). The balance of estates remained stable and the king stood under the rule of law.

• The (medieval) separation between state and church was preserved, while the church split into numerous sects. As a consequence religion could become a private matter.

• A sharp legal division of social estates did not prevail. Social mobility and the principle of individual achievement were preserved so that social tensions were not severe.

• The peripheral island situation favored this development. England was large enough to develop a differentiated structure and to defend itself against invasion. It was close enough to the continent to engage in trade (20 miles instead of Japan’s 200 miles).

22 • The only military threat came from interior barbarians, the Scottish highlanders, but they could be brought under control quite easily (1603, 1715, and 1745/46). Thus England had low defense costs and was spared devastation by war (in contrast to Italy and Germany).

• The secure island situation undermined the rulers’ claims for military armament (standing army) and high taxation. A low demand for protection produced a low willingness for civil obedience.

It was in early modern England that a unique development started. The normal case for agrarian civilizations is that military adventures destroy wealth and create a heavy burden for the economy. In England it was the opposite. Political power strengthened the economy and it was in this context that the socio-political pattern of agrarian civilizations was punctuated and finally overcome. In Macfarlane’s view it was the uniqueness of England that created Europe’s special course.

A typical case for an advanced orthogenetic explanation is the later work of Eric Jones. In his 1981 book "The European Miracle"26 he followed the paradigm of contingency. Some years later he radically changed his position. Instead of seeing the European development as a miracle, in his book "Growth Recurring", published in 1988, he accepts the orthogenetic model. Because Jones is not a naive orthogeneticist but knows the strength of the contrary position it is worth while to take a closer look at his explanation. The starting point of his revision is the idea that "growth" is not a singular phenomenon or a miracle, but the normal case in history. In principle, there are two basic economic strategies: rent seeking or growth by productivity increase. The latter strategy leads to a growth of the cake, while the former strategy struggles for a larger share. Both are universal possibilities, with growth being potentially a universal trait of history.

"The underlying tendency for growth has been hidden by the apparent economic stagnation of most of history, but it was nevertheless there, so basic and restless a trait that it may have been selected for in the evolution of our species" (Jones 1988, 1).

Economic growth is a natural tendency in history that materializes whenever its opposite strategy, rent seeking, meets resistance. This was the case in several instances, not only in modern Europe, but also in Song China or Tokugawa Japan.27 With regards to English development, Jones repeats the 1980s standard objections against the older picture of a rapid

26 I use the 2nd edition of 1987 27 Jones seems to write under the impression of "deindustrialization" in the West, when Japan’s economy was strong and the "Asian tigers" were seen as economic great powers of the future – visions that moved many people in the 1980s. 23 "industrial revolution" (e.g. Crafts 1985): aggregated growth rates were relatively low, there were hardly any sensational breakthroughs, and many matters remained unchanged (e.g. water power in textile factories well into the nineteenth century). On the other hand, there were many parallel innovation processes on the continent, so that one would have expected an industrial revolution there had it not occurred in England earlier.

This was not a matter of "miracle" but quite normal. "Instead of thinking of growth as an aberration, let us try thinking of it as the norm" (Jones 1988, 40). Agrarian civilizations (which he calls "advanced societies" in contrast to "archaic societies") share certain common features like a cosmological religion, literate ruling elite, a money system, loyalty towards a "state", iron production, overseas navigation, agrarian surplus, and "a positive rate of growth, however low". The search for single factors or causes for European industrialization must be in vain, because growth is the normal case. He compares the contrast between orthogenesis and contingency in world history with the contrast between evolution and creation in biology – seemingly he took the word "miracle" literally. Anyway it seems to have escaped his notion that even a neo-Darwinist gradualist like Richard Dawkins is not a teleological orthogeneticist and that a critic of neo-Darwinism like Stephen Jay Gould stressing the role of chance in evolution was not a creationist. Concerning biological theories, Jones remains deeply in the nineteenth century and that also has negative consequences for his historical explanation.

His conclusion is weak. When growth is the normal case in history because people want to better their condition and "delight in technical tinkering", the existence of non-growth needs a special explanation, so that the focus of research shifts from igniting factors to impeding factors. That was the approach of the older modernization theories. The world has an innate tendency toward progress that in economic terms expresses itself as growth or "development", so that in any cases where this tendency cannot be observed in reality we have to look for specific obstacles. This shift of emphasis is not so sensational. If we normally don't find growth in the real world, so that in the majority of cases what is expected does not happen, empirical growth is insofar a singularity as the usual obstacles are absent. For the strategy of explanation this does not make much difference compared with the contingency position. It is just a matter of ideological idiosyncrasy which has the characteristic weakness that it claims what is widespread and usual (namely non-growth) to be an exception, while that what is seldom (namely growth) is declared to be the norm.

"Once we take the position that initiative was widespread, yet only occasionally produced a whole growing economy, our interest ought to shift from hypothetical push

24 forces to whatever forces blocked growth, or (more identifiably) reversed it when it did begin to sprout" (Jones 1988, 40).

These new push forces have the function to remove forces that block growth. With this shift the orthogenetic position does not gain much except the problem to postulate universal progressive tendencies. The great historical example for qualitative growth and rising standards of living in a non-European agrarian society is Song China. Since the tenth century China experienced a progressive phase similar to that of thirteenth or eighteenth century Europe. Jones sees the causes for this development in a change of institutional conditions: monetary taxes instead of contributions in kind, easing of political control over the economy and better transport conditions, especially canals. The government and the landlords do not skim off the whole surplus but leave some for investment and capital accumulation.

The core question, however, is why this progressive phase fell flat again in Song China while in Europe after the fourteenth century crisis a new upswing started that finally prepared the conditions for the industrial transformation. Normally Mongol conquest is cited as the major fortuitous and exogenous factor which brought the development to a halt. Are there further reasons? Did the early Ming continue the Song pattern and came economic stagnation only since the late fourteenth century? Were these endogenous factors?

To summarize the argument: the endeavor to better one’s condition is seen (not only since Adam Smith) as a constant anthropological feature. Wealth is better than poverty and people are talented and enterprising, so it can be expected that technological and economic innovation occurs time and again with the result that productivity and living standards rise. Unfortunately, this rarely happened in historical reality. What we can notice in the best case is extensive growth, a combined growth of population and production, but hardly any rise in average per capita income. In advanced agrarian civilizations the peasants’ material standard of living is not higher than in the Neolithic and probably lower than in hunter and gatherer societies. Progress in technology, wealth and civilization is almost exclusively a matter of the ruling elites.

This being the fact, there must be powerful factors that check the "natural tendency" toward "growth", and these factors must be so powerful that this tendency becomes reality not only just in exceptional cases or just temporarily. This means that the absence of impeding factors is seldom and needs a special explanation. For research strategies, however, not much has changed by this shift of emphasis. While Sombart and Weber looked for factors that lead to

25 industrialization, Jones looks for factors that remove obstacles to industrialization.28 In both cases these must be rare, fortuitous, improbable factors, but in one case they have a positive, in the other case a negative character.

Here the orthogenetic and the contingency positions coincide. For structural reasons the agrarian regime normally checks system transcending innovations. First, tendencies toward innovation occur time and again, but their normal fate is failure. It is really a miracle when the restricting system conditions of the agrarian regimes are overcome perpetually and this happened only once in world history: the industrial transformation beginning in Europe.

The major problem for the orthogenetic position is the fact that industrialization was a unique event starting in Europe. This does not mean in principle that industrialization must be based on contingent preconditions; even in a strictly orthogenetic view it must be expected that somewhere in the world the breakthrough to sustained intensive growth initially takes place (or that the impeding obstacles are effectively removed for the first time). It was highly improbable that this would occur simultaneously in different places, so the uniqueness of this breakthrough does not falsify the orthogenetic model. However, the orthogenetic position gains plausibility when it can demonstrate that several economic entities (societies, nations, regions) took the path toward industrialization simultaneously. The common example of Song China provides rather an argument for the transitory character of innovations in agrarian societies. In the core of the process of industrialization lies positive feed back and self- enhancement that breaks any (social or physical) resistance. This could also mean that obstacles are removed in a self-sustaining matter so that they do not emerge again and lead to the quagmire of stagnation common to the agrarian regime. Orthogeneticism has to demonstrate that not just occasional and transitory innovation phases but also similar effects of self-enhancing feedback loops can be shown to have existed outside Europe. A more suitable object for this demonstration is not China, but Japan for the following reasons:

• Undoubtedly, Japan is a leading industrial country of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, more precisely, it is the only really successful non-European (and non-neo- European) industrial country, maybe with the addition of South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

28 “We need to identify the depressive factors acting at large, before looking to see how they were defeated in the few triumphant cases” Jones 1988, 87. 26 • Japan was historically not part of the European culture but during the critical transformation phase (1750-1850) it was much more isolated from the processes taking place in Europe than other agrarian civilizations (Russia, Ottoman Empire, India).

If it can be demonstrated that Tokugawa Japan (1603-1868) took an autonomous path toward industrialization, this is a strong argument for the orthogenetic position. The historical coincidence of an industrial and technological self-enhancement on the antipodes, starting simultaneously and under the condition of isolation, was the best possible corroboration of the orthogenetic position. This is the reason why social evolutionists like Jones or Sanderson concentrate so much on the case of Japan.

Jones even claims that a continuous economic "development" started in Japan not only earlier than the Meiji Restoration, but even before the Tokugawa shogunate. This is demonstrated through population figures. The population of Japan doubled from 5 million in the eleventh century to 10 million about 1300 and rose to 18 million about 1600 (Jones 1988, 153). Agrarian productions must have risen by a factor of three to four in five centuries. At a first glance, this was nothing but extensive growth, but Jones assumes that material living standards have risen, too, especially outside the agricultural sector (clerics, traders, warriors). This is a pattern, however, that can be found in many agrarian civilizations and has to do with successful surplus attraction. In any case, there must have been a considerable material growth of the economy before the Tokugawa. Their successful union and pacification of the islands finally brought several benign effects:

• A united national market

• A capital city (Edo/Kyoto) where demand for goods and services concentrated

• Samurais settled in towns creating a demand for rice

• The provincial aristocracy had to reside in the capital what concentrated demand

• Peasant families worked in trades.

On the other hand, Japan’s isolation excluded the country from the technological and economic arms race that took place in Europe and boosted industrialization. The social position of merchants was weaker than in Europe. The end of civil wars provided an internal peace, in sharp contrast to Europe up to the nineteenth century. There was an increase in agricultural productivity with output doubling between 1600 and 1850 while population growth was only 45%. There were agricultural innovations, new methods of rotation and new

27 crops (sugar cane, sweet potatoes, peanuts, maize). However, there are indicators for Malthusian limits in the late Tokugawa era and material standards of living began to stagnate.

Similar developments took place in Qing China as is shown by Helbling in this volume. Wong (1997) demonstrated that even patterns of rural industry that in teleological manner are often called "proto-industrialization" can be found in late imperial China (as well as in Japan). This combination of market production and household organization seems to have been a common feature of agrarian civilizations without any tendency toward transgressing this regime’s boundaries. Following Goldstone (2000), a strong supporter of the contingency position, the following objections against the claim that Japan showed an independent tendency toward industrialization can be summarized.

• Eighteenth century Japan reacted against the fuel shortage common in all agrarian societies in a traditional way through better resource management: reforestation and fuel saving. There was no transition to fossil energy carriers.

• Japan had no decentralized political structure like in Europe, but a strong central government.

• In matters of world trade, Japan was isolated. There was no geographic expansion that widened the horizon, no long distance trade, no elaborated instruments of finance and insurance that go together with world trade. There were no trade wars that initiated an arms race with the consequence of military, logistical, and fiscal sophistication.

• There was no mass production of exportable goods (in contrast to China!). The only commodity of interest on export markets was high quality steel for swords, but this was extremely expensive and remained a matter of specialized crafts.

• There was no scientific revolution, no mechanized world view, so no chance ever to build scientific foundations for industrial innovation.

• There was no indication that Japan would ever have invented the steam engine. At least, there was no tinkering pressure in this direction, as was the case in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century England.

As we can see, Japan lacked the essential factors connected with European industrialization. If an autonomous industrialization should have happened in Japan, it would have followed quite different technological, economic and mental trajectories. This, however, remains a matter of

28 mere speculation.29 The case of Russia, on the other hand, demonstrates that even the existence of several of these conditions is not enough for sustained success. Industrialization as it started in Europe remains a miracle calling for explanation.

The initial problem is that we can identify a common pattern of agrarian civilizations but that this pattern has such a wide scope that several combinations of specific traits can be found which go back to adaptation to environmental conditions or to specific autopoietic cultural traditions. When the historically unique process of industrialization (and the emergence of modern society connected with this basic process) has originated in Europe, it may have something to do with peculiar traditional features of this civilization.

There is a widely held position that proposes quite an old age of specific European traditions which led to modern (democratic, rational, individualistic, egalitarian) society. In this view, Europe’s special course started a long time ago, even in prehistory. Clark and Piggott (1965), for example, name the following features of long lasting continuity that reach back to the neolithic Indo-European past:

• nuclear family instead of enlarged family

• low populations growth because of a late marriage age

• stress on individuality instead of community

• freedom instead of despotism

• aggressive instead of peaceful mentality

• high meat consumption instead of vegetarianism

• high level of energy consumption

• tendency toward mechanization

• orientation on competition and achievement instead of harmony

Other authors stress the role of the ancient tradition, above all the Greek polis, which is seen as the cradle of democracy where the specific European tradition of rational thought und philosophy emerged (Meier and Veyne 1988). Authors on the strain of social history emphasize the bifurcation taken in the Middle Ages. They point to the pattern of extensive agrarian production in the open field system (Mitterauer 2001, 2003), the tradition of

29 Goldstone (2000, 190) concludes that the case of Japan only demonstrates (like Korea or Taiwan) that “a unified people under firm government direction determined to import and implement Western industrial technology can do so in about four decades.” 29 individual freedom (Laslett 1988, Macfarlane 1978) or the connection between Christian religion and technological innovation (White 1962, Gimpel 1980). All these authors share the opinion that Europe’s peculiarity reaches back to the distant past. Thus the process of "modernization" has roots that are several hundred, if not thousand years old. In this perspective, there was always a fundamental difference between Europe and the other agrarian civilization insofar as it showed an innate tendency toward innovation that its rivals lacked.

In opposition to this, there are not only orthogeneticists insisting on the universal nature of progressive social evolution, but also partisans of the contingency position who locate the decisive transformation in a very narrow time frame, depending on extremely specific conditions. Goldstone (2000, 2002), for example, situates the historical rupture in early eighteenth century England. Europe, China, and the Ottoman Empire showed no major differences in early modern times and up to the end of the seventeenth century nothing new happened. It was only after 1700 that fundamental breakthroughs occurred, in which peculiar political, scientific-cultural and technological conditions in England converged. It is part of this extreme fortuity position that the transformation appears to be neither a European nor a British, but an English, if not a London matter. If this is so, however, the question remains why the patterns of industrialization and “modern society”could easily spread all over Europe, while they met severe resistance in most other agrarian civilizations of the world. To answer this question, we have to deal with several conditions and traditions that are peculiar to Europe.

Single igniting factors

Ecological conditions The longest possible tradition is that of geographic-ecological conditions. Already in the nineteenth century Henry Thomas Buckle (1857) assumed that the natural environment was less prone to disaster in Europe than in Asia. In light of this fact, he saw the reason why Europe could develop a stable technological-economic civilization in contrast to poverty and disorder in Asia. In recent economic history it was mainly Eric Jones (1987) who stressed the importance of different disaster levels in different geographical regions. In his (pre- orthogenetic) "European Miracle" he explained the origin of industrialization from different levels of insecurity in Europe and Asia (mainly China) that provoked different coping strategies resulting in different trajectories of social evolution.

30 As a first rough indicator for different environmental insecurity levels he takes the incidence of (fatal) natural disasters, presumably because they are better documented and open to quantification than minor risks. However, he knows that natural disasters share physical and social-economic dimensions. Their importance changes with different forms of land use. Most spectacular are earthquakes which are said to have resulted in the following casualty figures:

Total casualty numbers from earthquakes during the last millennium (in millions)30

China 2,03 India 0,3 Europe 0,193 Middle East 0,217 Japan 0,280

In spite of all documentation problems and different population sizes earthquakes seem to have been more severe in Asia than in Europe. Early Modern Europe’s population was about 20% of the Eurasian population, so that 600,000 of 3,000,000 casualties should be expected,31 but in reality it was less than one third of this figure. In addition to this, European earthquakes were concentrated on southern Europe. In Italy between 464 BC and 1980 AD no less than 350 earthquakes are documented. After the year 1300 there were between 207 and 225 earthquakes in Italy or on the average one every three years (Guidoboni 1994; Boschi 1995). In Spain (Ladero Quesada 1999) and Greece (Papazachos/ Papazachou 1997) many earthquakes also occurred, but the exact numbers for the Mediterranean are not known.

In contrast to this, northern Europe hardly experienced any earthquakes during the last centuries. Basel was destroyed on the October 18, 1356 with about 300 casualties.32 Casualty figures in other Central European regions are negligible: eight killed in Unterwalden (1601), nineteen in Innsbruck (1689), and one in Aachen (1756). This compares to India: 2,000 in

30 After Latter (1968/69), Table 4. Latter only counts earthquakes that demanded at least 78,500 casualties (that is the number of casualties between 1949 and 1969). In Europe, however, there was only one earthquake of this magnitude (Messina 1908 with 83,000 casualties). The famous Lisbon earthquake of 1755 killed about 50,000 people, many of them by a tsunami. For earthquakes of a longer time ago such a limitation on large numbers makes sense, because data are very unreliable. For natural disasters in China see Kolb in this volume. 31 According to Latter (1968/69, 362) the total casualty number from earthquakes during the last 1,000 years is 5 million. The number of 3 million only concerns the 16 largest disasters.

31 Bombay (1618), 3,000 in Cutch (1819), 1,000 in Cashmere (1828), 19,000 in the Kangra Valley (1909). China’s figures are even higher: 80,000 in 1556; about 400,000 in 1662 and 1731; 5,000 in 1920.33

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions cause not only casualties (like epidemics do), but they destroy buildings, too. At a first glance this may not have played such an important role in agrarian societies, but different types of agriculture should be taken into consideration. In Europe a relatively extensive form of rain agriculture is dominant with comparably small impact on the agrarian landscape. Fields and meadows are very elastic when confronted with exogenous shocks (like earthquakes or the impact of warfare), and after a severe disturbance production can continue within a short period of time. The situation is completely different with irrigation agriculture or when rivers have to be dammed. When an earthquake destroys dams, irrigation canals or aqueducts, it may take years until the damage is repaired. Chinese agriculture had not only to expect earthquakes more frequently, but the damages on hydraulic devices caused by them also led to a longer lasting disturbance of production and higher repair costs.34 It may be very difficult to do something in the matter of prevention regarding earthquakes which are sudden and unexpected events, although there are some construction measures that can decrease damages. However, these measures lead to higher prevention costs that can be regarded as insurance costs against unforeseen disasters.

Another environmental factor is climatic fluctuations. Already Buckle's comparison between Europe and Asia regarded not so much spectacular earthquakes and volcano eruptions but climatic extremes like droughts or inundations due to heavy rainfall that result in famines. Jones also mainly refers to extreme climatic events acting as exogenous disturbances on which societies have to react (Anderson / Jones 1988, 4). The basic assumption is that Asia experiences larger climatic fluctuations than Europe with the result that there are more climatic disasters like droughts, inundations and storms. If this were the case it would be more difficult to achieve a regular average level in agricultural production.35 However, the alleged significant difference of precipitation fluctuation levels between Asia and Europe has been doubted with regard to recent data (Pryor 1985).

The more ecologically homogenous an agricultural region is the more important should be the role of climatic fluctuations for the economy. The European environment is parceled in many

32 For Basel see Borst 1981 33 Figures after Herrmann 1936, 135f. 34 Similar problems existed at North West European coasts with storm tides and breaking dykes, cf. Jakubowsky- Tiessen 1992. 35 Wang / Zhao 1981. The authors restrain from any general conclusions. 32 different small climate zones, so it is highly improbable that fluctuations simultaneously take the same direction, as is the case on the Indian subcontinent or in China, where similar climatic conditions prevail over large areas. Another effect is that there are different chances to cope with disasters by transportation when the scope of the affected territories is different. Hunger following crop failure is the combined result of uncontrollable natural factors and a limited capability to portfolio building by long distance transport, for example.

There are numerous famines in the record of agrarian civilizations, but not much reliable data concerning causes and numbers of casualties are available.36 China is supposed to have experienced at least 1,818 severe famines due to draughts and inundations between 108 BC and 1911 AD. This is on average one per year, although such problems occurred in different provinces. In India spectacular incidents are also known. The famine in Bengal (1769/70) killed 10 million people or one third of the total population. However, there were also famines with comparable effects in Europe and they could also be caused by climatic extremes.37 Crop failure happened quite often, and casualties could be considerable. In Eastern Prussia about 250,000 people or about 41% of the total population died from hunger in 1708/11. A famine in France killed 2 million people or 10% of the total populations in 1692/94. In Finland a quarter to a third of the population is supposed to have died in the 1696/97 famine. Braudel provides the following famine figures for France:

Number of famine years in France per century (Braudel 1974, 39) century 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 famines 10 26 2 14 7 13 11 16

Only general famines, not just local crop failures, are included in this list. In Europe hunger only disappeared in the nineteenth century as a consequence of agrarian innovations including new crops like the potato, higher yields resulting from new kinds of crop rotation and manure techniques, combined with better transport conditions with railroads and shipping.38 It is important, however, that we should not forget that the Irish Potato Famine of 1845/46 still claimed several million casualties.

36 For Chinese data see Kolb in this volume. For Europe e.g. Abel 1978. 37 Cf. above all Pfister 1999; Glaser 2000. 38 See Abel 1978; Montanari 1993. 33 A fundamental problem is that famines are not only the result of climatic-ecological fluctuations but have social and political aspects as well. Extreme climatic events are only one factor, in addition to which social and economic coping strategies, mainly the organization of storage, transport and distribution, must be taken into consideration. This is the case with all agrarian civilizations beyond the threshold of a mere subsistence economy, so that it is difficult to distinguish between crop failure and management failure. There were considerable endeavors in eighteenth century European states to cope with famines (e.g. Zimmermann 1997), but this was also the case in imperial China.

Epidemics are a further ecological factor. They can be regarded as typical secondary risks of the agrarian mode of production, because they are favored by a high population density and a close contact with animals that could lead to zoonoses. Epidemics are a catastrophic side- effect of the basic agrarian strategy to control energy flows by the use of bio-converters. It is not clear how high mortality rates due to infectious disease were in different regions and if there really were significant differences between the Eurasian civilizations. The following data for China can only give a rough impression:

Number of epidemics in China39 century 12345678910111213141516171819 epidemics 51187789482789272821183233

Mortality caused by epidemics may not have been lower in Europe over longer periods of time. Jones assumes that there was not so much an effective difference in absolute mortality figures but in collateral damages of natural disasters. In contrast to earthquakes, famines leave capital intact so that the disturbance of the economy is only transitory.40 Therefore, if high mortality events in Europe were rather caused by epidemics than by natural disasters devastating capital investment, this could be one reason why the economic process experienced less exogenous disturbances than in Asia.

39 After the table in McNeill 1976, 269-276. An increase of numbers in the course of time may be the result of better documentation. 40 Anderson / Jones, 1988, 7 call this the "neutron bomb effect" of epidemics as compared with earthquakes that cause longer lasting damage. 34 Demography and family types As we have seen, it is not so easy to identify different levels of environmental uncertainty in Asia compared to Europe. Jones’ assumption may be true for big natural disasters, but it becomes dubious for mortality resulting from famines (that contain political and social elements) or epidemics. One indicator for different levels of natural dangers may be the fluctuation of population size. More volatile environmental conditions should express themselves in a higher demographic volatility. Maybe the following chart can be interpreted in this sense:

Population dynamics in China and Europe (in million)41

1400

1200

1000

800 Europe China 600

400

200

0 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000

The higher volatility of the Chinese as compared to the European population can be (at first sight) interpreted as a direct effect of different levels of ecological uncertainty that is the result of different mortality figures due to catastrophes. In addition to this, Jones and other authors propose a second argument concerning different fertility levels. If environmental conditions are not stable and calculable, it does not make much sense to venture much into investments that depend on constant circumstances. In demographic respect this could mean that fewer

41 Data for China till 1980 after Zhao / Xie 1988, afterwards Official Census, 2000 (courtesy to Raimund Kolb); for Europe Livi-Bacci 1997. 35 expenses are invested in one single child, but the total number of offspring is increased with the expectation that one or the other child will survive. If, on the other side, environmental and economic expectations are stable, fewer children are born and it is beneficial to put more expenses into rearing and educating them. This is a basic assumption of the widespread theory of demographic transition, which claims that the expectation of a low infant mortality leads to a reduction of fertility.

From this theoretical model far reaching conclusions are derived. Jones claims that different family patterns in Asia and Europe can be interpreted as adaptations to different environmental fluctuation levels. To make this plausible, two ideal family types are distinguished that possess opposite traits: 42

1. In patrilineal enlarged families relatively large numbers of people are considered to be closely related. In a big household it is always possible to feed an additional family member because the correlation between resource availability and family size is rather loose. This means that a higher rate of population growth is accepted, but investment in a particular person is relatively low. This strategy can be seen as an adaptation to a higher level of uncertainty (natural disasters, war), with the effect of enhancing this uncertainty and also of provoking repeated Malthusian crises. In terms of risk theory, the enlarged family pattern is a portfolio strategy under the conditions of high uncertainty. This strategy insures people in several respects:

• Against natural disasters, when direct material support is offered, e.g. a house is rebuilt after a fire or food is provided after a crop failure. However, the success depends on the assumption that most family members live in ecologically different regions so that they are not simultaneously hit by the same natural event.

• Against biographic disasters like disease or death, so that widows, orphans or invalids can be supported.

• Against political turbulences, so that "reinsurances" with possible powers are contracted when different family members join different political factions – but this could be a dimension that only plays a role with aristocratic families.

• Against individual offenders who are threatened with collective revenge (vendetta), the deterrent effect of which increases with the size and power of the family groups involved.

42 Hajnal 1965; Macfarlane 1978; Smith 1979; Goody 1983. 36 • Individual career chances are opened by nepotism, which has the reciprocal effect that a powerful family network can be built.

This stabilizing portfolio strategy, however, has its particular price. A successful family member has to carry a heavy load. If he is rich, he has to support poor relatives. If he is powerful, he has to protect them. If he is strong, he has to fight for them and to defend their honor. Thus, he loses a large part of his autonomy and these are the insurance costs of this strategy. This could have the consequence that social mobility runs into a pattern of stationary fluctuation, so that any social trajectory is severely impeded. Success destroys its own preconditions because it leads to a growing burden.

2. In opposition to the patrilineal enlarged family stands the nuclear family, consisting mainly of parents and their offspring, and occasionally a few further dependent family members (unmarried siblings, widowed grandparents). The basic principle of this nuclear family is that with each marriage a new family is founded (and the couple does not join an already existing family). Marriage and legitimate procreation are thus connected with the founding (or inheritance) of an independent household. From this principle the following traits can be derived:

• late marriage age (especially of the husband), because establishing a household depends on economic independence from the parents;

• neo-local residence of the married couple, hence higher geographic mobility;

• a tendency toward a higher level of household income, because poor and dependent people are not allowed to marry.

The nuclear family pattern has a number of implications that include trajectories rather improbable within the context of enlarged families:

• It produces a very close connection between resource availability and the number of offspring because it is very sensible to situations of (expected) scarcity. This could have the function that demographic dynamics are closer tied to the resource base than is the case with other family types. Thus the nuclear family is demographically stabilizing.

• When the contraction of marriage is connected with the foundation of an economically independent household, a large part of the population must remain unmarried. Thus a demographic reserve exists that can be mobilized in situations of increased mortality (epidemics, war). This demographic regime is rather flexible.

37 • When marriage depends on economic qualifications, individual qualities like parsimony, industry, discipline and patience are rewarded. In this context only the husband is a fully respected citizen, so that a social incentive for marriage exists. Thus the principle of individual achievement is favored.

• In the northwest European nuclear family there was a widespread habit that older children join strange households as maids or servants in agriculture or as apprentices or journeymen in the crafts. This meant that the husband was socially and geographically mobile before he settled down as independent farmer or master. This pattern of temporary serfdom favored social permeability and the journeymen’s travels led to a rapid technology transfer.

• The nuclear family had economic obligations only for its own members. They were not obliged to provide for distantly related people. This meant that acquired wealth was not immediately consumed by relatives and private accumulation became possible.

• The backside of this was the fact that many people could become totally unrelated (widows, orphans, old persons). They had to be supported by public institutions (church, community, welfare state). Thus a contrast between the private (civil society) and the public sphere (state, welfare institutions) came into being.

Jones and other authors draw far reaching conclusions from these ideal types which they apply to the situation in Asia and Europe. In their view, the higher uncertainty level in Asia favored the enlarged family pattern with the result that these societies were fixed on a trajectory hampering the transition to individualism, personal initiative and achievement, rule of law, market economy, and therefore industrialization. More stable and calculable environmental conditions in Europe, on the other hand, favored a social trajectory that lead to the industrial transformation. 43

The two different patterns of coping with risks can be summarized:

1. It is assumed that the Asian situation was characterized by high levels of uncertainty, strong environmental fluctuations, socio-political anarchy and a permanent threat of violence. Hence the great advantage of stable social networks that acted as insurance against these risks and allowed to build calculable expectations within a strongly fluctuating environment. When the membership in these networks was defined by descent (and not by contract) this had the advantage of unambiguity. But the consequence was that

43 More explicitely Laslett 1988. 38 the type of "entrepreneurial individual" that marked the development in early modern Europe could not succeed.

2. In Europe the level of environmental risks was lower, and public institutions regulating conflict independent from social status like rule of law, legal certainty, equality before the law developed (or never disappeared). In addition to this, public welfare institutions existed. In this situation the benefit of family networks diminished while their costs remained. Now a strategy of individualization was awarded that enabled a closer connection between individual labor and achievement. In this context the enlarged family became too costly and too clumsy, so that an individual secession from these networks no longer met social sanctions.

As a matter of fact, this is rather a rough distinction of ideal types that wishes to fix two opposite tendencies. However, it might be the case that whenever environmental or social conditions change, it is evolutionarily awarded to move into the direction of one of these extremes. If security increases, steps into the direction of individuality and rule of law can be taken, thus improving the security standard. This might be the way how a process of positive feed back emerged, leading Europe starting from a lower level of environmental hazard toward the path to industrialization and modern society.

From this perspective, the European transformation could be the result of an initial situation of low environmental dangers and a higher reliability of institutions, functionally coupled with the nuclear family. In this respect, the nuclear family could be seen as the result of fortuitous conditions that only gained an adaptive function under changed circumstances.44 This European predisposition could reach back far into the past: into the High Middle Ages,45 the Early Middle Ages,46 if not to prehistory.47 In Asia a complementary development could have happened, going back to older adaptations or to autopoietic cultural patterns that proved totally adapted to the system conditions of the agrarian regime, but became an obstacle for the industrial transformation.

The claimed differences between the European and the Asiatic, especially the Chinese family patterns, stressed mainly by Jones, Laslett and Macfarlane, are strongly rejected by newer

44 Oesterdiekhoff 2002 demonstrates the complex implications of this pattern (cognatic descent, lack of ancestral worship, women’s higher position, etc.). 45 Especially Mitterauer 1997; 2000. 46 E.g. Goody 1983. 47 Clark / Piggott 1965 see the historical origin of this pattern in the bronce age. If this is true, it must have been a case of cultural autopoietic preadaptation. 39 empirical research.48 On one hand, this concerns the universal character of the nuclear family pattern in northwestern Europe that is doubted regarding some empirical exceptions. However, this objection does not destroy the general pattern. Much more important are objections concerning the functional non-ambiguity of the "Asiatic" pattern. One argument points to close similarities between the family patterns in Europe and Japan (McNeill 1996). A more fundamental importance have the results of recent research on the Chinese family demonstrating that the alleged connection between the patrilineal extended family and a positive Malthusian demographic regime is nothing but a fairy tale.49

From this criticism, it does not necessarily follow that the differences between the nuclear family pattern and the patrilineal enlarged family pattern could not have any consequences leading to different social trajectories. The possibility remains that neo-local residence, temporary serfdom, late marriage age coupled with economic independence provoked a behavior that was functionally connected with social and geographic mobility, personal achievement, capital accumulation, and favored the industrial transformation. However, there seems to be no direct relation to different levels of environmental uncertainty, so that the adaptive explanation has failed. The major result of these considerations is that the confrontation between a Malthusian positive demographic regime in China and a preventive demographic regime in Europe can be sustained no longer; neither is it viable to derive them from different environmental conditions.

Agriculture The industrial transformation was preceded by an agricultural revolution in Europe (especially in the Netherlands and in England) that is supposed to be one of its preconditions (cf. Overton 1996, Allen 2000). It lies in the nature of agriculture as a controlled solar energy system that there are always endeavors to increase productivity. The history of agricultural production is a history of a permanent (albeit not continuous) rise of efficiency. This tendency belongs to the principle of agriculture such that it does not necessarily transgress the limits of the agricultural regime. On the other hand it is highly plausible that there could not have been an industrial transformation had there not been previous increases in agricultural productivity (Komlos 2000). It seems to be a classical matter of predisposition.

In agricultural production two different types of productivity increases can be distinguished. The choice of either one leads to different trajectories that are hardly reversible:

48 Cf. the overview in Goody 2000. Eglauer and Helbling in this volume 49 Eglauer 2001. Empirical evidence for this in Lee / Wang 1999. 40 1. Rise of land productivity by means of increased labor input. This strategy aims at producing higher yields from a given area. In agrarian societies it can be expected that this increase of efficiency goes together with an increase of efforts so that intensification leads to a combination of rising land productivity and diminishing labor productivity, if there are no simultaneous cost-neutral technological innovations. We can call this a path of horticulturalization. In extreme cases the use of laboring animals (horses, oxen) declines and the hoe replaces the plow.

2. Rise of labor productivity and mechanization. This strategy aims at lowering labor input in tilling the land. This extension of production can be based on two different methods: technological progress and increase of the cultivated area. The latter is hardly possible in advanced agrarian societies that possess only minor land reserves. However, in a pioneer situation when farmers acquire new land this can be an important strategy. This was the case when America was colonized by European farmers.

An important feature of European agriculture is that its extensive character led to a trajectory open to an increase of labor productivity by means of mechanization. This trajectory was based on preconditions rooted in the distant past. In ancient times, European agriculture of the Mediterranean was dominated by the cultivation of wheat and barley combined with olives and vine. In Northern Europe rearing of livestock prevailed. During the European Middle Ages an "agrarian revolution" (Mitterauer 2003) took place in northwestern Europe that had its center in grain cultivation: rye for bread and oats for horse fodder. For this purpose a new organization of agricultural production was developed since the sixth century AD – the three- field system, combined with the use of commons for pasture and wood provision.

In contrast to the Mediterranean and many other agricultural regions of the world, agriculture in northwestern European relies on rainfall and not on artificial irrigation (the major problem being too much water, not a lack of it). Humid summers allow the use of meadows to win fodder with which livestock can be fed during the winter. In combination with pasture (waste land, marginal land, fallow) an extensive kind of agriculture developed dedicating large areas to the production of fodder to rear horses and cattle that could be used as mounts or draught animals.

The heavy plow capable to cut moist soil developed in the early Middle Ages and was widespread since the eleventh century. Its operation first demanded the use of 6-8 oxen or 2-4 horses and it was an expensive investment that could only be afforded by larger holders or communities. This favored the development of forms of communal land cultivation and land

41 distribution such as the open field system. European agriculture was based on the use of extensive areas which nourished draught animals. A tendency toward horticultural production could not develop here with the exception of some highly specialized branches (viticulture, vegetables, fruits etc.). There were, however, chances for mechanization.

The type of European agriculture that emerged in the early Middle Ages existed more than a thousand years with only minor modifications. Grain producing Europe which combined the three-field system, a widespread use of laboring animals, relatively low land productivity, and a decentralized manorial system probably was one of the preconditions for the industrial transformation. But this system was not necessarily self-transforming. The old agrarian Europe formed a very stable system that only came to an end in the context of industrialization, although there were elements of fundamental innovation in some regions (Holland, England) that prepared this process.

There are also political aspects of European agriculture. The heavy plow demands strong horses that have to be bred. When they exist, they form the fundament of a heavily armored cavalry. The mounted knights of the European Middle Ages were the only military power capable to resist invaders from Central Asia. This was one reason why Europe, in contrast to China, India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Russia, etc., was not conquered and devastated by the Mongols. In addition to this, the heavy cavalry horse with its high demand on land for fodder (not just grass but oats) favored a decentralized distribution of military power. This may be one root for European fragmentation, that is the absence of a "despotic" center. We should not forget that this horse was the backbone for overland transportation with carts and carriages as well. The transport revolution of the eighteenth century that resulted from this tradition is undoubtedly one aspect of the industrial transformation. The tradition of mechanical bio-converters is a rather inert precondition that could not be imitated at will.

Finally there are implications that European agriculture had for technological innovation. To bake bread rye has to be milled. European weather conditions combined with a hilly landscape and many streams provide enough running water to build mills that became ubiquitous since the Middle Ages. The operation of numerous mills scattered all over the country was a fundament for widespread technological tinkering from which rotation technology developed since the Middle Ages. We should not forget that these "macro- inventions" (Mokyr 1990) were almost completed in the late Middle Ages, and that not much new happened between 1500 and 1750. Milling technology was part of the European agrarian pattern and stabilized as this pattern was completed. The transformation since the eighteenth

42 century could base on this tradition, but eventually it had to create something new – the steam engine.

As we saw, there were several features of European agriculture that favored industrialization or at least did not build obstacles to it. Some of these pre-adaptive features can be summarized:

• Grain production with the plow and other mechanical devices opens a path to mechanization in agriculture.

• Extensive agriculture with rather large reserve areas gives room to experimentation.

• Horses are ubiquitous as draught animals for tillage and transport and as mounts for decentralized military forces.

• Milling of rye favors the spread of watermills over the countryside providing a wide scope for mechanical tinkering.50

Let's take a short comparative look to China.51 In Southern China wet rice cultivation is known since the 6th millennium BC, while in the North wheat and millet were cultivated. Since the Han, wet rice cultivation supported by irrigation spread in regions that were devoted to wheat and millet before. Wet rice is well adapted to a warm and moist climate with good soils, where more than two harvests a year are possible. To achieve this, the seeds have to germinate in special patches and are later transplanted to the field. This means that less space is squandered where weed can grow. The young seedlings stand closely together and are only transplanted when they need more space. This is an ingenious method to use scarce areas more efficiently.

But this strategy has the price of very high labor intensity with sowing, transplanting, weeding, spreading of manure (with human excrements) and maintaining the hydraulic system. Thus population density can increase as do yields per land unit. This is the classical case for horticultural production: while land productivity rises, labor productivity has a tendency to fall. While in eighteenth century Europe about 0.5-1 t grain could be harvested from one hectare, in China it was 3 tons of unhusked rice or 2.1 tons of husked rice. This means that in China up to four persons could be fed from an area that was needed to feed one person in Europe. The price for this success was a considerably higher labor input. This led China to a different trajectory: the technological obstacles to mechanize wet rice cultivation

50 In China, water mills were used to de-husk rice and to produce flour for noodles, but it remains unclear how wide milling technology was spread over the countryside.

43 are much higher than to mechanize grain production. There were almost no laboring animals or agricultural machinery involved. Thus, there was little incentive to technological innovation – one aspect of Elvin's "high level equilibrium trap".

A similar tendency toward horticulturalization, however, can be observed in early modern Europe. Kjaergaard (1994) demonstrates that in Denmark agricultural labor efforts have considerably increased between 1500 and 1800, due to more labor intensive operations as draining, marling or fertilizing land. The average workday became three to four hours longer while there were one to two more workdays a week. This was a consequence of the Reformation, which abolished most church holidays. Their number dropped from fifty to seven. In the fifteenth century people worked on average thirty-five to forty hours a week, while about 1800 AD this number had increased to sixty hours. Between 1500 and 1800 the Danish population doubled, as did total agrarian production, while labor input quadrupled. This tendency could only be reversed as a consequence of agrarian mechanization in the nineteenth century. But this case makes clear that European agriculture also faced a high level equilibrium trap from which it could only escape by the change of the social-metabolic regime.

Despotism and fragmentation One widespread explanation of Europe's special course concentrates on political peculiarities, above all "fragmentation": the absence of a despotic central power and the tradition of political participation and self-rule (parliaments, free cities). This motif goes back to classical antiquity. Already the Greek anti-Persian propaganda confronted the free polis with oriental despotism. One major feature of the poleis was their multiplicity. They had the absence of a political center combined with a cultural union (language, philosophy, Delphic oracle, Olympic Games). This idea was continued in medieval Christianity, especially in the anti- universalistic propaganda of peripheral powers like the French or English "reguli" against the Holy Roman Empire. This combination of fragmentation and freedom remained an ideological element of the European orders of 1648 or 1815.

The idea that there is a specific anti-despotic, anti-centralistic European tradition is prominent in many explanations of the industrial transformation (e.g. Baechler 1975, Hall 1985, Gellner 1995, Macfarlane 2000). The basic argument is that the absence of a political centre favored the free interaction of forces which spontaneously produced modern democratic society.

51 See Helbling in this volume. 44 There is a special accent on the lack of a power center that might have had a negative influence on the social and economic development.

Since the nineteenth century the traditional idea of oriental despotism was given a material fundament. Marx put the "Asiatic Mode of Production" in one line with the European “progressive social formations” slavery and feudalism.52 This model was later expanded to a general theory of hydraulic society claiming that infrastructure maintenance by the Chinese government (irrigation systems, dams) was the cause for its despotic character (Wittfogel 1931, 1957). Already Marx ascribed a fundamental historical immobility to the Asiatic Mode of Production (in contrast to "Germanic" feudalism), so that its transformation into a modern (capitalist) society could not be expected by internal development but only by external force.53 In this view, Asia was trapped in political and economic stagnation resulting from irrigation agriculture.

In our context the question is if and how far fragmentation was a peculiar European characteristic, what its fundaments were, and, more generally, which were the advantages or disadvantages of centralization or decentralization in respect to the industrial transformation. To begin with, agrarian civilizations always tend to develop into empires that periodically collapse again (Tainter 1988, Yoffee/Cowgill 1988). Centralization and decentralization can thus be seen as pulsing movements of agrarian states without any historical tendency. During the gunpowder age all over Eurasia several new empires originated: Ming China (1369-1644) and Qing China(1644-1911), the Ottoman Empire (1453-1923), the Russian Empire, that finally conquered Central Asia (1480-1917), the Moghul Empire (1526-1707/1857), and Tokugawa Japan (1603-1867). Only Europe remained fragmented in particular states that expanded overseas and built colonial empires (Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, France, and England).

After Charlemagne had failed to reconstruct the Roman Empire from the northwest, European history was characterized by a struggle of smaller political units. The normal case of such a situation in agrarian societies is that these units eliminate each other until there is one empire left. In contrast to this development, Europe formed a balanced system of powers based on the consensus that the emergence of hegemony is to be avoided. From anarchy to oligarchy, but not further to despotism – this is Europe's peculiar political development (Baechler 1988, 43).

52 Marx, Grundrisse (ed. 1953) 53 “England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating – the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia.” Marx 1853, 248. 45 From an evolutionary point of view, the European situation since early modern times is characterized by a particular structure. The cultural unity of Christendom coexisted with political fragmentation. None of the competing states ever succeeded in gaining supremacy so that there was always considerable room to move between the states. The information flow between political units could not be controlled although there were repeated attempts to do this. Mobility of money, commodities, technological know-how, and qualified workers could not be stopped. If political, religious or fiscal pressure was to high, capital and qualified people migrated to more favorable places, with the consequence that all attempts at self- sufficient isolation ended in a disaster. Nothing could permanently be kept secret or under effective government control.

Even large political catastrophes remained restricted to smaller regions. The Counter- Reformation could not suppress Protestantism while the devastations of Northern Italy, of the Southern Netherlands, or of Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did not permanently disturb the economic process. Political fragmentation increased Europe’s resilience considerably and encompassing severe disturbances were extremely improbable in this flexible system. This was a situation that favored the emergence and stabilization of innovation. There were multiple niches where one could escape political pressure and simultaneously it was possible to orient on a larger public, so that innovation did not suffocate by accidental failure of communication.

Since early modern times Europe’s political situation was marked by a unique dualism of centralization and decentralization. The picture of Europe as a political unit is chaotic. Particular states and dominions are in heavy conflict and wars between European powers are the normal case. On the other side, within the state boundaries there is a powerful tendency toward pacification and the establishment of a stable and reliable rule of law. In the course of time, the number of independent political units decreases. This trend accelerates in the nineteenth century. Thus Europe combines the advantages and disadvantages of centralization as well as of decentralization that can be sketched as follows.

Advantages and disadvantages of centralization

The major functional advantage of political centralization is the state monopoly in the use of force. Feuds and latent civil wars are eliminated on a certain territory and an internal peace is established. This means that barter and purchase may replace plunder and blackmail, regular taxation takes the place of incalculable confiscation, the weak are protected from encroachments of the strong and a rule of law can be established. 46 This pacification begins when the strongest belligerent party prevails and succeeds in disarming its enemies as well as its subjects. A further step towards a legal order is taken when the central power achieves competence in the administration of justice and public administration. The end result may be the destruction of social networks (clans, tribal organizations), the weakening of communal self-government, and a tendency towards individualization and atomization of the subjects. In the same measure as middling social powers lose competence, the direct relationship between citizens and the state gains weight.

Economically this means that transaction and insurance costs fall (regular taxes instead of irregular contribution), that life is more secure so that long term planning becomes viable and the economic process wins stability. Long-distance traffic over land increases, buffers can be diminished, investments are protected, the level of self-sufficiency can be lowered, and more specialization and division of labor are favored with the result of a more differentiated industrial structure (North / Thomas 1976).

The advanced agrarian monarchies attract growing parts of their subjects’ income to maintain the military (standing army, navy) and the bureaucracy. As a side-effect demand for mass produced commodities (weapons, uniforms) increases and the profit expectations of purveyors to the court (mostly of luxury goods) stabilize. The court as a large place of consumption thus offers opportunities for technological and product innovation, albeit mainly for trinkets.

Political centralization also has its disadvantages that arise from its very nature. Rulers normally do not define themselves as "ministers of the state" and even less as suppliers of services for the economy. From their perspective, the economy has to serve political purposes: to provide money, goods, technological devices, and people as recruits and labor force. When the central state gains a monopoly in the use of force, civil war is ended and internal peace is established, but there is no guaranty that this state of peace is not oppressive in itself. The disarmed subjects may be delivered to arbitrary rule without a chance of successful resistance.

Bureaucratization may establish a tendency towards a rational administration, but it may also tend to petrify and to become parasitic. The economy which regulated by a bureaucratic state develops inefficient monopolies whose main function is to stabilize the rent incomes of their beneficiaries. Taxation may reach confiscatory levels paralyzing the economy. Luxury consumption of the court may lead to unproductive squandering of surplus. The end of civil war may actually result in external wars that are equally, if not more, destructive.

47 Advantages and disadvantages of decentralization

Decentralization has advantages and disadvantages that are complementary to those of centralization. Its major advantage is to avoid the disadvantage of too much centralization. When no power exists that is able to control and regiment larger territories, petrification and checks of innovation strongly connected with over-centralization are impossible by definition. Thus the autonomy of scattered political and economic units (towns, monasteries, villas, domains) that prevailed in Europe may have been a precondition for the formation of a market economy (Mann 1986). Guilds usually were organized in a decentralized pattern. However rigid their rules may have been in a particular town, they had almost no power over nearby regions. Extensive negotiation resulting in larger unions could have brought a solution to this problem, but this only worked in essentially vital matters such as military defense, but even here urban leagues were notorious for their fragility and unreliability.

The advantage of decentralization is primarily negative in nature. It favors the existence of a multiplicity of cultural settings and legal frames, thus enabling an evolutionary process in which those solutions can prevail that are best adapted to existing circumstances. There is not much scope for really dysfunctional idiosyncrasies, which are soon eliminated. This evolutionary process is propelled by the mobility between different units: the migration of people, ideas, and commodities.

This holds for political matters as well. There is no chance for a unified political strategy encompassing many independent states and large regions, because there are always single states that leave the consensus as dissidents by taking their own path. The consequences of this become clear when maritime expansion is compared in China and Europe. Between 1405 and 1433 China ventured a series of maritime expeditions that led its fleets to Java, Ceylon, and East Africa. An intrigue at the Ming court brought this expansion to a halt and after 1480 long distance sea travels were forbidden. Columbus, on the other hand, failed in Genoa and Portugal, but succeeded in Spain. After 1500, there should have been numerous court intrigues in Europe, from Italy via Portugal and Spain, to England and the Netherlands to stop a further maritime expansion. This, of course, was virtually impossible. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI sanctioned an agreement that distributed the New World between Spain and Portugal. The French King Charles VIII commented on this "raya" with the sentence that such a clause in Adam’s testament was unknown to him. In Japan the Tokugawa could successfully suppress the use of firearms after they had gained power (Perrin 1982). In 1139, the Second Lateran Council prohibited the use of cross-bows in Christian Europe, but for each

48 particular European prince it would have been suicidal to comply, so the prohibition remained without any effect.

The functional disadvantages of decentralization are its tendency to anarchy, to civil war and general insecurity. Highway robbery and arbitrary customs paralyze traffic and lower the division of labor. They also increase transaction and insurance costs. An unstable and unreliable administration, insecure taxation, multiple norms and laws hinder economic integration. The same holds for a regionally differentiated money system that complicates payment and produces extra costs for exchange.

In conclusion, the fundamental problem is that the weakness or absence of a central state can lead to local self-sufficiency, anarchy and insecurity, but it gives the opportunity for competition and self-government. A strong centralized state offers security and peace, but it may paralyze the society by regimentation and over-taxation. Both tendencies can have detrimental consequences – powerful and excessive political institutions as well as the lack of those institutions. Fatal for the economic process is an incalculably pulsating state as described by Ibn Khaldun. It is weak and fragile but also destructive and parasitic. An efficient despotism like in China, however, runs the danger of extending the rule of politics over the economy, leaving little scope for individual achievement.

One peculiarity of Europe is its unique combination of centralization and decentralization. Europe may not have "invented the state" as some authors claim (Creveld 1999, Reinhard 1999), but it developed a structure of internal order which at the same time left the fragmented plurality of political units intact. There are several different national paths in different European regions that explain this plurality. England after the Norman Conquest was a highly centralized monarchy with little autonomy (and allodium) for the aristocracy and the estates, who later gained liberties from weak kings. The French state grew slowly and continuously from a small center, and its kings had to make arrangements with a preexisting "civil society” and they never gained total control, despite the program of absolutism. Estates, towns, and parliaments kept large pieces of autonomy that were wrought from them in a long struggle for power that was only concluded after the revolution. In Germany and Italy, and to a lesser degree France, there were free, independent, self-governed towns, which were privileged by relatively weak emperors as allies against territorial princes.

Such a highly fragmented political landscape was very difficult to conquer. In the normal case, agricultural empires have a power center that controls its periphery by threat of force. Conquest must aim at this center, and conquerors can succeed when they find allies among the

49 subdued periphery. If the center shows signs of weakness, the periphery changes sides and the empire collapses like a card house. This happened again and again in Persia, China, Mexico, Peru, India, etc. Europe never had such a center, and this was the reason why it was extremely resilient against conquest. Even if the Turks had taken Vienna in 1683, resistance would have been maintained in the other imperial territories, to say nothing about France, the Netherlands or England.

When we look at the incidence of political fragmentation in a world history context, it becomes clear that Europe is no exemption. Fragmentation can be found in Islamic territories and a similar case is India after the death of Aurangzeb. Only in China do we find a continuity of the typical "despotic" union of culture and state. In this respect, fragmented Europe was not unique, and maybe it is the other way round: China is the classical case of an agrarian civilization that is politically united over a very long period of time, with only short interruptions in times of crisis. In this political respect, China is unique. But the point of this interpretation is not fragmentation as such, but the duality of smaller centralized and highly integrated "proto-national" political units (like France and England) and the multiplicity of such units in a larger context, that became typical for Europe since the late Middle Ages.

Warfare Starting with Francis Bacon, the invention of gunpowder is supposed to be a classical factor for modern European development. This means that on the military sector there was a series of key innovations leading to a military supremacy of European powers compared with other civilizations. Since Michael Roberts’ seminal work,54 technological, logistic, and administrative-fiscal elements are distinguished in the process of the early modern "military revolution". Its major elements are the substitution of weapons of close contact (sword, lance) by weapons working at a distance (crossbow, musket), the shift from pitched battle to siege warfare (canon, fortification), the development of a navy based on large ships-of-the-line equipped with artillery, the enlargement of the armies by a factor 10 between 1500 and 1700 and finally the development of logistic, administrative, and fiscal methods to support, conduct and finance these large bodies.

Gunpowder and siege artillery, like so many other devices, may have their origin in China, 55 but it was in Europe where their technological potential was efficiently developed and

54 Roberts 1955; cf. McNeill 1982; Parker 1988; for criticism Eltis 1995 and the contributions in: Rogers 1995. 55 The first pictures of siege artillery can found almost simultaneously in Europe (1326) and China (1332), so that the origin of this invention remains unclear. 50 completed. In the military realm, the progressive character of the evolutionary "arms race" in fragmented Europe becomes most evident. Soon after its introduction, gunpowder was rapidly improved, achieving a much higher expansion speed (due to more permeable graining). Then a multiplicity of specialized weapons was invented: siege artillery, field artillery, arquebuses, muskets, pistols, bombs, mines, precision arms, patrons, guns with cast, drilled and rifled barrels, ship artillery with gates near the water line, fortifications, defense with earth works etc. Already in the sixteenth century European powers were militarily far advanced as compared to China, especially in naval warfare, even though there was no military conflict between European powers and China earlier than the nineteenth century.

The most important matter of European military arms race since the late Middle Ages was the fact that no single power ever prevailed in the long run with the effect that the system as a whole developed rapidly under high evolutionary pressure. This is the reason why China’s coarse firecrackers and clumsy siege canons were left behind in such a short time. The Turks, too, took part in this development and gained military supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean (against Egypt, Syria, and Persia). A military innovation process was initiated that was based on positive feedback not only in Europe, but also in the Middle East. The important matter was the emergence of an evolutionary dynamic and not so much one of single inventions. Inventions only gain weight when they are integrated into a dynamic network like that which built up in early modern Europe.

William McNeill (1989) has shown that in early modern time all over Eurasia (with the exception of Europe) "gunpowder empires" emerged: Ming China, Tokugawa Japan, Moghul India, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. All these states succeeded in monopolizing the possession of heavy siege artillery with the result that minor powers could be disarmed. Gunpowder shifted power from fortification to siege thus favoring centralized, well organized forces. On the other hand, this also had the consequence that most successful empires checked any innovation that could have undermined this pattern and the gunpowder empires soon became technologically conservative.

The European situation was different in that as no political power could gain supremacy. The Habsburg emperors who tried to become hegemonic powers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries failed when confronted with defensive coalitions, as did the French rulers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The effect of this permanent struggle was a severe competition between the powers from which none of them could escape and which led to the annexation or marginalization of minor powers. The number of independent political units

51 diminished, but the remaining great powers built a new system of balance that proved indestructible well into the twentieth century.

From the perspective of industrial transformation, early modern military innovation remained within the pattern of the agrarian regime, but unfolded its potential in extreme measure. Single elements of this military revolution can be found in other agrarian civilizations as well. For example, drilled armies can be found more often than an eighteenth century perspective often presumes.56 Firearms were widespread all over Eurasia. The advanced sea-going man- of-war with ship artillery was a complex and unique European invention that did not find its match anywhere outside Europe, but it did not transgress the boundaries of agrarian civilizations. The same holds for the advanced and extended fortifications that were developed as a response to siege artillery by the continental powers.

The development of military technology in agrarian civilizations follows the common pattern of innovation cascades, that is a change of rapid breakthroughs and balanced stagnation. This holds for the evolution of fire-arms, for siege warfare, for the drilled standing army and even for naval warfare with ship artillery. The decisive breakthroughs all took place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the following years a lot of micro-inventions57 and fine-tuning took place, but the dominant pattern was not overcome.

For technological reasons, the ship-of-the line had an upper limit of 2,000 tons that could not be expanded as long as ships were built from wood (Davis 1962). Ships of this size already existed in the sixteenth century. They were continuously improved until the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially with regards to their maneuvering capability, stability, and armament, but this upper limit remained fixed. It was only in the middle of the nineteenth century, when coke iron was cheap enough to construct ships with steel, that new dimension of tonnage were reached.

Fire arms represent a similar case. The old founding technology was pushed to its limits in the eighteenth century, but it was not possible to make guns with steel. This only succeeded with advanced nineteenth century metallurgy based on coke and it was a precondition for range and precision to be increased. Some technological solutions remained almost stable over longer periods of time, as the examples of field artillery or muskets demonstrate. In England the musket with the nickname "Brown Bess", introduced in 1690, remained the standard weapon of the infantry until 1840 with only minor alternations. The field gun with

56 Moritz von Nassau who introduced military drill into European armies followed the Roman example as described by Vegetius, even adopting details as the use of the spade. 57 In the sense of Mokyr 1990 52 drilled barrel, developed in France about 1750, was used in all European armies until breech- loaders with rifled barrels were introduced after 1850.

Only in the middle of the nineteenth century was this older pattern of "punctuated equilibrium" replaced by a new pattern of exponential technological progress. Since then, fundamental parameters of military equipment change within very short time: automatic weapons, new explosives, motorization, artillery with recoiling devices, tanks, aircraft, submarines, rockets, chemical and biological weapons, atomic bombs, satellites, electronic warfare. Innovation cycles are shortened because it is possible to materialize any design. Here it becomes clear that the agrarian pattern is broken. The critical transition for this lies in the nineteenth century.

In retrospect, even in the perspective of military history the early modern age appears as a stage of pre-adaptation. It is unconceivable that European supremacy could have succeeded without military supremacy, but still the military remained within the scope of the agrarian regime well into the nineteenth century.58 We could conjecture a counterfactual historical development that would conclude the innovation process about 1750. There is no compelling reason why this level of competence would not have been imitated by other agrarian civilizations, because it was still within the scope of the ancien regime.

Which influence had warfare on the economic development? Agrarian societies only produce a small surplus that is attracted by rent-seeking predators, and is easily consumed by war and destruction. Irrigation devices must be constructed over a long time and can be rapidly destroyed with long term negative effects, as we can learn from Mesopotamia after the Mongol conquest. Here we have an important feature of the agrarian regime: the ongoing zero-sum game about limited space and its distribution is usually played with violent means, and the permanence of violent conflict enhances the zero-sum character of this game. This points to the evolutionary trap agrarian societies are confronted with: the military costs of this permanent tug-of-war for the distribution of scarce surplus increases scarcity with the result that the tug-of-war becomes more severe.

Theoretically, there could be an escape from this prisoner’s dilemma if peace is established and a positive feedback loop in the sense of "economic growth" can start. In a peaceful situation production and surplus would increase, there could be more investment, productivity could rise and the struggle for distribution could calm down – a peace dividend as proposed

58 Raudzens (2001) even maintains that European military supremacy was not decisive for colonial expansion. 53 by classical liberal pacifism.59 This is the reason why many authors ascribe to war an impeding function for economic development.60

However, European history did not follow this path, but the transition to capitalist industrialization and economic growth unfolded in the middle of severe and protracted wars. One precondition of this (at least in the beginning in England, and later on also on the continent) might have been that feuds and civil wars had come to an end, so that an internal peace, guarantied by the state, was established. It seems that internal peace was much more important for prosperity than peace between states. Since the seventeenth century, England was practically in a permanent state of war, but this remained an overseas matter. The country itself was almost untouched by warlike devastation since the Civil War. The emergence of the industrial transformation took place during a period of heavy international wars, which evidently did not much damage to economic growth.

In the early twentieth century, Werner Sombart (1913) proposed that warfare even favored the emergence of capitalism. He pointed to the large military expenses that created demand for mass produced commodities that called manufactures into existence. During war, full employment prevailed because persons who were unemployed found work due to rising demand. Warfare promoted technological innovation and production, employment and capital formation, and insofar it at least was no obstacle against industrialization (McNeill 1982, 190).

Were there major differences between the effects of warfare in Europe and China? Jones (1987) claims that war killed more people in “Asia” than in Europe, but this is most uncertain in the long run. The Chinese Empire repeatedly succeeded in establishing peace over longer periods of time, punctuated by invasions claiming large numbers of victims (Mongols, Manchu). In politically fragmented Europe, war was endemic since the Middle Ages. During the millennium before a balanced order was established in the nineteenth century, there may not have been one single year without war going on somewhere in Europe. However, Europe (like Japan) was spared a large "barbaric invasion" during this time.

Jones claims that China lost 25 million people during the Manchu conquest in the 1660s, and calculates this as 17% of the total population. He confronts this figure with only 2 million casualties in Germany as a consequence of the Thirty Years War (Jones 1987, 36). But these figures do not stand a closer look. In 1618, German population was 17 million, while in 1650

59 E.g. Richard Cobden 60 E.g. Nef 1950, Rostow 1960, Deane 1975 54 it had dropped to 10 million.61 This is a loss of more than 40%.62 Another example is the Swedish campaigns in Poland (1655-1660) that destroyed 35% of the cities and 10% of the villages, with a total population loss of 40%. In addition, the general language of "Asia" surely does not make much sense in this context. After the Tokugawa shoguns had finished civil war, Japan lived in peace for more than 250 years. Such a long term peace has never happened in the history of Europe.

Information and communication Part of the classical explanations for modern European development is the invention of the printing press.63 The Gutenberg era, the epoch of the printed book, is synonymous for modern times. Yet the question remains what exactly the function of this new mode of information processing was, if it was a specific European matter, and if it helped to transcend the pattern of agrarian civilizations.

Written records as such are as old as the agrarian civilizations and inseparably connected with them. Information of all kinds, from book-keeping to Holy Scripts, is stored and handed down over generations. China developed its own notation system at least 3,500 years ago based on ideograms that developed into logograms. This method also prevailed in the Middle East origins of scripture, and has peculiar advantages and disadvantages. Its major advantage is that the written record is independent from speaker’s variations. The symbols can be pronounced in different ways while meaning is conserved. Its major disadvantage is that theoretically for each separate subject a separate sign has to be invented with the consequence that the number of signs grows indefinitely. Even when phonetic and symbolic elements are combined (as happened in Egypt and in China), in the end no one has command of the complete system. This has consequences of its own: true knowledge of the notation system becomes a privilege of scholars who need many years to get acquainted with the complexity and multiplicity of signs. They tend to eagerly defend this knowledge, based on the command of a difficult technical process, and no incentive to simplify the system can be expected from them.

The core of the historical process that culminated in the early modern printing press (and opened a trajectory towards electronic information processing) is the division of information

61 Figures from North 2000, 118. 62 Of course this is not necessarily all an effect of a rise of mortality, but declining fertility under the conditions of war plays a role, too. 63 The fundamental role of bookprinting for modern European development is stressed in the seminal work of Elizabeth Eisenstein (1979). See also Johns 1998. 55 into smallest parts. The precondition for any advanced data processing is digitalization, i.e. information units are abstracted from any particular meaning. Meaning is only constituted by a specific combination of elements that have no meaning of their own.

This is first achieved by alphabetic scripture that succeeds in putting down any amount of content with very few signs. It was invented by the Phoenicians about 4,000 years ago and finally spread over the Western world. Today, this step seems obvious, if not self-evident, but it was an enormous achievement in abstraction, regarding that there is no straightforward connection between phonemes and morphemes. Each person pronounces words in different ways, and it took long time to standardize language phonetically – a process that probably was favored and enhanced by the existence of an alphabetic scripture. But this also had far reaching consequences for data transfer.

Mechanical multiplication of information is rather old, too. Its origins are coins (as means of state propaganda) and stamps. Complicated systems based on logograms like the Chinese invite to reproduce scripts with large stamps or woodcuts. In Korea texts were printed with types made from porcelain more than 1000 years ago, and in China, too, movable characters made from clay, wood and later from iron were used. However, the Chinese notation system demanded 15,000 to 20,000 different characters, so that the advantages of printing were quite limited.

The European fifteenth century printing press really was a macro-invention, a fundamental breakthrough that would not have been possible in China. Printing with movable letters only makes sense when there are very few different symbols. The Roman scripture has 26 letters. A European font system can do with a minimum of 100 different letters, capitals, numbers and special characters included. This is enough to print any text. Gutenberg, however, needed more than 200 letters to print his Bible, because he used different fonts: Gothic, Latin and italics. But even this number is not too big. This makes it plausible that on the base of a notation system with several hundred or even thousand types the advantage of print is not evident and it remains acquainted to woodcut or stamp printing. The invention and spread of the printing press could only start an information revolution in connection with an alphabetic scripture.

In addition to this, numbers should be regarded. In principle, for each natural number a separate sign could be used and the Roman notation system was not far from that: I, V, X, L, C, D, M – this series could have been continued indefinitely and led to confusing combinations. It was almost impossible to calculate with this system, so the abacus was used

56 as a digital mechanical device, and only the result of the calculation was written down with Roman letters. In a digital number system like that which Europe imported from India via the Middle East in the Middle Ages, each number is expressed by two elements: a sign and its relation to other signs. Within the decimal system this means that only ten different signs are needed (zero indicating an empty space). With this method any number can be notated, it is very easy to calculate and with a few additions (conventions indicating plus, minus, division, equal, power etc.) the system can be expanded to enable any mathematical operation.

The digital "Arabic" number system is structurally equivalent to the alphabetic scripture. Both share the principles of abstraction from meaning and of minimizing the number of signs, enabled by combination rules. This is a fundamental economy of notation, an information revolution that preceded the printing press and built its preconditions. A further consequence was that information could be classified in a similar way. The alphabetical order of words in dictionaries is devoid of meaning, but easy to handle (in contrast to thesauri trying to order knowledge systematically).

The printing press is based not only on an older (scripture) and younger (numbers) tradition of simple digital notation, but also on several specific technological preconditions:

• The single types must have identical forms. This means that from one mater type a larger number of letters had to be founded. This required advanced metallurgical methods. It is no accident that Gutenberg was a goldsmith by training.

• A cheap information carrier had to be available. As long as parchment was used, the real bottleneck was the medium’s high costs. Only paper was so cheap that writing costs really mattered, so that mechanization paid. The printing press surely would not have succeeded had it still used parchment.64

• Printing on paper requires an ink that sticks to the surface without tainting the backside. This material had to be provided by "chemical" industry.

• Finally, there is the complicated machinery of the printing press that was developed in the context of a craft culture which had long experience with mechanical devices.

All these preconditions had to be present simultaneously and this is the reason why the printing press is a singular and quite improbable macro-invention that did not take place simultaneously in different regions. It had so many tremendous advantages that it rapidly spread all over Europe. The printing press finally initiated a positive feedback between

64 As Gutenberg did for some of his printed bibles. 57 publication and experience, so that a trajectory of knowledge accumulation could form. It contained the following elements:

• The older knowledge fixed in manuscripts could always break off or disappear. The printed book enlarged and steadied the communication of texts with the consequence that the knowledge process stabilized and solidified.

• When manuscripts were copied, mistakes accumulated with the consequence of shifting content. Of course, there were also lots of errors in printed books, but they could be corrected from edition to edition, so that texts became more stable and reliable. This played a large role in reference books (dictionaries, mathematical or astronomical tables, etc.).

• The multiplicity of available texts enabled their comparison and favored a critical mentality that resulted in philological methods of criticism. On the other hand, the confrontation with many different texts produced information noise with the consequence that dogmatic persuasions were shattered.

• Printing allowed the combining of texts and illustrations that could be stereotyped. This had important consequences for atlases, maps, astronomical, mathematical, physiological and architectonic works.

• Mechanically reproduced texts were cheaper than manuscripts, so that they could spread into wider social strata. This favored alphabetization that was already made easier with a digital notation system. Twenty-six characters can be learned in a shorter time than several hundred or thousand characters.

• Standardization of texts favored standardization of language. This resulted in the emergence of new national languages in Europe that had their origin in certain regional dialects (Italian from Tuscany, German from Saxony, French from the Champagne, Dutch from Frisia, etc.).

From our point of view, the most import consequence of the printing press was the emergence of a positively fed back information flow. The recursion loops that information flows took, enhanced and touched more and more people as well as more and more content. The probability that knowledge was isolated and vanished by accident, almost disappeared. Intellectual innovation thus amplified and corroborated itself. A communication dynamics was initiated that was exceptionally high as compared to the standards of other agrarian civilizations. Similar processes of rapid self-enhancement of information flows had taken

58 place before in the traditional oral culture, albeit under special, geographically very limited circumstances (like in Classical Athens). With the printing press all of Europe transformed into one integrated communication system (of intellectual elites) where information from different provenance could be combined. Thus the level of information processing accelerated in an unprecedented way. Knowledge production increased rapidly and it was not necessarily accompanied by an as rapid process of falling back into oblivion, as was formerly the case.

Perhaps the following generalization is possible. The oral-manuscript culture has great difficulties to transmit information in a reliable way and puts great efforts into the conservation and reproduction of traditional knowledge. When information can be saved and transmitted mechanically, the conservation, reproduction, and availability of information is no longer a problem, so that efforts can concentrate on gaining new knowledge. Thus the printing press culture can put an accent on intellectual innovation.

If information and communication played a role for the emergence of the industrial transformation – and who could doubt that to be the case – the media revolution of the printing press must be a key factor. Of course there were numerous elements of mechanical information transmission in other agrarian civilizations as well, but none of them achieved the importance of book printing. Gutenberg's invention is based on so many preconditions that had to exist independently, that it is a singularity with far reaching consequences. The historical emergence of a method that allowed digital information replication was quite improbable. Neither the (mathematically gifted) Greeks nor the (technologically gifted) Romans came close to this, although they possessed the basic precondition: a digital notation system.65 The consequence was that information processing gained new dimensions in memory, availability, speed and interaction scope. Anything could be combined with anything else by experimentation. This started an exponential growth of knowledge that is still ongoing. Here must be one source of the transformation, and maybe it is a decisive one.

It is characteristic for many processes that the conduct of a system changes with the number of its components when a "critical mass" is attained. Then new properties can emerge and continuous processes become discontinuous. In a communicating human society the number of participants can change with help of the presence of information media. However, this may be the case for several different media, not only for information, but also for physical

65 The same holds for the Islamic world. Although the Arabian script is digital, too, the Ottoman Empire adopted book printing very reluctantly, which may have something to do with the calligraphic tradition of the Koran that became an obstacle to mechanization. 59 transport or the allocation of resources (finance system). If these media change, a critical state can be reached with the consequence that unexpected tendencies build up, one of which was the industrial transformation. So the new information system, perhaps, was only a part of a larger media revolution that encompassed transportation of goods and allocation of capital.

Science and technology An older standard explanation regards the early modern "scientific revolution" as the ignition of a series of technological innovations finally leading to the industrial revolution (e.g. Bernal 1954). This tradition puts great weight on the making of a new scientific world view since the Renaissance, culminating in the seventeenth century “new science”. Its roots are mainly seen in mathematization and controlled experiments.

In this view, Francis Bacon and René Descartes are the (positively or negatively valued) heroes of a scientific breakthrough. A series of paradigmatic revolutions are observed in early modern Europe: Copernicus's astronomical model, Galileo's mathematical mechanics, Boyle's theory of gases, and finally Newton's unified mechanical theory. This rational science is dominated by certain principles, among which are simplicity, mathematical modeling, and subjective reproduction of experiments. They replace magic, analogies, and hermetic insights that cannot be generalized and controlled by repeated and independent observation.

Intercultural studies on the history of science demonstrate that a tendency towards "enlightened rationalism" and the development of "scientific methods" were not foreign to other agrarian civilizations and did not transcend their fundamental principles. Since Joseph Needham's encompassing research, numerous innovation processes in Song and Ming China are known. 66 So the question remains if or how far the rationality of the European “new science” was fundamentally different from Chinese thinking.

The philosopher of science Alistair Crombie has identified six different styles of thinking, whose combination made the specific character of modern European science: "postulation", "experimental", "historical modeling", "taxonomy", "probabilistic", and "historical derivation" (Crombie 1994). Mark Elvin (2000) demonstrated in a recent paper that all of them except probabilistic thinking were present in China, too. This makes the special character of European science somewhat dubious. 67 Elements of rational thought seem to have been a common feature of agrarian societies if certain conditions are present, like cities, peace, interested social strata, and intellectual freedom.

66 Needham 1954ff. Cf. Elvin 1973; 1984; 1988; Huff 1993 60 Another objection concerns the scientific character of the European "scientific revolution" itself (Shapin 1996). Recent research has demonstrated that many assumptions remained unfounded, that metaphysical speculation was inseparably interwoven with experiment and deduction, and that there was a long continuity of prejudiced cultural plausibilities that permeated scientific research. Many methods and results of early modern science were wrong and unscientific according to present standards. So eighteenth century chemistry was not scientific in our sense since it did not regard chemical transformations as molecular reactions and there are numerous other similar cases. Here the "rationality" of European science is fundamentally doubted, so that there is no fundamental difference between magic and science.

The role science is supposed to have played for technological development before industrialization is contested as well. The basic assumption that early modern technology can be regarded as applied science is put into question. If technological innovation did not result from science, its origins are seen in the empirical trial and error endeavors of "semiliterate tinkerers" (Musson / Robinson 1969). A systematic and methodical cooperation between science and technology only occurred since the nineteenth century (Mokyr 1990). Thus, it is more a result and not so much an origin of industrialization. In early modern Europe, there was still a typical contrast between contemplative natural philosophy ("science") and practical mechanics ("technology") with hardly any contact between these areas so that content and results of scientific theories remained virtually irrelevant for the technological innovation process.

In recent years this position is confronted with the idea that “new science” influenced technology insofar as the virtuosi's world view and research style was adopted by mechanics by ways of cultural influence (Jacob 1997). This holds mainly for the experimental method based on keeping marginal conditions constant, dividing complex problems into smaller pieces, and assuming constancy, simplicity, and coherence of natural phenomena. James Watt, for instance, was a mechanic without an academic education, but in his work he followed the example of contemporary experimental natural philosophy. He kept precise record on his experiments, knew the importance of exact measurement and could distinguish between cause and correlation. A sense for quantification and mathematics and the rejection of obscure organic qualities had trickled down to social strata that were not acquainted with the esoteric principles of natural philosophy. This means that it was more the style and perhaps the methods of “new science” and not the results that influenced technological

67 Similar Linck 1999 for Ming China 61 innovation. This was mainly a matter of the eighteenth century and even then perhaps only in England.

During the seventeenth century the socio-cultural meaning of natural philosophy changed. It no longer remained a matter of few specialists but moved into the core of the intellectual elite’s cultural identity. In England this transformation took place between 1680 and 1720. The new scientific world view that achieved acceptance as an answer to the "crisis of European thinking" (Paul Hazard) focused on "nature" that could be polemically opposed to revelation and authority. In the context of many heterodox positions (Socinianism, Unitarianism, Deism, Pantheism, freemansonry, freethinking, even atheism, skepticism, and anticlericalism) a new "enlightened" style of thinking emerged, which contains the ideological elements "progress", "improvement of mankind", supremacy of "reason" as opposed to "obscurantism" (that is revealed religion, belief, opinion, prejudice), freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and finally freedom of scientific research.

In this intellectual climate a new social type emerged, the "literate gentleman" (Jacob 1997, 87) who read books and journals, attended clubs and debating societies, and adhered to a liberal version of Christianity without much dogmatic rigidity. In social respects, they were merchants and landed gentry, solicitors, physicians and tradesmen. Their children were educated rationally and their wives formed the new reading public for romance novels. Science was part of their education. Jacob stresses the role of "industrial mentality" that emerged in this cultural milieu which produced the entrepreneurs of the industrial revolution after 1760. This scientific culture shared by mechanics and merchants, gentry and businessmen made the organization of partnerships easier, because a common language was spoken.

As to technological innovation in a more narrow sense, its discontinuous, erratic character must be stressed. There was no straightforward gradual "technological progress" over longer periods of time. Neither can technological invention be simply understood as a response to some challenge of scarcity.68 For technological innovation to occur, above all for fundamental breakthroughs or new processes, multiple favoring conditions in society, mentality, economy and politics must be present. The rare macro-inventions, however, are completely fortuitous; they can not be predicted from initial circumstances.

About 1750, European technology was far ahead from the rest of the world, but it still remained within the limits of the ancien regime. "It seems plausible that if European

68 As Boserup 1965 or Wilkinson 1973 claim 62 technology had stopped dead in its tracks – as Islam‘s had about 1200, China‘s by 1450 and Japan‘s had by 1600 – a global equilibrium would have settled in that would have left the status quo intact, with few exogenetic forces to upset it“ (Mokyr 1990, 81). The European modern times would have remained an exciting episode in the history of an agrarian civilization comparable perhaps with classical Greece or Song China. Europe had virtually exhausted the potentials that exist within the boundaries of the agrarian social-metabolic regime. It had the choice between taking the path to a stationary balance typical for agrarian civilizations or to disrupt the agrarian pattern altogether. In this view, the explosive innovation course that it took after 1750 and that transformed the agrarian regime was unpredictable and a matter of mere chance.

In contrast to Europe, it was not until the fifteenth century that China's technological and economic dynamics seems to have come to a halt. This calls for an explanation, if the existence of dynamics is supposed to be self-evident, so that its lack or breakdown is a riddle. If, on the other hand, European sustained dynamics is a singularity, only this needs a special explanation. The Chinese case would be quite normal. This becomes only an interesting problem if we observe different phases in the same system and if we can distinguish between a dynamic China before 1400 AD and a stagnating China after this date. Then the question of what has brought the transition from one state into the other rises. If, however, overall "Chinese stagnation" is compared to "European dynamics" (one complex course of history with another), any point in which China is different from Europe could be identified as possible "cause". Many of such causes can be found in literature.69

• Bad nutrition may have led to widespread deficiency disease and apathy. Rice contains few proteins. Wet rice cultivation favors schistosomiasis leading to physical degradation.

• Mental factors like prevailing ideas of harmony and balance may have obstructed entrepreneurship.

• No science and formal logic, no deduction from first principles, but mere empiricism blocked the way to overcome mechanical tinkering.

• The bureaucracy and the state suppressed technology and economic innovation from the fear that order and harmony are disturbed by social mobility.

• Government retreated from supporting technology and infrastructure. Before 1400 there was massive state intervention in hydraulic devices, technology transfer and new methods

69 The following points can be found in Elvin 1973, 1988; Mokyr 1990; Landes 1998 63 of cultivation. Magistrates wrote books on technological matters. There were state iron works. The later Ming and the Qing are said to have retreated from supporting technological innovation and even neglected measures and weights, market regulations, upkeep of roads, police. But this remains an empirically contested matter.

• Role of the elites. There was a chance for upward social mobility into the bureaucracy by passing examinations. The Confucian elites, however, were hardly interested in technological and economic matters. This system led gifted people into unproductive occupations with the effect of a fatal brain drain from the productive sector.70

• Material resources were scarce and hence a mental disposition to frugality was so widespread that daring innovation often initially leading to squandering material was not ventured. Here scarcity was not so much a challenge leading to invention but a trap leading to economizing stagnation.

• The Chinese lacked a “flair for accuracy”, what Elvin (1988) illustrated with pictures showing machinery.

• At least since the Renaissance, Europeans indulged in fantastic technological projects, while the Chinese remained pragmatic and sober. They lacked exuberant creativity – there was no Chinese Leonardo.

• The Chinese did not conceive machinery as applied geometry – but neither did European mechanics before the nineteenth century.

As a matter of fact, it may have been a question of mentality, of a specific “techno-cultural style” (Elvin 1988, 108) that had formed in China as a result of autonomous cultural autopoiesis. This, however, is so vague a concept that it can hardly be seen how it can be put into operation. The core problem is why so many inventions remained marginal, were forgotten or got stuck in their infancy in China, while Europe refined and developed further those technologies it had originally received from China. This points to the difference between self-enhancing positive feed-back and mere singular inventions, which is exactly the fundamental difference between the logic of the agrarian regime and the logic of the industrial transformation.

70 This mechanism is claimed to have existed in Catholic Europe, too, where a brain drain into priesthood and monasteries took place. 64 Maritime expansion One of the most important factors for the making of the "modern world" is supposed to be European overseas expansion. In this view, the "age of discoveries", above all the incorporation of the Americas, but also including the exploration of a direct sea route from Europe to India and East Asia around Africa started a new epoch in world history. For an influential tradition of explanation that goes back to Lenin’s theory of imperialism and the dependencia-theories of the 1960s and has found its classical expression in the work of Immanual Wallerstein (1974-1989), capitalist development took place within an asymmetric framework of European "centre" and colonial "periphery" from the start. In this perspective, "development" and "underdevelopment" form a dialectical whole, so that the formula "development of underdevelopment" makes sense. Industrialization and wealth in the European core region of the modern world system depend on resource transfer from colonial areas. Thus colonization not merely impeded "industrial development" in other agrarian civilization; it even led to an active de-industrialization in formerly further advanced societies (Frank 1998).

Let us try to assess the importance of European maritime expansion within the framework of agrarian civilizations. 71 About 1500 AD there were five large and independent agrarian civilizations on the Eurasian continent: Europe, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, India and China (plus maybe Japan). From these five civilizations, three were expansive in early modern times: Europe (or, more exactly, the Western fringe of Europe, including Portugal, Spain, France, England and the Netherlands, while the continental core remained immobile) expanded over the ocean while the Turks and the Russians expanded over land. India and China were conquered from Central Asia (Moghul 1526-1688 and Manchu 1621- 1683, respectively), but Qing China reversed the direction of conquest in the late seventeenth century and subjected large parts of Central Asia. To be the object or subject of conquest has been an element of the agrarian experience for millennia.

From this comparative perspective, early modern European expansion was not so sensational and far from being an exception. Its success was quite limited. The most important factor in the long run was the discovery and annexation of America where the existing indigenous civilizations rapidly collapsed, as has occurred on some islands like the Canaries (Crosby 1986). The other great Eurasian civilizations remained untouched. Before the nineteenth

71 Still a good read is McNeill 1963. For an encompassing overview see McNeill/McNeill 2003. 65 century, an effective colonization of the Middle East, Persia, or even India, to say nothing about China or Japan, was beyond European imagination.

We should keep in mind that America (1492) and the sea route to India (1498) were discovered almost simultaneously. Here something new in world history happened: the very old Eurasian axis72 that connected the Mediterranean with the Far East was completed by a new sea axis. The center of this new maritime empire was the Atlantic, and only with the integration of America could world history proper get started. But we should not forget that an effective European domination of the world only began in the nineteenth century when China was touched, Japan was opened, India was subdued, Australia and New Zealand were settled, and the “Dark Continent” was colonized.

When we consider Europe's situation on the Eurasian continent we notice that it is located at the western fringe. The travel distance to America is shorter from Europe then from anywhere else in Eurasia. Regarding the other Eurasian civilizations it is evident that India and the Muslim states were locked in the Indian Ocean. The Ottoman Empire was caught in the Eastern Mediterranean. Russia was a continental power with almost no access to the sea. However, China and Japan shared a continental fringe position, so that theoretically they could have expanded to America, too. But we should not forget that a sea voyage from Asia to America put such high demand on navigation skills that the far advanced European sea powers could solve this problem only in the eighteenth century. Prior to this, such a journey was an adventure with insecure results. For example, the Spanish sent a silver fleet from Peru to Manila only once a year and they had to rely on a very short time window. Travel from Europe to America took four to six weeks in the seventeenth century. To cross the Pacific, half a year was needed. The Polynesian expansion from South East Asia to South America (or at least to Easter Island) hopped from island to island and had large problems traveling east to west (Kirch 1984). This means that for mere geographical reasons an incorporation of the New World into the Eurasian system could only begin from Europe.

The Russian expansion into Siberia as well as the Qing expansion into Central Asia took place on the continent, with the latter leading to annexation, control, and even colonization of Mongolia, Manchuria, Tibet and Singkiang. In contrast to the maritime empire of the European powers large problems with integration and transport were posed that could hardly be overcome with the traditional transport facilities.

72 The silk route led over land, navigation followed the coasts from the Persian Gulf via India to the Yellow Sea. Cf. Abu-Lughod 1989. 66 It is a story going back to the nineteenth century that European powers profited from the exploitation of America. This is discussed regarding the import of bullion and of material resources and the emigration of European surplus population.73 The addition of the American territory made large space available and calculated population density fell drastically. This can be demonstrated with the following numbers, which compare the European and Chinese development. 74 In contrast to Jones’s calculation the increase of Chinese territory in the eighteenth century is included here.

Population density per km², 1500 and 1800

Year India China75 China + Anatolia Europe77 America Europe + Central America Asia76 1500 23 23 - 8 14 2 3 1800 42 70 27 12 30 0,6 3,6

As we can see, Europe gained so much land that it possessed huge reserves for further cultivation. Of course, much of this additional land like Alaska, large parts of Canada and the American Middle West, the tropical rain forest in Middle and South America, arid land in the Southern and Western parts of South America could not be used for agriculture at all. However, agricultural use of the Central Asian territories gained by Qing China was also limited. Thus the real or effective gain of land was much smaller than these rough figures may suggest. To conclude, large fertile colonial territories did exist, but in the context of an agrarian society they could not be properly used.

The land gained by European powers in early modern times was used for plantations that produced for the world market, if it was used at all. Before the nineteenth century, colonial imports from America were almost exclusively luxury goods (sugar, tobacco, rum, spices) of no significance to the dietary budget of the masses. So Wallerstein’s thesis that the population of Europe was already metabolically dependent in the early modern period on colonial imports is not credible (Wallerstein 1974, 44). The only imported good that might have played a role for human nutrition was sugar. Great Britain annually imported about 10,000 tons of sugar around 1700, but about 150,000 tons around 1800 (Braudel 1974, 157). The

73 Mainly Wallerstein 1974, but also Jones 1987 74 The idea for such a calculation goes back to Jones (1987, 232) and the authors cited there. My calculation differs in several points. 75 "China" encompasses the 18 provinces of imperial China. 76 "Central Asia" is Mongolia, Manchuria, Tibet, Singkiang. 77 "Europe" is the territory West of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. 67 British population (including Ireland) grew in this time period from approximately 9.3 million to 16 million. Therefore, the per capita consumption of sugar rose in the course of the eighteenth century from 1 kg to 10 kg. The caloric value of 1 kg sugar is 16 MJ, which is equivalent to human energy requirements for a little more than one day. This means that the role of sugar in the nutrition of the British population can still be ignored in the early eighteenth century, and similar figures hold for France. Around 1800 sugar imports contributed 4% of the caloric needs of the British population. That is a considerable increase, but it still does not mean that Britain depended on America in a metabolic sense.

After the collapse of the indigenous population, America provided huge "empty" space for settlers, but this had no major effect on European populations for a while. Only in the nineteenth century did America really become a land resource for European farmers. Only then did considerable immigration start, large areas fit for cultivation became accessible in the West, and food could be exported to Europe (grain from the United States and beef from Argentina).

The cause for this delay is the transportation problem. Potential grain producing land in the American west remained worthless for world market production before railroads were built. The advantages of water transportation were also not so evident when large bulk had to be carried over long distances. High sea navigation experienced tremendous innovations in early modern times (stability, maneuvrability, sailing, armament), so that regular long distant trade became possible. However, ship size could not be increased considerably. Already in the sixteenth century Genoese ships had a capacity of up to 1,500 tons, and Venetian vessels of 1,000 tons transported cotton from Spain to the Middle East. Portuguese traders had up to 2,000 tons, and that remained the upper limit of British East India Men in the eighteenth century. Even in early nineteenth century many ships had a capacity of only thirty to fifty tons and the rule for freight-liners used in long-distance trade was 200 tons. This magnitude only changed with the construction of iron ships. Only then did the large space of the Americas and of Australia really become accessible for Europeans.

In physical terms the following fields of importance can be summarized:

• American silver and gold to a large part found its way to Asia where it fed the money system, while a considerable amount was finally put out of circulation.

• The fertile regions in the United States and in Argentina only produced food for Europe since the middle of the nineteenth century.

68 • The use of American crops did not remain a European privilege, but spread rapidly all over Eurasia. Already in the sixteenth century maize, potatoes, and peanuts can be found in China, while maize (kukuruz) spread in Anatolia and on the Balkans, also in Italy (polenta), but not north of the Alps. In Europe, the potato only gained importance since the late eighteenth century.

Did the European maritime expansion play any role for the emergence of the industrial transformation (O’Brien 1990)? Here we should focus on the early modern "Atlantic system", the famous triangular trade. In Caribbean plantations luxury goods like sugar, rum or tobacco were produced and transported to England or the Netherlands. From there iron tools or weapons were exported to Western Africa and bartered against slaves that could be sold in the Caribbean. Thus export markets for European industrial producers formed, and money could be made with mass production and the sale of commodities.

Did these colonial markets develop into incentives for industrialization in Europe? This remains a debated matter. We should not ignore the fact that European demand was an incentive for mass production in China, too. The number of porcelain pieces exported from China to Europe during the eighteenth century is estimated at about 100 million, and total production must have been far higher. 78 However, this did not initiate a self-sustained industrialization in China. As for Europe, Landes (1998) thinks that industrialization based on coal, steam and coke iron smelting would also have started without the Atlantic trade, but who knows for certain? Anyway, in the eighteenth century export markets were only a small fragment of domestic markets.

An important argument against a decisive role of colonial imports for industrialization is the fact that world trade was mainly determined by non-competitive goods well into the early nineteenth century. The change of a particular productive factor thus did not affect production conditions on other locations.79 In this sense, the economic world system was not yet integrated. Until the start of the industrial revolution the colonial system was rather a late phase of the traditional pattern of luxury imports than something fundamentally new. But the amount of these imports and the spread of their consumption were unprecedented in world history if we consider, for example, that the average sugar consumption of the Western European populace was about one kilo a year. This was not much in nutritional terms, but it was a tremendous ubiquity of luxury.

78 Ledderose 1995 gives further examples for mass production in China. 79 This argument is stressed by Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson (2000, 7): “The date for the big bang theories of global economic history should be the 1820‘s, not the 1480‘s”. 69 The incorporation of the Americas into the European economy, however, had a large prospective importance for the transformation. America enhanced the European pattern and liberated it from the restrictions of agrarian civilizations. It offered enough space, resources, and liberty, to take the path toward commercialization and industrialization without any sensible limits. North America was a Europe without an aristocracy and without a rent- seeking tradition, so that it could become the pioneer of an economic revolution. It possessed all of Europe’s progressive elements, like individualism, separation of church and state, rule of law, self-government, market economy, personal achievement, in combination with an insulated position that saved the costs of permanent warfare, plus the advantages of the new, large frontier territories and their virtually inexhaustible resources. America thus could become the experimental field of industrialization and finally its paragon. It is therefore hard to imagine which course industrialization would have taken had America not existed.

Market institutions In the Marxist tradition the question of the origins of industrialization is identical with the question of "primitive" or "original accumulation of capital":80 the historical transition to a capitalist mode of production. The core of Marx’s concept of capitalism is the identification of specific productive relations that are marked by an antagonism between wage labor and capital. By definition, capitalism exists if (and only if) the following conditions are fulfilled:

• commodity production for the market with the aim of maximal profit;

• private property of means of production;

• free wage laborers;

• transformation of surplus in capital, hence accumulation of capital.

Parallel to this systematic definition of capitalism there is a definition focusing on capitalism as an epoch in world history.81 In this respect industrial capitalism is a dominant social formation that succeeded the agrarian "feudalism". When both definitions are brought together, the problem arises that certain characteristics of the systematic definition can also be found in agrarian civilizations. On the other hand, even in the era of capitalism many important productive relations exist that have a non-capitalist character. For example, in many capitalist industrial societies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there were large

80 Marx 1867, chap. 24 deals with "Die ursprüngliche Akkumulation des Kapitals", "ursprünglich" meaning "original". This term is often translated as "primitive". 81 This definition was developed by Sombart 1902 ("Der moderne Kapitalismus"). 70 sectors with governmentally owned and planned production, not based on the principle of maximization of profits. There repeatedly existed elements of forced labor, like slavery in the colonies or in the United States, or compulsory service in the military or for civil purposes, in addition to forced labor in times of war or in totalitarian regimes.

One consequence of these difficulties may be that the concept of capitalism does not completely capture the essence of the transformation. A socio-economic definition of "capitalist productive relations" is not enough to identify the specific nature of the industrial transformation. Elements of capitalism as a combination of commodity production, wage labor and orientation toward profits are evidently inherent in the agrarian system, even if they did not become dominant. On the other hand, there are many instances of non-capitalist productive relations within the industrial context, as the twentieth century experience has shown. Socialism and capitalism are both based on the fossil energetic social-metabolic regime.

It can not be overlooked, however, that the industrial transformation led into new dimensions of a market economy. In social terms, its fundament is the proletarianization of the majority of the populace as predicted by Marx. During the last 200 years, the social category "employee" has become dominant. “Employees” are dependent workers with no property reserves of their own who have to submit to the discipline of a business firm. This is in contrast to traditional farmers or artisans who could organize their labor process independently. This "employee" is free in the sense that he is not owned by somebody (like a slave) and does not depend on fixed personal relations with a landlord (like a serf). He accepts heteronomy only by voluntarily signing a contract that he can cancel again (which may have the consequence that he changes his status from an employee to an unemployed person).

Economically, the transformation epoch is without a doubt closely connected with an emancipation of market relations, even if these were never completely realized. We may ask what "market" means in this context, how far it inaugurated something new and how its emancipation was functionally related to the beginning of the transformation.

The basic exchange pattern of agrarian civilizations is redistribution. 82 The state (or extra- economic force) regularly intervenes into the economy by skimming off surplus. Many economic relations are subjected to force. Economic behavior has always to expect plunder, demand of tribute and blackmail. On the other hand, elements of a market do exist in agrarian

82 Here I follow Karl Polanyi’s (1944) terminology. 71 civilizations, and they emerge from the logic of exchange. Where there is division of labor (as a precondition of regular surplus attraction), there must be barter and trade. Trade automatically provokes the emergence of financial instruments like money and credit, even if they are delivered to predatory action. Trade and robbery form a continuum: the weak are preyed upon while the strong become partners in trade. But even pirates must finally change their booty into money or other goods.

Money and credit emerge automatically, spontaneously and repeatedly. When regular barter takes place, soon a "general equivalent" crystallizes. This is a good whose value relation to other goods is well known. This may be a useful good like salt, but it should not be perishable so that it can be stored. That is why the use of metals, especially precious metals, becomes common. They persist, are easily stored, can be divided at will, have a small weight in relation to their value and can easily be identified. When two goods are exchanged and their value is regularly expresses in quantities of a third good, thus becoming comparable, a price emerges and this third good becomes money.

When regular means of payment emerge, the act of exchange is parted into different independent operations and a merchant can represent the reconnection. The migration of commodities is now accompanied by a migration of money in the opposite direction. At the end of this process commodities have changed places, while money has returned to its origin. In regular far distance trade, however, it does not make much sense that each transport of commodities is accompanied by a reciprocal transport of bullion. Here values are balanced and only differences are paid in money. This is the origins of book-keeping.

The next logical step is to settle the accounts of more complex transactions by avoiding altogether the expensive and dangerous transport of money. Now a purchase can be financed with the expectation of a future sale. In this way, payment by money transfer, bills of exchange, and credit originate. That means that these financial instruments are necessarily as old as systematic and regular far distance trade.

Another origin of credit exists when commodities are ordered, e.g. when a purchaser wants to buy a good from a tradesman who does not have it on stock. If this merchant regularly visits markets where he can acquire this good, there are the following possibilities:

• The merchant buys the commodity on a market with the aim to sell it later. In the meantime he gives a credit to the purchaser and demands it back when he delivers the commodity. In this case, the credit risk lies with the merchant.

72 • The price is advanced by the purchaser to the merchant who buys the commodity on a market. In this case, the credit risk is with the purchaser.

• The purchaser gives a down payment to the merchant that is later offset with the payment. In this case, the credit risk is shared.

To finance his purchase, the buyer may be obliged to take a credit from some money lender or to mortgage his future product (e.g. his harvest) to a merchant. The merchant may not want to run the risk of carrying large amounts of money with him, so that he deposits part of it with a money lender. The transportation of commodities is always a risky business, which is threatened by robbers, taxmen, pirates, or shipwreck, so that it makes sense to build commercial societies which share these risks. Thus a complex system of finance, banking, and insurance emerges, whose origins are as old as the systematic exchange of commodities. The physical exchange of money is soon substituted by a mere exchange of symbols, which have no material value of their own.

Finally, it may be interesting for a merchant not just to buy commodities from certain producers regularly, but even to support their production by the provision of raw material or by giving them credit. Here are the origins of the putting-out system, of dependent employment, and finally of capitalist production, that can repeatedly be observed within the context of commodity production. There is no systematic division between subsistence production, commodity production, and capitalist production, and shifting transitions are inherent in agrarian civilizations.

However, trade and finance depend on the trust that promises are kept, so that consensus and belief are the prerequisites of contract and credit. These preconditions are not regularly met in agrarian civilizations. There is no reliable state in which the keeping of promise or fulfilling of a contract can be enforced by litigation. On the contrary, it is often wise not to attract the state’s attention to the existence of private property and wealth that could invite to confiscation. Already Adam Smith has insisted that justice, a regular rule of law, is a fundament of the commercial society.83 The emancipation of the market is based on the existence of a regular and reliable rule of law. Where these institutional preconditions lack, the market economy remains an endangered and marginal matter. Merchants can support each other by building companies and they can form minority networks in a diaspora with strong cultural ties (like the Phoenicians in the ancient Mediterranean, Jews all over medieval

83 Smith 1759. North (1981) developed this idea in his concept of property rights. 73 Europe, Chinese in Southeast Asia), but they perpetually remain subject to the threat of predatory violence.

One fundamental precondition for regular commodity production for the market is the existence of security and order, a rule of law and peace. Whenever private property and contracts are not legally accepted and enforced, exchange is paralyzed and enormous transaction and insurance costs have to be paid with the result that trade does not pay any more or is restricted to specific luxury goods. If the situation is completely lawless, there is no trade, and instead only barter, plunder and blackmail.

In this respect, the state of the agrarian civilizations has an ambiguous function from the start. It is based on extra-economic coercion, and works as an agent of war, exploitation, tribute, and taxation. Simultaneously, even by its mere pacifying existence the state produces an interaction space for the market. In principle, market and state have a strained relationship. No market works without a legal order guaranteed by a state, but the state is also an impediment for the market, because it intervenes, regulates, and tries to force contributions out of it. This tension describes the problems of a transcending development. The state protects the market only for fiscal reasons and has the final aim of mobilizing economic resources for their more efficient redistribution. It protects the cow to get more milk.

Only the modern (civil or democratic) state becomes a complementary partner of the market by providing security and even services for the economy like civil litigation or law enforcement. A well established rule of law is a precondition for market emancipation. It has to favor a mode of social synthesis that may finally transcend the principle of politics. The civil state thus may destroy its own "political" precondition and lay the foundation for its transformation into a mere service center for an economically integrated society (Creveld 1999).

The state of the agrarian civilizations favors trade if this promises income through taxes and duties. However, princes are always inclined to increase their income by irregular means: arbitrary contribution, confiscation, mandatory loans, state insolvency or bankruptcy, devaluation of money or bonds, expulsion, judicial murder. These methods spread insecurity and paralyze trade and finance. A major problem for rulers was to resist these temptations that could prove self-destructive in the longer run. But if they succeeded in restraining themselves, the result could be that they lost power in the long run, transforming themselves into mere sheriffs of the economy. They begin with the endeavor to stabilize their revenue flow, but ultimately the situation is reversed as the market gains power, the prince is subjected

74 under the law, he becomes the first minister of the state, and finally has to retire altogether. This is the historical process in the course of which the market has emancipated, gained power, and succeeded in subjecting politics to the economy.

In conclusion, we have the following evolutionary process from an institutional view. As redistribution becomes more sophisticated, it becomes weaker and strengthens the market principle as an unwanted side effect. Wherever political power retreats, the market spreads. The market is a potential structure, closely connected with the principle of exchange, so that it necessarily emerges again and again in agrarian civilizations. Its emancipation from the tributary fetters, however, is historically contingent. A unique and highly improbable constellation had to exist that enabled this process: A state (or a multiplicity of states), which is strong enough to provide order and forgoes the chance to use this power to extract exuberant contributions. Such a political constellation may have been singular to Early Modern Europe.

This unique development took place under several favorable conditions. Without a doubt, Europe’s political fragmentation played a role because it prevented particular states from becoming very powerful. Lacking a hegemonic power, massive disturbing interventions into the economy were finally self-destructive. Capital, people, commodities, technology, and information were mobile and migrated quite easily, while the political powers remained fixed to the territories under their control. The new pattern combining the emancipation of a market economy with the transformation of states into service centers for the society could only emerge under the exceptional conditions of fragmentation and free information flow.

As soon as the market had gained some autonomy, a process of positive feed-back started which spread over several functional areas and finally emancipated technological and industrial innovations in a more narrow sense. The pattern of the modern state gained immense substantive power during the course of industrialization to the point that no competing political traditions could resist in the long run. Fortuitous preconditions thus changed into stable systems conditions. This is a process that started only in Europe and was copied by other civilizations with much resistance and under high tension. It does not seem as if it were completed yet.

Preliminary conclusion

However unreliable the statistical data for late imperial China might be (as Raimund Kolb demonstrates in this volume), current research provides the impression that the civilizational

75 level of China was about equal to that in eighteenth century Europe (Wong 1997, Pomeranz 2000, Helbling and Perdue in this volume). This may hold for material standards of living, for civil administration and for transportation, while agrarian productivity even might have been higher due to the multi-cropping system (favoured by climatic conditions). From an “asiaphile” or “sinophile” orthogenetic perspective this might suggest that “Asia” was further “advanced” than Europe (e.g. Frank 1998) with the consequence, that European-American political and economic supremacy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries becomes a larger riddle than it is anyway.

In this debate two contradictory paradigmatic positions can be distinguished: The first position (going back to Marx’ theory of “original accumulation of capital”) proposes that wealth leads to investment, so that the roots of industrialization are searched in previous favouring conditions (e.g. Jones 1987). When it can be shown that Europe was richer than China (due to better ecological conditions, the exploitation of colonies, an agrarian revolution or less frictions by political or military disturbances) it becomes plausible that the next step toward industrialization should take place here, where more means for investment were available.

Critical objections against this position maintain that the conditions in China were not so bad after all, even that the Chinese economy, at least the agrarian sector, was more efficient than that in Europe. On the other hand, social and agrarian historians in the tradition of Wilhelm Abel (1972, 1978) have long been stressing the fact that standards of living in Europe declined prior to industrialization. Thus China seems to have been more prosperous than Europe. But if this was the case, and if prosperity leads to technological and economic progress, why did industrialization start in Europe and not in China?

The complementary position proposes that its is the challenge of scarcity which leads to innovation as a response (e.g. Boserup 1965, Wilkinson 1973). In this perspective the scourge of poverty induces technological and economic progress with the consequence, that it might have been the more prosperous situation in China that prevented industrialization in this country (because there was no need for it, cf. Helbling in this volume). Europe (or at least England) was the region that was confronted with an imminent Malthusian crisis, and the path to industrialization offered an escape from dooming pauperism.

This position coincides with a basic assumption of neoclassic economics, that rising costs generally provoke innovation. This, however, is not the case in most agrarian societies, where there is no guarantee that poverty leads to progress. Widespread poverty may also result in a

76 downward movement with little scope for innovation, but a tightening grip of predatory landlords on available resources (e.g. Tainter 1988). So the impression remains that there was no generalized connection between levels of scarcity and opportunities for innovation in agrarian civilizations, but that the actual response to either depended on specific conditions.

Maybe we can reformulate this issue as follows: The mature agrarian civilizations of the eighteenth century (including the Chinese empire and Europe) had not only achieved a comparable level of social metabolism (energy and material flows), but even showed tendencies to further improvement. These innovations, however, remained within the scope of the agrarian regime with its strong tendency toward a stationary state (or a “high-level equilibrium”, as Elvin put it). The fate of such agrarian innovations has been described by Goldstone (2002) as a mere “efflorescence”, that is a relatively short phase of innovation soon petering out at a new sustainable asymptotic level.

This pattern has only been broken once in history, and that is the core of the industrial transformation in physical terms. In metabolic terms, industrialization is based on the transition to a fossil energy regime that allows its resource base to switch from “organic” to “mineral” material (Wrigley 1962, 1988). When we look for the ignition of this energetic transformation, we have to deal with the British energy system of the eigtheenth century. This is not so much a matter of coal use as such. Coal was used in Europe since Roman times, and coal mining was an important feature of the Northern Song economy (Hartwell 1962, 1967). But sporadic use of coal is not identical with the emergence of a fossil energy regime. For this transition to happen, several basic technological problems had to be solved (cf. Sieferle 2001):

1. Coal mining had to be stabilized und put on a path of continuous growth. This was only possible when one basic limiting feature of mining was overcome: The shafts had to be drained from ground water. Of course, this is a requirement for any kind of mining, and during the history of mining sophisticated technological solutions for pumping water have been developed (especially in China as well as in early modern central European mining districts). But all these technological devices demanded a huge input of energy, above all with horse-gins. The high costs for these devices were not so much a problem when precious metals were extracted (silver, tin, copper). But when an energy carrier as coal is mined, it does not make sense to invest more energy into production than the product contains. In the context of an agrarian regime, the energetic harvest factor had to be positive in all kinds of extractive operations, so the limits for the use of horse power were reached soon. The secular technological solution for this fundamental problem was the

77 Newcomen steam pump. It consumed a relatively large part of the mined coal, because initially its thermodynamic efficiency was below 1%, but without this pump larger amounts of coal would have remained (economically) inaccessible.

2. Mining devices (including steam pumps) as well as many other kinds of machinery need large amounts of iron for their construction. In the context of the agrarian regime, iron smelting was restricted by the huge demand of charcoal. In eighteenth century Europe, the annual yield of about 50 ha coppice land was required to produce one ton of wrought iron. The relative scarcity of land that was a common feature of the agrarian mode of production thus set limits to the growth of the iron industry. The historical solution for this problem was the development of iron production with the help of coal. This, however, was an extremely complicated process that was initially mastered in Britain and took almost one century until it was completed. The difficulties that had to be overcome in coking, melting and freshing cannot be overestimated. This was a complex macro-invention that was in no way historically determined and unavoidable, but was based on a series of fortuitous technological breakthroughs that only happened once in history.

3. The formation of a heavy industry based on coal and iron required adequate transport conditions to overcome the narrow location conditions of the agrarian regime. A first step, building of canals, remained within the scope of the traditional regime, but soon a new transport system based on the steam engine (railroads, steam ships) was developed. This new transport systems combined the use of coal and iron and depended on new invented mechanical devices.

In retrospect we can see that in the formation of the new energetic regime several independent developments had to converge: coal mining with steam and iron, iron production with coal and steam (air pipes replacing waterwheel-driven bellows), railroads based on iron, coal and steam. All these elements had to be present almost simultaneously to form the foundation of a new energy system, and this convergence of several technological innovations was totally unpredictable from their initial conditions.

All this happened in Britain during the eighteenth century, and there is no indication that anything of this kind could have happend anywhere else (neither on the European continent nor in China). So the fundamental breakthrough was initially an English matter, and this really was a “miracle”, a “riddle” or a fortuitous singularity. But this is not the whole story. When we take a look to the greater European context, an explanatory dimension can be reached. We may start with the assumption that the social-metabolic level of different mature

78 agrarian civilizations was quite similar. This can be empirically exemplified with different European countries, and there is no reason to deny the possibility that (however unreliable the data basis may be) the situation in China was not so far from that in these European countries. Let us assume that about 1700 the social metabolism in England, Austria in the advanced provinces of China was on a similar level. A comparison between Austria and England has demonstrated that since the late eighteenth century Britain developed a new metabolic dynamic that transcended this common pattern. In the middle of the nineteenth century there was a large gap between the material conditions in Austria and in England, and we might guess that Austria still was metabolically closer to Chinese conditions than to those prevailing in Britain. During the next 150 years, however, this gap closed with a remarkable rapidity, and today both countries are on a comparable physical level (cf. Krausmann/Schandl/Schulz 2003).

We may assume that in the eighteenth century the differences between the physical-energetic conditions in Austria and England were not larger than those between Austria and China. Since the early nineteenth century, however, England deviated rapidly as well from the Austrian as from the Chinese level. In the twentieth century the English and Austrian economies converged again, while China remained close to the original (agrarian) metabolic level with the total result that the gap between “China” and “Europe” widened (although it started to diminish again since the last decades).

This development suggests the following explanation: One agrarian civilization, namely Austria (but this holds for virtually all European countries), had no severe problem to follow the British example, because both shared common social and cultural features. Industrialization, understood as the transformation of the social-metabolic regime, did start in England, and nothing indicates that anything of that kind could have begun in Austria (or anywhere else in Europe). The ignition of this transformation was an extremely improbable matter, that could only take place under very specific and unpredictable circumstances which presumably only existed in England. But other European societies shared so many conditions with England that – albeit the original ignition did not take place in them – they could switch to this new trajectory with some delay but without any severe problems. This, however, was neither the case in China nor in the Ottoman Empire (but in Japan which succeeded to connect to this pattern with surprisingly little resistance).

From this perspective, we are refered to “soft” issues of cultural traditions again, particularly in two respects: First we have to identify the specific conditions that allowed the English

79 economy to transgress the boundaries of the agrarian ancien regime. It may be true that this question can not be answered in principle, because it was the matter of a highly improbable constellation for which any explanation is possible. Goldstone (2000), for example, sees the origin of British industrialization in the political conditions after the Glorious Revolution that favoured latitudinarism in the protestant orthodoxy, leading to the spread of a Newtonian world-view and a rational style of thinking in the educated society which provoked a common language of inventors and financial interest, and finally the penetration of elements of the New Science (constancy of natural phenomena, systematic protocols of experiments, principle of simplicity etc.) into social strata close to production and mechanical invention. In this situation mechanics like Newcomen, Darby, Wilkinson and Watt laid the technological foundations of the metabolic transformation – a highly contingent historical constellation in which it is virtually impossible to distinguish between necessery and unnecessary elements. If this really was a historical singularity in which several independent political, cultural and social factors and processes came together, it seems to be impossible to reconstruct them in another way than to tell the story just how it happened. This, of course, is not a theoretical explanation but the narrative of an event.

The second question is, why so many regions in Europe succeded in following the British example with only minor problems and little delay, and this question can be expanded to why this new pattern could be accepted in some neo-European regions, that not only showed no resistance but even acquired a vanguard position (USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia), while other neo-European regions (South and Middle America) soon became stuck in a quagmire of stagnation again. A further interesting case is Russia, that is close to Europe, has intensive contact at least since the early eighteenth century, takes part in military competition, tries repeatedly and with vigour to imitate the European path to modern industrial society – and still has almost failed.

These parallel and counterfactual cases suggest that the successful spread of the new industrial pattern cannot be just a fortuitous singularity whose origins lie in unidentifiable fluctuations of original conditions. We have so many cases for a economic success in (neo-) Europe, that they must have something to do with common cultural conditions that formed in longer periods of time and are so inert that they even survived severe political and ideological disturbances (as in Poland, e.g.).

Of course, industrialization is not identical with the transformation of the social-metabolic regime, that is only its physical prerequisite. There are many more aspects and processes

80 involved that emerged quite independently from this transformation, like the factory system, new social relations, the close connection between science and technology and many more. Most of these processes might have been suffocated in a severe Malthusian or ecological crises had there not been a transition to a new energy regime. But this does not mean that their origin is necessarily connected with this energy transition.

In this paper I tried to identify some of the “soft” factors that might have played a role in the making of the industrial transformation in Europe. It should be clear that none of these factors can have acted "causally" in the sense that under any condition its presence must have led to the dissolution of the agrarian regime. Their mere isolated existence is not sufficient to destabilize the strong agrarian pattern. So it is no surprise that we can find one or another of these factors in different historical or geographical situations without any observable system transcending effect. It must have been the specific constellation of forces that could finally have initiated the process of industrialization in Europe.

With a closer look it becomes evident, that for each of these factors there can be identified "forerunners" or previous conditions, so that we could soon play the old game of reconstructing long traditions again. Perhaps we can use the biological concept of preadaptation (or predisposition) to comprehend this matter. For some autopoietic reason there may have originated certain cultural traits in the past that under changed conditions gained an adaptive function they did not possess before. Thus the elements of cultural tradition become important. Traditions are symbolic traits that formed during a bifurcation in the past and stabilized thereafter without necessarily fulfilling an adaptive function. However, when social complexity increases and the adaptive corridor narrows, these traditions are either given up or they have to gain a specific function.

For the explanation of the industrial transformation this has the consequence that there may have existed specific elements of an older European tradition which achieved a new function during the formation phase of this transformation (1750-1850). In retrospect this predisposition seems to prepare the transformation, but we could imagine different counterfactual courses of history in which the agrarian pattern might not have been overcome. Single, if not all these elements of predisposition can be found in other civilizations, too, albeit not in simultaneous combination. The result is that in the distant past or in different cultural contexts we can find multiple factors which became decisive for the transformation, but that does not mean that they would have gained such a function in any cases. They were "causal" only in the sense of being crystallization germs.

81 The process of innovation usually follows an s-curve, whose origin is an unnoticeable fluctuation of the status quo. Only in retrospect can we see that a new trajectory has formed because the early phase of this s-curve lies within the normal fluctuation range of parameters. In principle, this has the consequence that the beginning of an innovation curve can only be identified after the fact. It is an important matter that a small localized distortion begins to consolidate and to fortify prior to reaching the path of self-enhancement. Thus exponential growth can start with the consequence being that its effects at some stage cannot be ignored by observers. Finally, limiting forces become effective (resource depletion, environmental restrictions) so that the curve reaches an asymptotic level. The interesting point, however, is that the ignition of this process lies within normal fluctuations and this is necessarily very hard to identify in retrospect.

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89 Jürg Helbling Agriculture, population and state in China in comparison to Europe, 1500- 1900

Various theories have been put forward to explain the diverging development of Europe and China between 1500 and 1900. The decisive difference between the developments of these two world regions was marked by the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Industrialization was the transition from a mainly agricultural, solar energy based economy to an industrial, mineral energy based economy starting at the end of the 18th century in England (Wrigley 1988, Sieferle 1997 and this volume). An advanced solar energy based economy may display a considerable degree of commercialization and specialization and can have growth of total output and of output per capita, but, as some authors (such as Huang 1990 and Feuerwerker 1992) claim, declining labor productivity (but see Wong 1997 and Li 1998a). A mineral energy based, industrial economy on the other hand is characterized by a massive growth of output, especially in the industrial sector, and by an increasing capital stock (technology) per labor unit and, hence, an increase in labor productivity (cp. Huang 1990:11; Feuerwerker 1992:764ff.; Wong 1997:17f., 27ff., 62f.; Li 1998a:164). Industrialization fostered not only the economic but also the military-political supremacy of the west over the rest of the world since the 19th century. Thus, the time period between 1700 and 1850 must be examined in order to explain why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe but not in China1.

A great number of theories have been put forward proposing various explanations for the divergent development of Europe and China (see Sieferle this volume for a summary). Scholars in Chinese studies, too, have addressed these problems and have discussed them quite controversially (cp. Huang versus Pomeranz 2002 for the latest debate). Two approaches can be distinguished that try to explain why China developed later than Europe (see Riskin 1975, Feuerwerker 1990a). The technologist approach maintains that the growth potential of traditional agriculture was exhausted and that overpopulation and a depletion of resources hampered the industrial take-off. The distributionalist approach sees exploitation of the peasant population, the corruption of state officials, the Confucian ideology, the family structure or an inefficient state responsible for a the delayed development of the Chinese

1 This essay is an enlarged version of a paper given at the meeting of the study group ”Environmental history” on Europe’s special course on Wasan Island. I thank all the participants, especially Rolf Peter Sieferle and Raimund Kolb, for their helpful comments and suggestions. I also thank the Breuninger Stiftung for having sponsored the meeting. I am also grateful to Tobias Haller, Nadja Ottiger, Hans-Peter Müller, Thomas Meyer, Hu Qiuhua and the other participants in a research seminar for having commented on an earlier draft of this article. 90 economy. Thus, the industrialization of China was blocked or hampered either by a deficient pre-industrial agriculture and technology or by a deficient pre-modern state, social structure and culture.

In order to tackle the problem of delayed development of China as compared to Europe, after all pre-industrial agriculture in Europe and in China has to be examined. I will focus on comparing the pre-industrial agriculture in England and Wales, where the industrial take-off took place and which had the most advanced agriculture in Europe, with the agriculture in the most productive provinces of China (Zhejiang, Fujian, Hubei, Guangdong, Jiangxi and Jiangsu). At least three different relationships between pre-industrial agriculture and the industrial take-off may be distinguished. According to the first position, the increase of agricultural productivity – an ”agricultural revolution” – was both a precondition for and a trigger of the Industrial Revolution. Agriculture supplied cheap labor and goods and demanded manufactured inputs such as implements, machines and fertilizers (among many Landes 1973, 1998, Bairoch 1963, 1985). According to the second position, it was a decline of agricultural productivity, leading to rural poverty and a scarcity of subsistence goods (not only food, but also timber and textile fibers) which made innovations necessary. These innovations (use of fossil fuel and of steam engines) later turned out to have initiated an industrial take-off. Later the growing industry supplied agriculture with industrial inputs and attracted rural labor, which entailed an increase of labor productivity in the agricultural sector (Wilkinson 1973). According to a third position, neither the efficiency nor the deficiency of pre-industrial agriculture had an influence on the industrial take-off, which was induced by other factors. Pre-industrial agricultural growth through an expansion of the cultivated area and an increase of land productivity kept pace with population growth. Furthermore, efficient markets and non-farm occupations of rural households contributed to prevent widespread scarcity (Boserup 1972, 1983).

This essay does of course not solve the problem of the delayed development of China as compared to Europe (for recent attempts see Wong 1997, Frank 1998, Pomeranz 2000, 2002, Huang 2002 and others). It only aims at making a contribution to an answer by focussing on agriculture and population. I will narrow my focus even further by concentrating on two influential theories pursuing a Malthusian approach which have been put forward in order to explain the delayed industrialization of China as compared with Europe. According to Eric Jones (1987) the unequal frequency of environmental catastrophes caused different family types in Europe and China. The nuclear family household in Europe and the extended family household in China were responsible for a different reproductive patterns and different

91 predispositions for saving, investments and for technological innovation thus explaining stagnation in China and economic progress in Europe2. Mark Elvin’s (1974) theory of the ”high level equilibrium trap” postulates a vicious circle between population growth, intensification of production, population growth and declining labor productivity, reduction of savings and investments, which result in stagnation and growing poverty in China3. Hence, both Jones and Elvin are proponents of the technological approach assuming that the pre- industrial economy in Europe was more productive and more effective, and that it had more growth potential than in China. Because China was caught in a Malthusian trap of stagnation, the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe (i.e. in England) and not in China. We will deal with Chinese agriculture until 1930 in order to test the Malthusian propositions.

By discussing these two theories I will mainly focus on population and agriculture in China (or the most productive provinces of China) and compare them with Europe (especially with England). I am fully aware of the fact that the empirical data on China (and on Europe), which I use in this essay, are not too reliable. The methods are rather crude and not as sophisticated as those used by others. The statistical data may pretend more precision and exactitude than they actually have. The figures are often speculative and always conjectural, and even with decimal places they only allow for statements such as ”may have been lower or higher than or about the same as” and ”probably has increased or declined”. It is thus largely an exercise in ”qualitative statistics”. Some experts in China studies are very skeptical about using any kind of statistics. These objections do sometimes veil their general dislike for generalization and comparison and their preference for local history and for philology. However, it makes no sense to postpone such generalizations – as provisional and approximate as they may be – until we possess all the data, which will never happen. Unfortunately we have to work with the data we have and cannot use the more accurate and more reliable ones, which we do not have. We may nevertheless try to make reasonable “guesstimates” of trends and magnitudes from the available data. After all, such generalizations open the way for new questions, for refuting older attempts of generalizations and for reformulating old questions more precisely. While the available data may not be good enough to present an alternative to the theories put

2 I am aware of the fact that Jones’ theory is more sophisticated. He also mentions the different institutional framework in Europe and China as an additional explanation. According to him the European states began to grant secure property rights to wealthy citizens on whose consent for tax increases they depended and, thus, furthered the market system and the increase of wealth (see also Jones 1996 and North/Thomas 1973). By contrast, the Chinese state was too weak to have positive effects, but strong enough to have negative ones, as Wong (1997:14) puts it. However, I will not discuss this aspect of his theory. 3 Huang (1990, 2002) is arguing in a very similar way. In an involutionary process – as he coins it – growth of total output and even per capita goes together with a declining labor productivity due to a low rate of capital per labor unit. He also considers – and in contrast to Elvin – product, factor and credit markets in China as being inefficient. 92 forward by Jones and Elvin, they may be sufficient to test the empirical plausibility of their propositions. The theories put forward by Jones and Elvin may be considered as Malthusian in the sense that they maintain a specific relationship between population, resources and technology. Jones tries to explain why positive checks (i.e. macrodemographic slumps) prevailed in China but preventive checks (adaptive strategies by households) prevailed in Europe. In doing so, he elucidates the economic consequences of both the ”expansive” and the ”adjusting” reproductive strategy, already described by Malthus (1992:218, 1986:140ff., 475). Elvin has argued that population growth and intensification of production in late imperial China lead to resource depletion and average labor productivity declining to subsistence level. Both authors maintain for China that population grew faster than food production (i.e. that productive surplus was eaten up by population growth), that technological improvements only played a minor role and that resource scarcity and population pressure could only be mitigated by macro-demographic reductions. This theory, however, has been heavily contested in the last few years as far too simplistic and empirically not always plausible. First, preventive check on population growth, i.e. adjusting the number of children to available resources was also the dominant reproductive strategy of Chinese households. Furthermore, positive checks did play a far less important role as had been assumed. Second, the quantity of resources is not as limited as maintained by Malthusian theory, and technological innovations may enhance productivity and change the production function. Agricultural production can be intensified under conditions of population pressure, urbanization and market incentives as Boserup (1983:205,208; 1987:691, 697f.) and Netting (1993:276-282) have emphasized. The result of this intensification of production may not only be an increase of land productivity but sometimes even of labor productivity as well (cp. Boserup 1983:186). Thirdly, not just economic factors, but also political factors (state and institutions) should be considered in explaining the diverging development of Europe and China, as the distributionalist approach claims (cp. Osterhammel 1995). Let us now turn to Jones’ theory first.

I. Risk management, family types and development

1.1 Jones’ theory The theory put forward by Eric Jones (1987, 1991) basically consists of three elements:

1) Jones maintains that in China natural and social disasters (such as earthquakes, floods, droughts, famines but also epidemics and wars) were more frequent and more massive than in

93 Europe. According to Jones, wars, epidemics and crop failure reduced ”human capital” whereas earthquakes and floods, being more frequent in China than in Europe, mostly affected ”material capital”. Through such disasters China lost not only more people (human capital) but also far more material capital than Europe. This was because the complex irrigation agriculture in China was more susceptible to such catastrophes than the relatively simple but more resilient European agriculture (1991:42).

2) In order to cope with this higher level of environmental risks, the extended family household (as an insurance community for the redistribution of food and exchange of labor) prevailed in Asia, whereas in Europe the nuclear family household prevailed because there was less need for risk avoidance. According to Jones, the difference between the Chinese ”extended family” and the European ”nuclear family” explains the divergent development of China and Europe for the two family types had different consequences for production and reproduction.

3) Members of nuclear family households, prevalent in Europe, could internalize the production increase of their higher work effort. Because a nuclear family household had to care for its own children, it adjusted their number to its income/wealth. Hence, a nuclear family household provided incentives for increasing production and for controlling reproduction through ”preventive checks”. Thus, it furthered an entrepreneurial spirit, technological innovations and – in the end – industrialization. In ”Asia”, on the other hand, nuclear families shared their products within the extended family household, so that even ”lazy families” were provided with food. Therefore, saving, investing and extra work by an individual household did not payoff. Because the extended family household also cared for the children, the reproductive strategy of nuclear families was expansive. Because both production yields and reproduction costs were not internalized, there were no incentives for production but high incentives for reproduction. As a consequence, production and industrial development were hampered and the population growth was high.

This theory may be criticized on several grounds. In what follows I will discuss environmental disasters, household strategies against risks and reproduction strategies.

1.2 Natural and social disasters The main causes of an erratic increase in mortality rates in China were wars (invasions and civil wars), crop failure and famines (following wars, locusts, floods and droughts) but also

94 epidemics (Perkins 1969:24f.; Chao 1986:28; Eastman 1988a:4; Mark 1998:328f.)4. However, it is unclear whether such disasters were more frequent and severe in China than in Europe. The data presented by Jones (1991:30ff., 37) are not very conclusive.

1.2.1 Floods, droughts and famines

Floods and droughts may have occurred more frequently in China (Gernet 1988:415ff.; Chao 1986:37f.; Eastman 1988a:4; Perkins 1969:23f.; Ho 1959, chap. 10). According to Chao (1986:207) large floods increased in frequency by 2.5 cases per 20 years on average between 1470 and 1900, although according to Li Bozhong (1998b:453) there was a flood in Jiangnan each 3.7 years during Ming, but only each 4 years during Qing times. The frequency of floods and droughts could not be decreased despite big efforts in water control (cp. Wang/Zhao 1981; Perkins 1969:28; Mark 1998, chap. 10; Needham/Ronan 1995:199; Liu 1986:62f.). However, contrary to Jones’ proposition of a high susceptibility of irrigation agriculture to environmental crises, agricultural infrastructure could be repaired and fertility of arable land be restored as quickly as the local population could recover. This could be observed after the crises in the middle of the 17th and of the 19th century (cp. Perdue 1987:211-219; Will 1980; Pomeranz 2000:42). According to several authors (Ho 1959, chap. 10; Chao 1986:31f.; Lee/Wang 1999:35f., 45, 173) famines were not more frequent in China than in Europe. And if they occured, they were the result of political and organizational failures rather than of overpopulation (Gernet 1988:514f.; Lee/Wang 1999:36, 173). Famines – in China as in Europe – often broke out after wars or epidemics. Malnutrition and hunger were just as common in China and in Europe during both normal times and in times of crisis (Boserup 1987:697; Montanari 1993:119-208 and Ponting 1991:88, 105ff., 318ff. on Europe; Mallory 1930:94f.; Ho 1959:292-300 on China). Furthermore, famines seem to have had a far smaller impact on mortality than epidemics and wars as even Jones (1991:39) admits (Li 1982:691; Ho 1959:256; even Malthus 1798 cited in Lee/Campbell/Wang 2002:593f., 597).

1.2.2 Epidemics and wars

During the Ming and Qing times epidemics were an important mortality factor. In some areas they reduced the affected population by 15% to 25% and more (Elvin 1973:310f.; Marks 1998:219; McNeill 1994:211, 269-276; Appendix II.2 and 3). However, it remains unclear whether such epidemics were more frequent in China than in Europe. Europe, too, was affected by various epidemics: plague until the 17th and smallpox until the 18th century;

4 Earthquakes have occured more often in China than in Europe. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (1998.4:323) they caused 1.030 mil. casualties in China between 1556 and 1915, but only 0.252 mil. in Europe,

95 cholera ravaged in the 19th century and typhus fever during the whole period (Vasold 1991, chap. 5-8). Before 1750 the European population fluctuated more strongly due to crop failure, famines and epidemics than the Chinese population (Myers 1980:26f.; Lee/Wang 1999:35, 173). Epidemics (and wars) are exogenous and not density-dependent as far as their occurrence did not depend on resource pressure. Interestingly enough, the population decrease (a loss of human capital), due to epidemics and wars, did not lead to an increase of output per capita, but to a decrease due to the destruction of capital stocks instead, i.e. through the neglect of fields, vineyards and orchards (Boserup 1987:699 for Europe; McNeill 1998:37; Deng 1999:189 and Myers 1970:124 for China). During the Taping rebellion of 1853 to 1864 the population in Jiangnan was reduced by around 50%. However, agricultural production (both land and labor productivity) did not increase (Li 1998:12,160), as predicted by Malthusian theory, but declined.

According to Jones, war represented an even greater disaster than other catastrophes (1991:39; see also Chao 1986:31). The population decline between 1850 and 1875 due to war and famine is estimated at 30 to 50 (10 to 80) million (Ho 1959:247f.; Gernet 1988:469; Perkins 1969:28f.; Appendix II.3). In Europe, however, wars appear to have been more frequent than in China until the beginning of the 19th century, largely due to its system of competing territorial states (on Europe cp. Beer 1981:24ff., 28ff., 45ff.; Wright 1942,I:656- 665, tables 31-41; Levy 1983:88-91). In the endemic wars in Europe, each state tried to weaken its rivals and to become stronger at their expense. A large portion of the agricultural surplus was spent on weapons and armies, especially after the ”gun powder revolution” (McNeill 1982). Simultaneously armies pulled labor force out of the agricultural sector, and war destroyed not only human but also material capital in huge quantities (Boserup 1987:698ff.; Myers 1970:124; Pomeranz 2000:42). In contrast to Europe, relative peace and stability ruled in China – with the exception of invasions and insurrections between 1630 and 1660 – up to the end of the 18th century, but in the 19th century the Chinese state was faced with several popular uprisings and wars against foreign invaders (Gernet 1988:299f., 353, 368, 399ff., 469; Wright 1942,I:594, tables 31-41).

It is difficult to see from these data that environmental and social risks have been more frequent and more severe in China than in Europe. Let us now turn to Jones' conception of household strategies aimed at coping with environmental risks.

thus a rate of 4:1 being much lower than assumed by Jones. 96 1.3 Household strategies against risk It is important to distinguish between an environmental disaster and its consequences for a population, because households, villages and the state pursue strategies to minimize risks and to mitigate the adverse effects of environmental disasters.

1.3.1 Production strategies

Households are the most important economic units (for production and consumption) in peasant societies; villages – with between 100 and 600 inhabitants the next larger unit – consist of households endowed with different amounts of land and wealth5. Rural households pursue several strategies, in order to produce enough food for their subsistence and for taxes and rents as well as to cope with environmental risks (such as pests, crop failure, loss of labor force and price fluctuation). These strategies include a production target above subsistence level and household granaries, the diversification of crops and of field locations, additional agricultural (animal husbandry) and non-agricultural activities (such as handicraft production and wage labor) and the saving of income for times of penury. Households within a village may cooperate, although this appears not to have been common both in China (Stover/Stover 1976; Netting 1993:240) and in Europe (cp. Popkin 1986). Wage labor, land renting, money lending and selling products besides cooperation and mutual support between neighboring households whether related by kinship relations or not were the most important relationships between households in a village (Myers 1975:265-270). Furthermore, peasants refused to pay rents – in China roughly one half of the agricultural output of a household – or reduced them in times of crises. The landlords could not prevent them from doing so, as Chao (1986:190ff.), Eastman (1988b:78) and Stover/Stover (1976:164) write. This can be interpreted as an additional buffer against bad harvests. Minimax-strategies of peasant households in China – as in other peasant societies – largely followed the slogan ”safety first” (Barlett 1980, Lipton 1968, 1982, Grigg 1982, chap. 7, Ellis 1988, Netting 1993). Peasant households allocated their resources to activities where income gain might be highest, as Myers (1975:271; 1991:614) points out. They did not only aim at providing security and an adequate standard of living, but also were strongly motivated to do better than their ancestors. Thus, hard work, accumulation of wealth, relentless struggle to improve social status and economic welfare were properties of a Chinese household (Myers 1975:271ff., 1991:617f.; Brandt 1989:20) as well as a high propensity to save some cash for investments (Myers 1991:620f.)6.

5 Household is the smallest residence unit, family the smallest kinship unit. 6 The difference between autosubsistent, Chayanov peasants and profit maximizing, neoclassical peasants is not as big as often assumed. In principle Chayanov peasants reduce production, whereas neoclassical peasants 97 1.3.2 Correlation of risks

It is important to distinguish between different kinds of risk. There are risks such as crop failure and loss of labor force which do not affect all families to the same extent (non- correlated risk). Hence, pooling the resources of the households of an extended family would make sense, although production strategies of households can usually cope with these risks (in combination with a limited cooperation between neighboring households). Cooperation between the households of a village was possible whether they were related by kinship or not. There were village associations for mutual assistance (labor, water buffaloes, ploughing), for the management of the irrigation and water control system, for tax collection as well as credit associations and others. Clan and village leaders were often instrumental in taking the initiative in forming such associations. However, often the relations between the households even related by kinship were market transactions (such as buying food, renting land, hiring wage labor, taking a credit), as Myers (1975:265-270,274f.) points out. The risks which Jones considers as being more frequent and more serious in China than in Europe, i.e. floods, droughts, locusts or earthquakes, however, do affect all households in a village or even in a region alike, and cooperation of households within extended families was useless. Under such conditions, the regional dispersion of nuclear families made more sense than forming extended family households. Nuclear families from an affected area could then take refuge with their relatives living in another place not affected by penury or emigrate to a thinly populated region and finding help from state officials or local gentry. Hence, extended family households as units for risk reduction seem to be neither necessary nor profitable.

1.3.3 State and environmental risks

The Chinese state played an important role in coping with environmental risks. It massively invested in infrastructure (dams and other water control systems, measures against locusts etc.) in order to reduce the occurrence of droughts and floods and eventually also pursued reforestation both for fuel and hydrology (McNeill 1998:37). Encouraging emigration and colonizing new land, the promotion of new crops and new cropping techniques were long-

increase production with rising prices. Self-sufficient households have to increase production if the marginal utility curve moves upward due to a growing preference for new goods, growing investments and increasing consumer prices. They also produce the same amount of goods with less effort if the marginal disutility (production costs) curve moves downward with the use of more efficient production technology, with an increasing percentage of workers and growing market prices. They may also increase production at constant costs in this case. The neoclassical households would behave the same way, although labor costs would be fully accounted as wages in this case. Although Chayanov peasants do not account household labor at wage costs, they may seasonally hire workers if real wages are lower than the marginal physical product or doing wage labor if marginal physical product is lower than real wage (Harrison 1982, Calavan 1984, Ellis 1988). 98 term coping strategies by the state on behalf of the peasant population. The state also contributed to mitigate the consequences of disasters once they had occurred: by means of public granaries on all administrative levels, tax reductions, transport of grain from surplus areas into deficit areas etc. (cp. Rawski 1998:121; Perkins 1969:173; Perdue 1987:18; McNeill 1998:37; Marks 1998:435, 445)7. Annually up to 5% of the total rice production were stored in public granaries (cp. Lee/Wang 1999:172; Deng 1999:181; Will/Wong 1991, Appendix; Li 1982, Lee 1982, Bin Wong 1982). The effectiveness of this granary system also depended on the political effectiveness of the state on the different administrative levels and on the transport infrastructure (roads and rivers), neither of which was always in good condition (Mallory 1930:94f.; Baker 1930; Fei 1946:8; Elvin 1974:303f.; Eastman 1988d:105f.) However, McNeill (1998:34ff.) states that the transport system of the two main rivers, the grand canal as well as of the vast system of small rivers and canals, connecting a wide range of ecological zones, allowed for the transport of bulky goods and for an efficient market system. Although in the north of China land transport prevailed (Eastman 1888d:103ff.), the transport system in the whole of China was not matched by any other transport system in the world. It contributed to the wealth and the resilience of the Chinese state, which only became surpassed by the British Empire in the 19th century. Even Elvin (1974:303ff.) refers to the efficiency of water transportation mentioning Adam Smith who already observed the low transport prices and hence the lower prices for goods in China.

In contrast, European states mainly concentrated on collecting taxes (with the exception of cities which opened granaries in times of crisis), although from the 18th century onwards they, too, started to invest more in infrastructure such as melioration, transportation and propagation of agricultural innovations. Famines resulting from floods, droughts and pests may thus be explained by political and organizational problems rather than by overpopulation (Lee/Wang 1999:36; McNeill 1998:37).

1.4 Reproductive strategies of households The most important argument against Jones’ theory, however, is the fact, that also in China the nuclear family household (or the stem family) was common. According to Neo- Malthusian demographers, nuclear family households and preventive checks prevailed in Europe, extended family households and positive checks in China (Haynal 1965, 1982, Macfarlane 1978, 1986, 1987; Malthus 1986:109,236). The prevalence of the ”Asiatic

7 During the revolution of 1912, the contents of the public granaries were sold by state officials and have never been restocked (Mallory 1930:95). 99 extended family” is a myth, as Goody (1990:114) and Hsu 1943 (in Stover/Stover 1976:157) among others have demonstrated. This myth emerged because the elite family in China was compared with the average family in Europe. However, preventive reproduction strategies were also widely practiced by households in China, even though the marriage age was lower than in Europe.

1.4.1 Size of households

Chinese households consisted of about 4.45 persons on average as an evaluation of data from the 16th to the early 20th century shows, but somewhat higher after the beginning of the 18th century when census methods improved (Ho 1959; Fei/Chang 1945, Fei 1939; Chao 1986:34ff., Appendix I.1). This average size is even lower than that in Europe (ø 4.8 in England, cp. Laslett 1972:146; Segalen 1990:43) and Japan (ø 4.9, Nakane 1972, in Goody 1990:114). Even if the average household size in China may have been somewhat higher (4.95 between 1728 and 1933), it is still true that it was not considerably higher than in Europe. Furthermore, it should be stressed that household size does not primarily depend on the man-land ratio, but rather on the labor requirements of a farm of a given size(Li 1998a:135). This can be seen from an example of Jiangnan where household size did not increase after the 50% reduction of the population in the middle of the 19th century (Li 1998a:140).

1.4.2 Reproductive strategies

All (peasant) households pursued certain reproductive strategies, in order to adjust the number of their children to the available resources: by varying marriage age as in Europe or by infanticide and birth spacing as in China. We learnt a lot about these strategies from the publications by Lavely/Wong (1998), Lee/Wang (1999), Lee/Campbell/Wang (2002) and others on the reproductive strategies of households in China. Two preventive strategies of population control were prevalent in China: (female) infanticide and a low total marital fertility rate (TMFR).

Female infanticide amounted to between 20% and 25%, and probably to as high as 50% of all new-borns in peasant households in China (Lee/Wang 1999:51; Ho 1959:58-62), although the practice was condemned by Confucian scholars and prosecuted by the state. The high sex ratios point to high rates of female infanticide: 137 men per 100 women for all age categories, 186 men per 100 women for those under the age of 16 and 193 boys per 100 girls at the age of

100 one year between 1770 and 1934 (cp. Appendix I.2)8. Infanticide (female and male) varied with economic conditions. Infanticide increased with increasing grain prices (as an indicator of bad harvests)9. Infanticide was an important preventive check on population growth: a female infanticide rate of 10% would reduce population growth by around 30% (Lee/Wang 1999:51, 110f.). Infanticide was not common in Europe (but cp. Russell 1948 and Langer 1972 in Wilkinson 1973:73f.; Dickemann 1979:350-358); however intentional neglect of new-borns occurred and had the same effect, as Harris/Ross (1987:6, 15, 100) point out.

Even more important than infanticide were deliberate adjustments in marital fertility (Lee/Campbell/Wang 2002:598ff.). Between 1550 and 1931 the average marriage age of women in China was 16 to 19 years, therefore 5 to 10 years lower than in Europe (Lee/Wang 1999:65ff.). Nevertheless, the total fertility rate (TFR) was not higher than in Europe and the total marital fertility rate (TMFR) was even lower than in Europe (Lee/Wang 1999:84f.; Lee/Campbell/Wang 2002:595f., 603). According to these authors, a married woman in China had given birth to less than 6 children on average, whereas in Europe a menopausal woman had given birth to 7.5 to 9 children (Lee/Wang 1999:8, 86f.). This lower TMFR was due to a late beginning and an early end of reproduction (i.e. a shorter reproduction period from the first to the last child than in Europe) as well as to birth control (birth spacing of 33 months vs. 25 months, contraceptive measures and abortion). Therefore a woman in China had given birth to 2-3 children less than an average woman in Europe (Lee/Wang 1999:88ff.). If Chinese families with their low marriage age had reproduced with the same high TMFR as in Europe, the population growth would have been around 50% higher than it actually was (Lee/Wang 1999:107f., 194; Lee/Campbell/Wang 2002:602).

The infant mortality was about 50% (for children under 15) with the mortality of girls being somewhat higher. Hence, adoption played an important role. About 10% of all sons and more than 10% of all daughters-in-law were adopted (Lee/Wang 1999:8,107ff.). Interestingly enough, the mortality of older men did not vary with the existence of sons or grandsons. Thus, it could be argued that the provision for old people did not correspond to the Confucian ideal of filial piety (Lee/Wang 1999:113). Generally, China had a higher standard of hygiene than Europe: boiling of water, use of soap, taking baths, a relatively varied food-intake, smallpox

8 At the lower and middle Yangzi and in the southeast China about half of the newborn, above all girls, were killed (Lee/Wang 1999:47,60). Among the peasants of Liaoning between 1774 and 1873 about one fifth to one fourth of all female new-borns were killed. Not only female infanticide was practiced infanticide but also mortality of girls between 0 and 5 years was higher than that of boys: 20% more girls than boys died (316:1000 or 266:1000), as Lee/Campbell (1997) show (Lee/Wang 1999:51). The decline of infanticide and infant mortality in the late 19th century was responsible for the increase of female life expectancy (ibid.:52-56).

101 inoculation etc. (Lee/Wang 1999:45; Mote 1977:199; Pomeranz 2000:38). The birth rate in China was generally lower than in Europe (Li Zhongqing 1994:3). Because the population increased by a higher rate in China than in Europe between 1500 and 1750 (by ø 0.37% and ø 0.28%) and by a slightly lower rate between 1750 and 1850 (or by ø 0.46% or ø 0.53%), the mortality rate in China must also have been lower than in Europe, given the lower birth rates in China (Pomeranz 2000:38, 41).

Ironically, it was from the middle of the 18th century on the eve of the industrial take-off when English population grew with increasing speed and it was then, when output per capita decreased, although productivity per worker increased. It is true that these values also declined in China between 1700 and 1800, but less so than in England, and they increased again from 1800 until 1930 (cp. Appendix VIII.1 and 2). So it was in England where the increase in production output was eaten up by population growth rather than in China.

1.4.3 Size and income of households

The effectiveness of preventive reproductive strategies in China can also be seen from the correlation between household size and household income/wealth: rich families lived in extended family households, whereas poor families lived in nuclear family households10. Both in Europe and in China the size of households varied according to income or land resources (cp. Herlihy 1998:59-66 on Europe).

Rich families could keep their sons after their marriage in the paternal household while poorer families could not (cp. Goody 1990:98ff.; Lee/Wang 1999:64f, 80ff.; Freedman 1966:45; Stover/Stover 1976:148-159; Faure 1989:90). Furthermore, in poorer families the mortality (infanticide, infant and general mortality) was higher and the fertility (TMFR) lower than in richer households (Croll 1987:122; Cohen 1976:65ff.; Goody 1990:99f.; Fei 1939:35; Wolf 1985b, Wolf/Hanley 1985:7; Coale 1985; Harrell 1985:108f.; Harris/Ross 1987:77f., 97ff.). Richer households often joined up to form effective lineages that also managed common property, while poorer families only possessed a common ancestor shrine (Goody 1990:77, 98, 104, 109). Even among the rich the redistribution of resources within the lineage was

9 Deng (1999:200f.) observes a high elasticity of Chinese population to a variation of agricultural output: a lower output reduced the birth rate, an increasing output increased it. 10 Cp. among others Ho (1959:10ff., 17ff., 42, 56-62, 86), Goody (1990:98-109, 211), Freedman (1958:15, 27ff.), Fried (1953:70f., 86), Fei (1939:33), Stover/Stover (1976:158f.), Chao (1986:247), Lee/Wang (1999:97), Lee/Campbell (1997:180-183) and Appendix I.3). It was only in the second half of the 19th century that nuclear family households became prevalent among the urban neo-gentry (see Stover/Stover 1976:158). 102 limited. For instance, the members of the same lineage were only accepted as tenants if there were no alternatives (Myers 1975:274; Stover/Stover 1976:153f.)11.

1.5 The collectivization of agriculture Although Jones’ proposition does not apply to Chinese demography until the middle of the 20th century, his proposition concerning the negative economic and reproductive effects of ”Asiatic extended families” – ironically – only became true between 1950 and 1978 when Chinese agriculture had undergone a collectivization of Soviet style. The crucial production units were no longer households, but teams, brigades and communes. The households cooperated within these units which had the effect predicted by Jones for extended family households: low production incentives (the household income did not depend on its work effort) but high reproductive incentives (the costs of raising children being externalized by the households). It was in the 1950s and 1960s when population grew by more than 2% per year and pre-industrial agriculture was not longer able to meet the food requirements of the Chinese population (Perkins 1969:78). It was only in 1979 when collectivization was replaced by the ”household responsibility system” described by Netting as the reintroduction of the traditional Chinese model, that population growth decreased and agricultural productivity increased again. The agricultural output increased, because households could again internalize the yields of their additional work effort and invest their savings in more efficient technology. At the same time, the population growth decreased because the households had to internalize the costs of raising children (Myers 1980:23ff.; Netting 1993:232f., 244-249; Perkins 1969:139; Lee/Wang 1999:27, 114ff.; Croll 1987:122).

The objections to Jones’ proposition may be summarized as follows. First, environmental disasters were hardly more frequent in China than in Europe. Second, those disasters considered by Jones as being more frequent in China (such as floods and earthquakes) were correlated risks against which the formation of extended family households was not an effective strategy. And third, the household size was not higher in China (but rather lower) than in Europe.

Let us now turn to the second, more sophisticated theory of the ”high-level equilibrium trap” by Mark Elvin. Elvin’s book (1974) was one of the few, which tried to transcend local and regional studies and to present a comprehensive view of China’s economic history. Even if

11 On the other hand, landless families, who depended on wage income as laborers, had more children (Netting 1993:269ff.). 103 his main proposition can not be accepted, it was still an excellent endeavor, which has to be pursued.

II. High-level equilibrium trap

2.1 Elvin’s theory Mark Elvin asks why no industrial revolution took place in China, despite important preconditions were given such as a well developed banking and manufactural sector, a highly efficient market and transportation system, wealthy firms and capital in considerable quantities (1974:286ff., 295ff.). Furthermore, the state did not hamper economic development (ibid.:289-294) – contrary to Jones’ (1996) assumption –, and market transactions were quite secure and regulated by legal contracts (ibid.:295ff., 300, cp. Eastman 1988d, Rowe 1990). Elvin sees the main reason for the economic stagnation in pre-modern China in a lack of technological progress (ibid.:298). However, even Elvin mentions several technological innovations during Ming and Qing times and writes, ”Clearly, the term technological stagnation is a misleadingly oversimple description of this period” (1974:298).

Elvin’s (1974) theory of a high-level equilibrium trap maintains that 1) the population grew faster than the expansion of the cultivated area; this led to a decreasing land-man ratio, which necessitates the intensification of production. 2) Labor input increased as did output per area (land productivity), but because the former increased faster than the latter, the output per person (or worker, hence labor productivity) decreased. 3) Growing labor input necessitated higher birth rates (children as labor force) that led – as a consequence – to higher population growth. 4) This, however, aggravated the scarcity of land even more, and as no free land was available anymore, the production had to be intensified further. 5) This reduced income and savings which in turn hampered investment in agriculture (land, draft animals, machines). The decreasing demand for capital goods was paralleled by a decreasing supply of raw materials because metal, timber and coal stocks became increasingly depleted and expensive. 6) This also prevented the accumulation of capital needed for an industrial take-off, which could absorb agricultural labor, supply agricultural input and increase labor productivity. The consequences were a growing impoverishment of the population and a vicious cycle from which there was no escape (Elvin 1974, chap. 17, see also Ho 1959:226 and Chao 1986:6- 9)12.

12 According to Elvin, it was only when the Chinese domestic market was opened to the world market in the middle of the 19th century that commerce and industry began to grow, especially in the port cities; and it was the 104 According to Elvin, a population grows and the production is intensified until the potential of a pre-modern agriculture is reached (see graph in 1974:313). Elvin maintains that the growth potential of Chinese agriculture was exhausted by the end of the 18th century (ibid.:306), but it is not clear what Elvin means by ”exhausted”. It could be either that the output per capita reached its peak and declined thereafter or that the output per capita reached subsistence level13. The crucial values for the theory of the Malthusian trap are average and marginal output per capita. According to Elvin, occasional relief occured only through positive checks such as epidemics, wars and famines like those during the 19th century (1974:312ff.). However, at the same time, markets were highly efficient as was the transportation system, and merchant capital was available in considerable quantities (1974:286ff.). Because of the efficiency of markets and transportation no scarcities emerged for a relatively long period of time, and therefore there existed no pressure for technological innovation (ibid.:314). The argument that scarcity leads to innovation and plenty prevents it, is remarkable because it contradicts somehow Elvin’s own main argument that it was scarcity that prevented innovation. I will come back to this later.

Huang has proposed a theory, which is similar to Elvin’s. Huang (1990:13, 145, 239, 1991:629f., 2002:514ff.) sees the agriculture in late imperial China caught in a process of involution, which is characterized by diminishing labor productivity (output per working time) although, according to him, total output and output per capita continued to increase. Huang asserts that population pressure and land pressure had several consequences. First, agricultural production had to be intensified, which increased total output and even output per capita, but decreased labor productivity. Second, peasants increasingly turned to cash crops (cotton) and handicraft production, which required substantially more labor than grain production and had a much lower labor productivity. Third, the intensification of grain production forced peasants to give up livestock, which not only prevented an increase in the ratio of capital per labor but also an increase in animal manure for enhancing land

historic contribution of the modern West to ease and then to break the high-level equilibrium trap in which China was caught and to promote rapid commercialization and industrial growth (ibid.:315, 319). 13 Elvin’s argumentation resembles the theory of the optimum population. The optimum population in an agricultural system is reached, when the average output per capita becomes equal with the marginal output per capita. If the population further increases, the average output per person begins to decline, and there is growing underemployment, until output per capita reaches subsistence level, when overpopulation and growing impoverishment are increasingly felt (cp. Grigg 1982:23f.). However, Elvin assumes that the production function and the level of technology are held constant, which seems not to have been the case (cp. Deng 1993:199f.). Grigg (1982:25-31) mentions alternative and more plausible modes of measuring overpopulation. These include indicators such as increasing prices for agricultural products, a growing percentage of landless households, unemployment and falling real wages, a slow introduction of technology, deterioration of food quality and intake and mounting use of marginal land. 105 productivity. Fourth, farms became smaller thus hampering economies of scale. Fifth, an excess of cheap labor was a strong disincentive for capital investments. Furthermore, and in contrast to Elvin, Huang maintains that product, factor and credit markets were inefficient in China, even in its most productive and commercialized regions (1990:130-133). Despite new seeds, fertilizers and the introduction of mechanized irrigation in the Yangzi Delta between 1890 and 1937 and despite increasing wheat and cotton outputs, labor productivity decreased, according to Huang (1990:239).

To be sure, I do not maintain that there were no growth limits in a pre-industrial agriculture such as the ones suggested by Elvin and Huang. But, first, a Smithian economy (Wong 1997:29) like the Chinese with a highly efficient market had probably more growth potential – through intensification, technological progress, land improvement, specialization and commercialization – as Elvin and Huang thought, and it allowed total output and output per capita and even labor productivity to grow further. Second, there was a balance of population and resources in China considerably above subsistence level (Wong 1997:29). Third, the growth potential of China’s pre-industrial agriculture was not exhausted until the middle of the 20th century (Perkins 1969, Feuerwerker 1990, Deng 1999), and the limits of growth had been probably reached in Europe earlier than in China. Fourth once an industrial economy is established (and land reforms and other institutional change have taken place) the growth of agricultural production will continue by increasingly using inputs from the industrial sector (Lippit 1974, 1986).

The theory of the Malthusian trap can be criticized in various respects: in regard to the mechanisms of the equilibrium trap and in regard to the empirical data. To present my critique, I will divide the theory into its components: 1) population, 2) cultivated area, 3) ecological conditions, 4) total output and land productivity, 5) intensification of production, 6) technological innovations, 7) labor productivity, 8) living standards, 9) reproductive strategies and 10) non-agricultural household production. I should stress again the fact that data on population and agriculture in pre-industrial societies are always questionable, but unfortunately we do not have other more reliable data.

2.2 Demographic development 2.2.1 Population growth

The demographic development in pre-modern societies is difficult to estimate and the estimates are always questionable (see Kolb in this volume). Estimates of the Chinese

106 population can be found in Ho (1959), Chao (1986:35-41), Eastman (1988a:4), Perkins (1969:16), McEvedy/Jones (1978:171), Liu/Huang (1978:29f.), Zhao/Xie (1988) and in many other sources (cp. Appendix II.1 and 2). The figures diverge: Chao and Zhao/ Xie give lower figures (even lower than the official data) for the 16th, the 17th and the 18th century, whereas McEvedy/Jones provide higher figures for the 19th century. However, all estimates show about the same general trend of Chinese population development. According to a plausible estimate the Chinese population increased from 103 million in 1500 to 340 million in 1800, i.e. a factor 3.3 or a 0.4% per year, especially between 1700 and 1800 (Liu/Huang 1978:29f., cp. Appendix II.2). The European population rose from 81 million (1500) to 180 million (1800), that is a factor 2.2 or 0.27% per year on average (McEvedy/Jones 1978:19)14. The following table on population and growth rates tabulates the figures given by McEvedy/Jones (1978) on Europe and by Liu/Huang (1978) on China (cp. Appendix II.4 and 5)15.

Table 1: Estimated population and growth rates in Europe and China compared

Europe China Europe China m m % per year % per year

1500 81 103 1700-1750 0.61 1.27 1550 88 146 1750-1800 0.44 0.54 1600 100 160 1800-1850 0.62 0.38 1650 105 123 1850-1900 0.79 -0.06 1700 120 138 1900-1950 0.60 0.75 1750 163 260 1800 203 340 1500-1750 0.28 0.37 1850 276 412 1750-1850 0.53 0.46 1900 408 400 1750-1900 0.61 0.29 1950 549 580 1700-1850 0.56 0.73

The average growth rate of the Chinese population during the Ming and Qing dynasty was on average 0.4% to 0.5% per year. It was only in the 1950s and 1960s that growth rate climbed to 2%, while the world population rose by 3% per year (Perkins 1969:24f., 77). A maximum

14 The European population, especially, increased in the middle of the 18th century. This growth was the result not of a decreasing mortality rate (due to a better medical system), but of an increasing birth rate resulting from an expansion of handicraft production. Handicraft production had raised the value of children as laborers, thus making possible both economic independence of a family household at an earlier date and hence earlier marriage (Slicher van Bath 1963:77, 97; Wrigley/Schofield 1981:417f.; Wilkinson 1973:74). 15 The numbers given by McEvedy/Jones (1978), Liu/Huang (1978), Perkins (1969), Eastman (1888a:4) and Braudel (1990a:36) do not vary greatly. However they all diverge from Deng (1999:361f.) who claims an incredible population increase from 27.36 mil. in 1734 to 208.10 mil. in 1766 which would amount to an annual increase of 6.55%. 107 growth rate of 1.0% per year has probably never been exceeded in pre-modern China (Chao 1986:30; Myers 1980:7)16. The growth rate of Chinese population was not extraordinarily high when compared to Europe (the tables in Appendix II.3, 4 and 5 also show this). The Chinese population increased with an annual average rate of 0.73% between 1700 and 1850, during which the population in Europe increased by 0.56%. Already between 1800 and 1850 as well as between 1850 and 1900 population growth was higher in Europe than in China. However, between 1900 and 1950 the Chinese population grew at a slightly faster pace17.

In general, population growth is not necessarily negative as assumed by the Malthusian theory. If a society is able to nourish its population, it cannot be called overpopulated. Only the rapid decline of a population within a generation due to a density-depended factor such as famines would be an indicator for overpopulation. There was a considerable population growth in China as compared to Europe between 1700 and 1850. Thus, under the condition that the population adapts to a variation of agricultural output with high elasticity, as it was the case in China, population growth points to a superior capacity of Chinese agriculture to feed its population, not to overpopulation. It was only when wars broke out or a natural catastrophe occured destroying large quantities of resources, that a situation of overpopulation in fact might have emerged (Deng 1999:180, 199f., 207ff.). As Boserup (1981:3; 1983:186f.) has maintained population pressure may lead to emigration and ultimately to an intensification of production and to technological progress. Intensification of production raises not only the output per land unit, but may also increase the output per labor unit. One reason for this is that only a higher population density makes investments in infrastructure profitable, causes markets to develop and to increase in complexity and furthers the division of labor and specialization, thus contributing to an increase of production and productivity (we may speak of a ”demography of scale”). Therefore, the net effect of population growth can in most cases be seen as positive18. On the other hand a decline of the population is paralleled by a de-intensification of production. This can lead to a neglect of maintenance and a decrease of investments in capital stocks (terracing, irrigating systems, reforestation, roads and canals), and market exchange and trade will also shrink in volume. Furthermore, not only

16 The growth rate of 1.27% between 1700 and 1750 is exceptional and probably due to the territorial expansion of the Qing state to the west and the north (Gernet 1988:403ff.). 17 However, in England, the most productive region in Europe, population annually grew by 0.03% between 1700 and 1750, but by 0.80% between 1750 and 1800 and even by 1.43% from 1800 to 1850 (Grigg 1982:187, 213, Schofield 1981:64, also Appendix VIII.1.1). 18 There are alternative modes of adjustment at a higher population: more grain instead of cattle (fields instead of pastures), more tubers instead of grains, more trade and import of food as well as emigration and population limitations. 108 the total production output but also labor productivity will decrease (Boserup 1987:98f.; McNeill 1998:37; Li Bozhong 1998:12, 160; Deng 1999:200).

2.2.2 Geographical distribution of the population

The Chinese population was concentrated in areas, which were well suited for irrigation agriculture in south and central China. Under the Ming dynasty there was mainly migration from the densely populated Yangzi region back to the north, which had become more secure after the military control of the borders. Migrants also headed for the thinly populated areas in the southwest. Under the Qing the outer parts of China in the northeast and southwest were settled (see Liu 1986:32-38; Lee 1978). Between 1700 and 1900 the population in less densely populated areas increased by rates of 1%-2%, whereas the average growth of the Chinese population was only at 0.5 to 1% (Lee/Wang 1999:116f., 195; Myers 1980:8). An estimate of the population densities in the eight macro regions is found in Skinner (1977 in Myers 1980:11; Appendix II.6). However, in order to test the Malthusian theory, population figures should be compared with the cultivated areas and the land suitable for agriculture as well as with the total agricultural output.

2.3 Cultivated land 2.3.1 Total cultivated area

The expansion of agricultural land was important in order to increase the total output. It has been estimated that the agricultural land increased from 38 million ha around 1500 to 82 million ha around 1900 and to 111 million ha in 1957. Data are provided by Perkins (1969:16, 240), Chao (1986:87) and Heijdra (1998:452 (cp. Appendix III.1) as well as by Liu/Huang (1978:29f.; cp. Appendix III.2, and Grigg (1974:88), cp. Appendix III.3). The following data are taken from Liu/Huang:

Table 2: Estimated cultivated area and land-man-ratio

m ha ha/p m ha ha/p

1500 38.67 0.38 1800 71.20 0.21 1550 39.07 0.27 1850 80.67 0.20 1600 44.67 0.28 1900 81.73 0.20 1650 40.00 0.33 1910 89.40 0.21 1700 53.93 0.39 1930 100.47 0.21 1750 60.00 0.23 1957 111.86 0.17

109 There was still unoccupied land in the 20th century in China (Buck 1937:169; Cressey 1930:3, 1934:95, 97, 1955:105). The north had been pacified and the frontiers secured against warlike peoples from the steppes, and the state encouraged the colonization of these areas. Thus, while the south was settled earlier, it was the north that received most migrants later. Whereas the cultivated area in northern China increased from 16 million ha (1766) to 47.4 million ha (1933), it only rose from 42.6 million to 47.4 million ha in the fertile regions in southern and central China (Myers 1980:8). From the middle of the 19th century to 1957 the cultivated area still increased by 40%, above all in Manchuria and Mongolia. However approx. 80% of this land was of inferior quality (Perkins 1969:27). The distribution of agricultural land in southern and northern regions fluctuated between 1400 and 1957 (Perkins 1969:18; cp. Appendix III.4).

2.3.2 Cultivated area per person

A general trend showing a decreasing ratio of land per person can be observed: from 0.38 ha/p in 1500 to 0.20 ha/p in 1900 and to 0.17 ha/p in 1957, as table 2 shows (see also Perkins 1969:16, 240; Chao 1986:87; Heijdra 1998:452; Liu/Huang 1978:29f.; Appendix III.1 and 2). However, this general trend of a decreasing land/man ratio in China is not unique as the even lower land/man ratio in Japan shows (cp. Appendix III.6).

A decreasing land-man-ratio is often considered as the main cause for a failed transition to a more capital-intensive production and to a capitalist economy (see Huang 1990, 2002, Chao 1986, Elvin 1974). According to neo-Malthusian theory, population growth reduces the land- man-ratio and – as the intensification of production cannot keep pace – to a decline of labor productivity and of living standard19. However there are several arguments against this proposition: 1) A declining land-man-ratio neither does entail a specific production function nor does it imply a declining living standard. Technological improvements went on during Ming and Qing times and changed the production function accordingly (Deng 1993, Kolb this volume). Thus, it is a clear indicator of technological progress when a population grows and the land-man-ratio decreases. On the other hand, population growth with a constant or an increasing land-man-ratio points to land expansion and thus extensive growth (Deng 1999:188ff.). 2) The reduction of a population by famines, epidemics, wars and other positive checks did not promote a more capital-intensive production, as predicted by Malthus. It is

19 Although there were some Malthusian voices in China during the 18th and 19th century such as Chu Lun-han, Chu Yun-chin and Hung Liang-chi, there were also proponents of an anti-Malthusian approach as Pao Shih-chen who defended a mercantilist theory in the early 19th century. According to him, the larger the population, the greater the wealth of the state. He saw the main reason for a stagnating productivity in the agricultural sector not in a high man-land-ratio but in the inability of the state (Elvin 1974:308f.). 110 rather a rapid population decline together with the destruction of productive resources such as working animals, fields and infrastructure that may lead to a decline in production. 3) Even the technological process in European agriculture until the middle of 19th century was not labor saving, as Chao (1986:227) maintains, but rather land saving (Mokyr 1990:165) because there was an excess work force (Deng 1999:190; Grigg 1982, 1992).

2.3.3 Quantity and quality of cultivated and cultivable land

Agricultural land of high quality (river valleys, plain, deltas and mountain basins) only amounted to 15% of the total area of the 355.34 mil. ha in the agricultural heartland of China’s 18 provinces. Soil fertility as well as the population density was higher in these areas than in marginal regions (Cressey 1934:95, 97, 1955:105; Stover/Stover 1976:91,98; Myers 1980:11; Elvin 1974:305; cp. Appendix II.6 and III.5, and Grigg 1974:88, cp. Appendix III.3). However, it cannot be deduced from higher population densities in the more fertile areas that there was no unoccupied land available elsewhere.

The 28 provinces of China encompass 802.27 mil. ha. The ”agricultural area” (excluding mountains, deserts and steppes) was about 309.78 mil. ha in 1915, only 83.64 mil. ha of which were actually cultivated. This amounted only to 27% of the agricultural land, although in the North China plain 66% and in the Yangzi plain 71% of the land was cultivated (Cressey 1930:3). According to other figures the cultivated area amounted to 92.94 mil. ha in 1914, 112.48 mil. ha in 1916/17 and 83.25 mil. ha in 1932 (Cressey 1934:95,97) and 94.04 mil. ha in 1946 (Cressey 1955:105). According to Baker the agricultural land not cultivated amounted to 280 mil. ha, a figure, which fits the data given by Cressey, but Buck (1937:169) considers them as being highly exaggerated. According to him only 11% of the arable land was not cultivated, and the cultivated area amounted to 87.96 mil. ha in the early 1930s, being 25% of the total area of China (Buck 1937:167). With 11% of the arable land not being cultivated, the total arable land would amount to 98.83 mil. ha. But according to a survey in 1992 the total cultivable land was 144 mil. ha (communication by Kolb 2002). So even with a conservative counting, there was still unused land in the 1930s and the 1940s, let alone the potential for further intensification (Buck 1930:111-115). The agricultural land still expanded until the 1980s (Qu/Li 1994:45). The difference between cultivable (arable) and cultivated land may be explained by the strong preference for irrigation agriculture (Stover/Stover 1976:97f.). However, the cultivation of unused areas would have been possible by using other, more extensive agricultural techniques (dry agriculture, cattle raising) and other crops (Buck 1933:1ff.; Perkins 1969:57-60). The introduction of new crops such as maize and sweet

111 potatoes in the 16th century was an important precondition for colonizing marginal regions (Ho 1959:83-192; Mote 1977:203). However, it was only during the Qing time when the full potential of these new crops was slowly realized (Stover/Stover 1976:114).

The high population density in fertile areas does not, therefore, point to a general scarcity of agricultural land. The unequal population densities such as the direction of migration flows of settlers can be explained in different ways. 1) The push-factors for migration may not have been strong enough: The potential for increasing yields in high-density areas was not yet exhausted and emigration on a large scale was not a profitable option (cp. later). As Boserup (1981) maintains, land use is not decisively limited by soil fertility or other ecological parameters, and the limits of carrying capacity can be pushed further up by new techniques of intensification even in pre-industrial agriculture (Netting 1993:263)20. But also the pull- factors for migration were probably too weak. 2) Marginal areas at China’s border were insecure for a long time and attacks by warlike peoples from the steppes and hill tribes in frontier areas hampered immigration. After the state had established law and order in these regions, immigration however soared (Lee/Wang 1999:116ff., 195; Eastman 1988a:10ff.; Feuerwerker 1990:232f.; Hucker 1998:120f.). The state encouraged the colonization of thinly populated regions by providing seed, work animals and agricultural implements and by offering tax exemption (Hucker 1998:116; Eastman 1988a:12f.; Ho 1959:83-192; Spence 1977:263; Eastman 1988c:82). 3) Immigration was also hampered by the fact that marginal areas were not integrated into a market system because of their poorly developed transport infrastructure (Elvin 1974:304). However, this would have been an important pull-factor because of the importance of rural handicraft production. Handicraft production (cloth and yarn) depended on the access to markets (selling yarn and textiles, buying raw material and consumer goods). A well functioning market system existed only where the population density was high and the transportation system well-developed (Netting 1993:292f.)21.

2.4 Ecological conditions Yet another factor should be addressed, which can also represent an important push-factor for migration: ecological degradation. In southern China the cultivated area was expanded through land reclamation at the expense of lakes, swamps and forests. The loss of these

20 This also holds true for European agriculture. As Slicher van Bath (1963:279ff.) shows, Dutch and English farmers in the vicinity of cities had outstanding harvest rates for wheat of 1:17 and 1:20 in the 16th and 17th century. He notes that these high yields were achieved on low fertility soils but with a high input of manure (ibid.:259f.). 21 According to Fisk (1964:157) peasants also intensify their production, when they are more integrated into a market system. 112 natural water reservoirs caused an increase in floods and droughts (Chao 1986:205f.). The clearing of new land as a consequence of population growth had caused deforestation in northern China at an even earlier date. The north became increasingly susceptible to droughts and silting of rivers, which caused floods, erosion and desertification (Chao 1986:202f., see above chap. 1.2.1). However, it is important to note that an overuse of land resources and its consequences such as deforestation and erosion mainly occurred in the thinly populated hill and border areas where extensive shifting cultivation was practiced (cp. Osborne 1998 on the highlands of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi and Anhui). In the more populous core regions, where intensive cultivation was practiced, hardly any such damage was caused. Although these regions were also affected by the consequences of resource overuse in the marginal areas, the impact was not always negative (fertilizing fields with loamy water and silt, cp. Eastman 1988d:122f.; Netting 1993:237; Perdue 1987:20f.). When population density and market integration (transportation system) increased, intensification of production with investments in land (such as terracing, irrigation etc.) also paid-off in marginal areas (Netting 1993:237; Eastman 1988b:66). This, again, does not support the Malthusian view of things.

According to the Neo-Malthusian theory, the Chinese environment was heavily strained which in turn strongly affected the economy and contributed to its decline. As previously noted, the ecological conditions most probably worsened in China in the course of time. However, the same was true for Europe. As a result of economic growth during the 16th and again the 18th century large parts of Western Europe became deforested. In the economic core areas of Europe timber stocks were more massively depleted than in comparable areas in China, where the per capita supply of wood was higher than in Europe, if one believes Pomeranz (2000:12f.). Massive erosions, dust storms and a decline in agricultural yields were the indicators of an ecological crisis, leading even to a climatic change in Europe comparable to the one in northern China today: a European monsoon with erratic precipitation which was highly detrimental to dry land agriculture (Blaickie/Brookfield 1987:129-140; Pomeranz 2000:56)22. China had suffered dreadful erosions over the millennia – as Anderson (1988:133) states –, but if it had been eroded at the pace in the American Midwest, it would have ceased to produce food many centuries ago.

22 The forests in central Europe (but not in England) only began to recover in the first half of the 19th century after the onset of the Industrial Revolution. And consequences of deforestation disappeared as the increased use of coal had increased and substituted for forests. Furthermore, land intensive crops such as cotton (for hemp), sugar, later grain, wood, meat, wool were imported, thus substituting for domestic arable land. Moreover new crops such as potatoes were increasingly used that had far higher yields per ha than the traditional European crops (Pomeranz 2000:57f.). 113 2.5 Crop yields in Chinese agriculture Crop yields are crucial in order to evaluate the Malthusian theory on Chinese agriculture. I will briefly mention some characteristics of Chinese agriculture, followed by a discussion of total output and land productivity in Chinese agriculture.

2.5.1 Characteristics of Chinese agriculture

About 80% of average consumption (and production) consisted of grain: millet in the north, rice in central and south China, wheat in all regions, but especially in the north (see map in Buck 1937:25, 27). Various vegetables provided 15% of the food consumption and meat only accounted for about 2-3%. Beans, especially soybeans were important sources of protein (Eastman 1988b:62; Ho 1959, chap. 8; Mote 1977:200; Anderson 1988:125, 128f.).

During Ming and Qing times, high yielding wet rice cultivation prevailed in the south and the center and wheat and millet production in the north, the portion of the latter growing faster than that of the former during this time period (Elvin 1974:306; cp. Appendix III.4). In northern China dry agriculture dominated, as it did in Europe. The crucial problem in the northern dry regions was to regulate the large rivers in order to prevent floods and droughts. This was largely done by the state. Iron ploughs and seed-drill machines were the most important technology, which had already been in place since Han and Tang times (Bray 1984:101-108; Eastman 1988b:70). In the north wheat yielded 1.6 times more on irrigated land than on non-irrigated, marginal land (Elvin 1974:307). In the wet rice areas in the center and south of China the irrigation system (to control the flow of water to and from the fields) was decisive. The irrigation systems were mostly local or regional, and they were built and maintained by village communities or local lineages. The influx of loamy water, nitrogen fixing blue algae, decaying plant material, watertight soils, protection from wind erosion and excessive heat as well as the input of manure may explain why soil fertility was high and did not decline but often even improved over the years and centuries (Grigg 1974:75ff., 82; Bray 1984:106f., 111; Stover/Stover 1976:100; Li 1998:9, 171). Hill areas were also used for agriculture, but most often for extensive agriculture as already mentioned. Irrigated terraces were built in the south. Dry terraces were common in the north but were increasingly irrigated later (Bray 1984:125f.; Eastman 1988b:66).

There were only relatively few work animals (fields instead of pastures) in Chinese agriculture. Only the richer families owned work animals, which performed tasks otherwise done by people (pulling the plow, carrying loads and pumping water). However, rich farmers and landlords lent their work animals to poorer households (Perkins 1969:57; Stover/Stover

114 1976:100). On the other hand, pigs and fowl (chickens, ducks), which did not compete with humans for food, were quite numerous (Perkins 1969:71ff.). They not only served as food but also for waste disposal, as suppliers of manure and to fight pests (ducks against locusts). In rivers, irrigation canals, water reservoir, ponds and rice fields, fish and other aquatic animals could be found in large quantities (Mote 1977:201; Anderson 1988:129).

2.5.2 Total output

The total output of Chinese agriculture in grain and tubers increased by factor 6 between 1400 and 1900 and from 1900 to 1957 once more by factor 1.5 (Perkins 1969:23-36). However the output of the Chinese economy and agriculture fluctuated. Economically China was in an expansive phase between 1500 and the 1820s, except from the period between 1630 and 1680. After the 1820s, floods and droughts, a deflationary crisis, various rebellions and wars, which caused destruction of property and loss of lives, and a weak state contributed to a general decline of the economy. However, the agriculture recovered after 1860 but the great depression, natural disasters and civil wars of the 1930s and 1940s again caused an economic decline and widespread misery (Myers 1980:5f., 20ff.; Perkins 1969:29; Gernet 1988:331, 350, 362ff., 407, 469; Lee/Wang 1999:115)23. Rawski (1989:330f.) has estimated that agricultural output grew by 1.4% to 1.7% (1% to 2%) per year between 1914/18 and 1931/36, in the 1920s by about 1.5% or by about 1% on average between 1911 and 1957 (Perkins 1969:29).

These fluctuations of the total output can be seen from the data provided by Liu/Huang (1978:31-34). They estimate the total output (in billions kcal) from the average yields/ha and the cultivated area. Converted to million tons, the total output of Chinese agriculture increased from 27.456 mil. t in 1500 to 103.252 mil. t in 1900 and 163.161 mil. t in 1957 (cp. Appendix IV.1). Deng (1999:180) proposes another method of calculating the total agricultural output. Considering the fact that the population adapts to a variation of agricultural output with high elasticity and assuming that food intake per capita did not vary greatly over time, he calculates the total agricultural output as the product of the consumption per person and the total population. The daily consumption of an adult is estimated at 0.5 kg husked rice and that of a child below 15 years at 0.25 kg. Since adults make up about two thirds of a population and children one third, the daily consumption of one million people amounts to about 416 tons of grain or 151’840 tons in a year. As production figures are usually given in unhusked grain, but consumption figures in husked grain, we have to adjust the consumption to

115 production figures, 1 kg of unhusked grain roughly corresponding to 0.86 kg of husked grain. This makes about 180 kg of unhusked grain per person and year, which, multiplied by the total population, gives an estimate of the minimum total output (cp. Appendix IV.2). Data provided by Perkins (1969:17, 19) suggests a higher total output (cp. Appendix V.4 and 5). Between 1400 and 1900 the increase of the total agricultural output was 45% due to an intensification of the production (higher yields per ha) and 55% due to the expansion of the cultivated area, as Perkins (1969:33) shows (Appendix IV.3).

2.5.3 Land productivity

Population growth and a declining land-man ratio necessitated an increase of output per unit of land. Intensification means increasing yields per land unit either by higher labor input, more capital inputs and/or new technologies (Netting 1993:262). The increase in land productivity between the 14th and the early 20th century is uncontested, both of various grains (such as rice, wheat and millet) as well as with regard to the output of ”total grains” (including grains and tubers; Perkins 1969:13). Elvin doubts the numbers given by Perkins (1969:17, 19; cp. Appendix V.4 and 5) without giving empirical evidence for his doubts. Deng (1999:186, 361f., 1993:201ff.) suggests that land productivity may be computed by the population subsisting of the land and the cultivated area feeding the population. Thus, the higher man/land-ratio results in a higher land productivity, which was the case in China as the declining land-man-ratio in Table 2 shows. The increase of land productivity can also be shown more directly.

Rice, millet, wheat

The average land productivity in rice production slightly decreased from 3410 kg/ha in the 17th century, but rose again to 3105 kg/ha in the 18th century and to 4869 kg/ha in the 19th century. It more than doubled from 2250 kg/ha (around 1400) to 4869 kg/ha (1899) as a result of a massive intensification of production (cp. Appendix V.1). Rice yielded harvest rates (harvest output to seed input) between 1:50 and 1:100 (Bray 1984:380, 476, 287). In some areas two or even three harvests a year were possible or five harvests in two years. Even in 1932 rice yields in China were at 2724 kg/ha whereas the world production average was at 1614 kg/ha (Cressey 1934:100).

Millet also allowed for harvest rates of between 1:50 and 1:100; and while it yielded a lower output per ha, it also required lower labor input than rice (Chao 1986:199f.; Bray 1984:287;

23 In the 1950s not only the population but also the economy began to grow rapidly. Between 1949 and 1977 the agricultural sector increased by 4% per year (Myers 1980:22f.). 116 cp. Appendix V.2). Therefore, rice and tubers displaced millet as the population increased, because higher yields per land and absorption of labor force became more important.

Wheat yielded harvest rates up to 1:20 during Ming and Qing times (Bray 1984:379, 476). According to Yu (1980) output of wheat was at about 1314 kg/ha during this time period (cp. Appendix V.2). In Europe, even in England, harvest rates of only 1:11.6 (1800-1820 and 1895-1914) were reached, in the rest of Europe even less than 1:6. During the alleged agricultural revolution in Europe the harvest rates only doubled from 1:5 to 1:10 (Slicher van Bath 1963:173-176; Grigg 1982:174f.; Turner/Beckett/Afton 2001:167, 218). Even according to Elvin (1974:307f.) wheat yields per ha in 1920s were higher in China than in pre-industrial Europe. Whereas in China in the 18th and 19th century 14 bushel wheat/acre were harvested, it was only 9.5 bushel in France at the end of the 18th century. In China wheat production was at 1002 kg/ha (China) when the world average was at 941 kg/ha (Cressey 1934:100).

Total grain

Total agricultural output is commonly measured in ”total grain” including grains and tubers (Perkins 1969:13) or as in other tables: all grains excluding tubers. The yields of total grain per ha increased from 898 kg/ha in 1400, to 1676 kg/ha (1776), 2193 kg/ha (1851), and 2773 kg/ha in 1957 as Perkins (1969:19) shows (cp. Appendix V.4 and 5). The data provided by Liu/Huang (1978:31-34) and Deng (1999:180) on the whole of China also show an increase of average yields per ha (Appendix V.7 and 8). Note that Deng’s figures represent estimates based on the minimal subsistence need of the Chinese population, whereas Liu/Huang and Perkins extrapolate land productivity from reported yields/ha. The figures given by Perkins (1969:17, 19) were higher than those provided by Liu/Huang but less complete. I have estimated some of the missing data by assuming that Perkins’ data set shows about the same fluctuation as that provided by Liu/Huang.

Table 3: Estimated land productivity Perkins Liu/Huang Deng kg/ha kg/ha kg/ha

1700 1463 813 461 1750 1698 1096 780 1800 1792 1195 860 1850 2008 1284 919 1900 2088 1305 881 1910 2068 1293 851 1930 2130 1331 860 1957 2422 1463 1041

117 As we can see from these figures, there were times when land productivity declined, but all the data point to the fact that there was no general trend toward declining yields per ha in China, contrary to Elvin’s (1974:307f.) assertion. The figures given by Perkins (1969:19) also show a considerable regional variation in yields. Table 4 presents data on yields per ha for the whole of China (kg/ha 1 and kg/ha 2, according to two estimates by Perkins 1969:17, 19; see Appendix V.4 and 5) as well as for the four most and the four least productive provinces. The average land productivity in the four most productive provinces was roughly 1.7 times above the average of the whole of China between 1776 and 1851. The average output per ha in the four least productive provinces was about 2.1 times below the average of all provinces in this time period (cp. Appendix V.6).

Table 4: Regional variation of land productivity

China most prod. least prod. kg/ha (1) kg/ha (2) kg/ha kg/ha

1776 1522 1676 2807 773 1851 1822 2193 3614 970

Data on Jiangnan and Songjiang are computed from Li (1998:138ff., 151) and for 1930 from Faure (1989:46, see also Lee 1998a:126, 1998b:481).

Table 5: Land productivity (rice and wheat) in Jiangnan and Songjiang

Jiangnan Songjiang kg/ha kg/ha

1550 ... 2095 1620 2322 2619 1820 ... 4018 1850 3260 3801 1930 3660 3038

Land productivity in the four most productive provinces of China contrasted favorably with land productivity in England and Wales. Between 1700 and 1850 the land productivity in England and Wales, the most prosperous country in Europe, was at 1402 kg/ha on average, whereas in the four most productive provinces of China it was at 2958 kg/ha, which is 2.1 times higher than in England and Wales. Whereas land productivity in the four most productive provinces of China increased by factor 1.4 between 1700 and 1850, it rose by an

118 average factor of 1.9 in England and Wales, as table 6 shows (cp. Appendix VIII. 1.5 and 3.4)24.

Table 6: Land productivity in England and Wales and the four most productive provinces in China compared25

England & China 4 Ch4/ England & China 4 Wales E&W Wales kg/ha kg/ha % %

1700 995 2487 2.5 1700-1750 0.35 0.30 1750 1182 2887 2.4 1750-1800 0.51 0.11 1800 1521 3046 2.0 1800-1850 0.45 0.23 1850 1908 3413 1.8

Ø kg/ha 1402 2958 2.1 1700-1850 0.43 0.21 factor 1.9 1.4

2.6 Intensification of production The intensification of Chinese agriculture geared to increasing land productivity, included new crops, multi-cropping, more irrigation, more manure and higher labor input.

2.6.1 New crops

Already in the 11th century new rice varieties with a shorter maturing time were introduced from Vietnam. The reduction of maturing time from 180 days to 130 and later even to 100 days allowed the multi-cropping of rice (and wheat). Drought resistant varieties made possible the expansion of rice cultivation in the north and into the hilly areas of the south (Eastman 1988a:7; Chao 1986:200; Perkins 1969:39f., 49ff.).

From the 16th century new crops introduced from South America played an increasingly important role. The cultivation of sweet potato expanded in the hilly areas, in the 18th century in the Yangzi-area and the coastal region of Shandong and in the 19th century even into the northern plains where it pushed back and replaced millet, barley and sorghum. Sweet potato yielded 7440 kg/ha in 1932, and yields were probably not lower in earlier times (Cressey 1934:100). Also maize (1200 kg/ha) and potatoes (5633 kg/ha) (as food for the poor or as pig fodder) as well as peanuts (1868 kg/ha) played an important role (Cressey 1934:100; Simoons

24 Also the total output of grain was somewhat higher in China (increase factor of 2.2 between 1700 and 1850) than in England and Wales, where it increased by a factor of 2 (Allen, Turner & Grigg; see Appendix VIII.1.5). 25 Data for England and Wales: Allen (1994), Grigg (1982), Turner/Beckett/Afton (2001); for China: Perkins (1969). 119 1991:122-126; Ho 1959:83-192; Chao 1986:201; Eastman 1988a:7f.; Perkins 1969:48; Stover/Stover 1976:114; Mote 1977:203, 263; Anderson 1988:96ff., 115).

2.6.2 Multi-cropping

As early as in the 12th century there was hardly any fallow land in China, a point Europe only reached in the 18th and the 19th century after the much-celebrated ”agricultural revolution”. Double cropping of rice was widely practiced from the 17th century onwards, especially in the southeast (Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi). In southern and central China, two rice harvests were possible per year, or rice was rotated with wheat, as in the lower Yangzi region (Buck 1937:25, 27, 62-72, 82-86). In the north inter-cropping of wheat, cotton and beans was common (Perkins 1969:41-56; Grigg 1974:86f.; Bray 1984:507)26. The multi-cropping index (MCI) measures the number of harvests per field and year. The average MCI rose from 1.3 in the late 17th century to 1.4 in the middle of the 19th century, and decreased again to 1.3 in the 1930s as more marginal land in the north was cultivated (Chao 1986:199, Appendix III.1).

2.6.3 Irrigation

Large river regulation systems – built and maintained by the state – prevailed in the north (where erratic precipitation could cause floods), whereas in the south and center, regional irrigating systems were built and maintained under the guidance of district officials, local gentry or by village communities and local lineages. After wars and floods the damaged irrigation infrastructure was quickly repaired (Perkins 1969:27, 60-68; Stover/Stover 1976:101, 171ff; Bray 1984:108ff.; Eastman 1988c:92ff.; Rawski 1998:121). Thus, the contrast between the resilience of European agriculture and the susceptibility of Chinese agriculture to environmental disasters as asserted by Jones seems to be exaggerated, to say the least.

Water control systems were expanded (Needham/Ronin 1995:199) as was the irrigation infrastructure. Between 1400 and 1900 the total irrigated area is estimated to have risen from 9.6 million ha to 23.3 million ha, whereby the main growth took place in the 16th century (Perkins 1969:64). The irrigation technology (water wheels, contour cultivation etc.) was further improved during the 16th century (Mokyr 1990:222f.; Bray 1984:458; Needham/Ronin 1995, see also Kolb, this volume), in contrast to the proposition of technological stagnation after the 15th century, made by Elvin.

26 The use of late-ripening intermediate rice and early-ripening late rice was optimal, being a precondition for double-cropping (Li Bozhong 1998a:122; 1998b:473ff.). 120 2.6.4 Manure

Manure was a decisive variable for the maintenance of soil fertility and increasing yields (Bray 1984:289-298; Li 1998a:15, 46-50; Eastman 1988b:70). The example of China shows, that the manure input does not depend on the number of domestic animals because human excrements were also used as manure (for Europe cp. Slicher van Bath 1963:259f.). An average peasant household in China produced about 7460 kg of animal and human manure per ha in 1929/33. In the wheat region it amounted to 5857 kg/ha and in the rice region to 8757 kg/ha (Buck 1937:259) 27. Since population grew about twice as rapidly as did the cultivated acreage, the amount of human manure per land unit also doubled. The number of draft animal and hogs, and thus the increase in animal manure roughly paralleled population growth (Perkins 1969:71). If night soil is used as manure, parasites may spread in the fields, causing anemia and intestinal diseases. However by fermenting the manure long enough, these parasites were killed, and by boiling water and food the transmission of diseases could be prevented. This method which was practiced since the Han times (cp. Bray 1984:290f.; Eastman 1988b:70; Anderson 1988:125). Besides human and animal manure, lime, mud and feathers and waste of all sorts were also used as manure. Since the 16th century beancake was increasingly used as fertilizers (Perkins 1969:70f.)28.

2.6.5 Higher labor inputs

Yields per ha were also increased by higher labor inputs (more labor days per year), especially for more careful dyke building, transplanting of rice seedlings and for weeding.

The transplanting of rice seedlings into the fields yielded higher outputs – especially through higher harvest rates – than broadcasting (hand sowing) as it was practiced in Europe. It also allowed for a more efficient use of land (Stover/Stover 1976:98f.). Furthermore, careful planting facilitates weeding, which can raise yields by about 45% (Bray 1984:299; Grigg 1974:82). And new methods to fight pests also increased productivity (Elvin 1974:299; Mokyr 1990:218; Bray 1984:381ff., 49ff., 476, 505f., 545).

27 According to a conservative estimate of manure content this equaled to 47.4 kg (37.2 and 55.6 kg) of nitrogen, 15 kg (11.7 and 17.5 kg) of potassium and 6.2 kg (4.9 and 7.3 kg) of phosphorus (King 1911:193ff.). One kilo of manure per mou (i.e. one fifteenth of a ha) raised yields by around 15-20 kg (Grigg 1974:87; Perkins 1969:70ff.; Mokyr 1990:209; Stover/Stover 1976:99; Eastman 1988b:68f.; Anderson 1988:99). One kilo of amoniumsulfate (= 2 kg bean cake) yielded 6 kg extra rice or wheat. During the Qing: 40 jin (20 kg) bean-cake per mu (one fifteenth of one ha) resulted in an increase of 80 jin (40 kg) of rice (Li Bozhong 1998b:475). For the history of a hypothetical atom of nitrogen, cp. Anderson (1988:126f.). 28 In Jiangnan beancake became a labor saving innovation in the late 17th and 18th century as green manure was more labor intensive, although it did not increase yields more than other manure. It was fairly expensive and was mainly imported from Manchuria (Pomeranz 2002:582ff.). 121 There were only relatively few work animals, as mentioned above. However, the number of work animals is hardly an indicator of productivity. Around 1750 dry land agriculture in Shandong could sustain 155 persons per sq.km without food imports, whereas in Holland it only sustained 62 person per sq.km with additional grain imports. Thus, even with a higher number of work animals European agriculture was not more productive than the Chinese one (Pomeranz 2000:33, 45).

To conclude, the economic potential of pre-industrial Chinese agriculture was not yet exhausted even in the 1930s. Total output of Chinese agriculture grew parallel to population, due to increase of the cultivated land area and land productivity (Appendix V.3). The cultivated land was expanded, although at a lower pace than population grew. Furthermore, the production was intensified (increasing land productivity) in order to cope with decreasing land-man ratios by using better seed, expanding multi-cropping and irrigation, by higher input of manure as well as by a more efficient use of labor. In the context of intensification we have to discuss technological progress versus stagnation, a point raised by Elvin.

2.7 Technological innovation The theory of the Malthusian trap makes the assertion that technological stagnation prevailed in China since the 15th century. After various agricultural innovations had been made after all during the Han (220 B.C. and 220 A.D.), Wei (221-580) as well as during the Song dynasty (961-1279), technological development stagnated after the 14th century (Elvin 1974, chap. 17; Chao 1986:194f.; Jones 1981:160; Liu 1986, chap. 3). According to Elvin this technological stagnation is the crucial explanation for the Malthusian trap of growing population and increasing resource scarcity in which pre-modern Chinese agriculture was caught (cp. the graph in Elvin 1974:313)29. However, even Elvin mentions several technological innovations during Ming and Qing times and he admits: ”Clearly, the term technological stagnation is a misleadingly oversimple description of this period” (1974:298). And he concludes that the discussion of agriculture, technology and population leading to a high-level equilibrium trap is ”in some ways inconclusive” (Elvin 1974:312).

29 Similarly Huang (2002:507) sees the explanation of Chinese involution as the result of higher work inputs (intensification) and a low rate of capital per labor unit (1990:13,143) and a low saving and investment rate (ibid.:130ff.). According to Huang, total output and even output per capita (by 0.5% annually) were still growing between 1910 and 1930, labor productivity was declining. However, it is doubtful whether the rate of capital to labor unit was indeed lower in China than in Europe, considering the fact that irrigation agriculture required a high capital asset with dry agriculture considerably less and handicraft the lowest capital asset (Pomeranz 2002:548). The farm capital consisting of houses, irrigation, working animals, farm implements, manure and infrastructure was rather high and continued to grow (Riskin 1975:80; Pomeranz 2000:31ff. for China; Grigg 1982:189ff. for Europe). 122 Several reasons are given for this alleged technological stagnation. Some have attributed it to an orthodox ossification of Confucianism being inimical to scientific progress and technological innovations after the 14th century and especially during the Qing dynasty (Goldstone 2000, but cp. Mokyr 1990:227ff.; Eastman 1988e:149; Wong 1997:15f. against this view). However, even in Europe hardly any mechanical innovations were made in agriculture between 1500 and 1750 and even until the 1830s. It was only after the first half of the 19th century when technological innovations were systematically linked to industrial production (Mokyr 1990:13, 57ff., 83). Before this time technological progress was largely a process of ”trial and error" both in Europe and China (ibid.:229f.). Another argument points to the alleged conservative attitude of Chinese peasants in order to explain technological stagnation. However, Chinese peasants have been quite innovative and successful in adopting new crops, experimenting with new seed combinations, taping new sources of manure and improving irrigation technology as well as new techniques in rural textile production even after the 15th century (Mokyr 1990:222f.; Perkins 1969:39f., 47, 59, even Elvin 1974:298ff.). This data contradicts the proposition of a general hostility of Chinese peasants towards innovation (Gernet 1988:361f., 376, 407f., 443). Elvin sees the reasons for the technological stagnation not in cultural limitations, but rather in economic constraints. His economic explanation of the technological stagnation in Chinese agriculture has a supply and a demand aspect. On the supply side the scarcity of raw materials (such as wood and metals) and hence high prices hampered the development and diffusion of agricultural technology (such as machines and implements). On the demand side increasing poverty and declining savings prevented peasant households from investing in new technology and capital goods (1974:298-302).

We have first to discuss whether there has been such as thing as technological stagnation after the 15th century in the first place. To clarify the question we should make a distinction between a technological innovation and its diffusion, which may be slow or quick (Grigg 1982, chap. 11). We should also make a distinction between mechanical (new implements and machines), organizational and institutional (property rights and rent systems, new farming methods and agriculturally relevant infrastructure) and biological innovations (new crops, new seeds, new kinds of manure) (Liu 1986:57; Bray 196:3ff., 27, 115; Li 1998a:167ff.). Li criticizes the “Western point of view” according to which only mechanical innovation seems to matter.

In contrast to Elvin's proposition, technological progress went on during Ming and Qing times (Deng 1993:201f.; Feuerwerker 1990:235f.; Kolb, this volume; even Elvin 1974:297ff.).

123 Chinese peasants were quite innovative and technological development did not stagnate after the 15th century. Peasants adopted new crops from the Americas, tested new seed combinations and used new kinds of manure, they improved irrigation technology and cropping schedules and used new techniques in rural textile production (Mokyr 1990:222f.; Perkins 1969:39f., 47, 59, 71; Bray 1984:458; Mote 1977:203; Perdue 1987:22; Li 1998b:466, 474f.; Pomeranz 2000:47). Numerous mechanical and organizational innovations were made in trade and industry during Ming and Qing times (Gernet 1988:361f., 376, 407f., 443). The policy of the Chinese state was physiocratic favoring agricultural production. State officials published agricultural treatises (nongshu) and thus promoted the diffusion of agricultural knowledge and new techniques (Deng 1993:126ff., 174ff.). These innovations and their diffusion contributed to the increase of the agricultural production, as Deng (ibid.:163, chap. 7) shows. It is true that these innovations were mainly, though not exclusively, organizational and biological innovations enhancing mainly but not exclusively land productivity.

Two reasons may have been responsible for the slowdown of mechanical innovations in Chinese agriculture after the 15th century. The first reason is that the most important mechanical innovations had already been made before the 15th century. Probably up to the middle of the 19th century Chinese agriculture was equipped with more efficient implements than its European counterpart. Therefore, no new agricultural implements had to be invented anymore. Many farm implements, which Europe introduced in the 17th or 18th century or even later, had already been invented and used in China long before. As early as the Han dynasty, the iron turnplough, multi-tube seed-drill, the horse-shoe and ridger were used in the dry agriculture of northern China (Bray 1984:565f., 577f., 580ff.), although it is not clear how widely these implements were used. However, the mechanical development did not stagnate even after the 15th century. Further mechanical innovations were made such as cheap and effective wooden ploughs pulled by people (Chao 1986:194f.), the irrigation technology was improved (Mokyr 1990:222f.; Perkins 1969:71) and new techniques of spinning in cellars were developed (Pomeranz 2000:47; see Kolb for detailed information). A threshing machine was introduced from Japan, which considerably reduced work. Already in the early Ming time, water driven machines were available to husk rice and move hammers in paper production, and also machines (driven by hydraulic or horse power) for spinning hemp (Perkins 1969:57). However, these machines seem not to have been systematically used30.

30 The absence of new, labor saving machines in the agriculture played no central role in preventing the industrialization of China, as Eastman (1988e:147) states, nor favoring it in Europe respectively. 124 A second reason for the slowdown of mechanical innovations in Chinese agriculture was the fact that up to the Song time (12th century) labor force was scarcer than land and therefore innovation aiming at an increase of labor productivity made sense. After the Song time, however, land became increasingly scarce. Therefore, the intensification of land use and – because of the poverty of peasants – the development of cheap tools became more important than the use of expensive labor saving machines (Chao 1986:196f.)31. Even in Europe an abundance of labor hampered the use of machines in agriculture for a long time. It was only after rural labor became scarce and real wages increased from the 1850s onwards that machines and other industrial implements (such as fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides) were introduced in England and even later in the rest of Europe32. However, the use of these implements was slow at first and only gained momentum towards the end of the 19th century (in the USA somewhat earlier though for the same reasons), as Grigg (1982:78, 113ff., 119f., 122f., 212; 1992:52-57) states33. Up to the middle of the 19th century hardly any labor saving innovation took place. The 19th century was the age of steam power, which, however, had hardly any impact on agriculture (Grigg 1982:131). During the 19th century the substitution of oxen by horses, a process which already had begun in the 10th century, was completed (ibid.:132). From the 1820s and 1830s years the growing industry began to produce better and cheaper tools and machines such as horse drawn seed-drill and horse-shoe, but above all sickles, scythes and iron plows. The use of horses instead of oxen as well as of better tools raised the productivity of English agriculture (ibid.:134, 183, 190f.). The alleged ”agricultural revolution” in Europe of the 18th century was not based on mechanical, but rather on organizational and biological innovations such as the integration of agriculture and animal husbandry, the production of fodder crops and stable feeding, the abolition of fallow, convertible husbandry, intensive manuring and linear sowing (Grigg 1982:183, 211f., 1992:8ff, chap. 5; Ponting 1991:243ff.; Overton 1989 in Li 1998:167) as well as on the introduction of new crops (Netting 1993:274). The quantity and quality of manure input was

31 However, according to Li (1998a:24f., 185) labor became scarce in early and late Qing in Jiangnan, which was a principal barrier to the spread of double cropping (see also Perkins 1969:57ff. on labor shortage in China of the 1930s). This would not have been possible, if overpopulation had existed. 32 In England and Wales rural population and agricultural labor force grew in absolute terms although slower than the urban population until the 1850s, and it only began to decline from the 1850s onwards (Grigg 1982:42, 113, 108-116, 212f.). In Europe real wages decreased after 1750 and started to increase in the 1840s (ibid.:119, 191). 33 Industrially manufactured inputs, which increased labor productivity considerably, were only used in the second half of the 19th century, although slowly at first, but at a faster pace after 1914 and after 1945. In the 19th century the horse drawn harvester and tresher and in the 20th century tractors and combined harvesters were introduced together with artificial fertilizers such as superphosphate after the 1880s, compound fertilizer, containing a combination of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the 1930s. The veterinary provision of livestock was improved and insecticides and herbicides were increasingly used after 1945 (Grigg 1982:124-129, 134, 157, 183, 190, 212). 125 increased (by rotating husbandry but also by better manure through imported oil cakes for fodder as well as guano), new crops and better seed were used, and livestock breeding was improved. Field drainage (with the help of pipes in the second half the 19th century) and the use of marl and lime enhanced soil quality (Grigg 1982:190f.). Hence, the most important innovations were land saving, rather than labor saving. It was land productivity that increased but labor productivity hardly did (Bray 1984:584; Boserup 1983:200). Whereas land productivity grew by factor 1.92 between 1700 and 1850 in England and Wales, labor productivity only increased by factor 1.28 (cp. Appendix VIII.1.5). The new methods in agriculture were very labor-intensive such as the production of fodder crops and potatoes, caring for the cattle, increased quantity of manure, lime and marl as well as drainage and flooding of meadows and fencing of the fields (Grigg 1982:183.211f.). Horse drawn seed-drill and horseshoe were introduced slowly as well as was linear sowing, which however required labor-intensive weeding (ibid.:126; for Denmark cp. Kjaergaard 1994, chap. 3 and 6)34.

Bray (1984:604,614f.) gives a third reason, which may explain mechanical stagnation of Chinese agriculture. According to her, wet rice cultivation is not suitable for mechanization because of the necessity of contour dyke building and irrigation of small fields (hence horticulturalization). Yields can only be increased by higher labor input and more careful work done by an experienced and highly motivated family labor force. It is true that mechanization is more profitable in the more extensive dry land agriculture (as in northern China and Europe and especially in America) than in the irrigation agriculture of south and central China. However, as Buck (1933, 1937) has shown, motor pumps, hand tractors, artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides as well as heavy equipment for the construction of irrigation infrastructure, water control systems and roads may lead and in fact led to an increase in productivity in Chinese agriculture. Furthermore, stronger market integration and an improvement of the transport infrastructure may lead to a more productive irrigation agriculture in marginal regions as well (Netting 1993:252; Perkins 1969:57ff.). In the late 1950s and early 1960s agricultural machines (such as heavy plows, tractors, combined harvesters etc.) were increasingly used in China. Although the output increased, agricultural productivity decreased (Li 1998a:12, 160). After the middle of the 1960s, the input of artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides as well as the use of motor pumps led to a rise in yields per ha. It was only after the implementation of the ”Household Responsibility System” in 1979 that industrial technology better adapted for rice cultivation (developed in pre-war

34 Herbicides, which massively reduced weeding and increased labor productivity, were only available after the Second World War (Grigg 1982:127). 126 Japan) – such as walking tractors, rice planters, rice reapers, new types of manure and pesticides but also new techniques of raising and transplanting seedlings – led to a massive increase not only in yields per ha but also in labor productivity on small fields (Li 1998a:175f.; Netting 1993:252; on Europe cp. Grigg 1992:8ff, chap. 5; Ponting 1991:243ff.). Thus, it seems that Bray’s argument of ”horticulturalization”, a process of involution, which prevents the use of machines in rice production, is not plausible either.

We may conclude that the proposition of a technological stagnation is not particularly plausible. Mechanical innovations were made much earlier and efficient implements were already in place. New methods of irrigation and cropping, biological innovations such as new crops, new seeds and new sources of manure were tested and adopted. Thus, efficient technology was available and used in China (cp. Grigg 1982:155 for Europe). It were neither cultural nor ecological factors but the excess of labor force which limited the utilization of labor saving machines. Of course there was poverty, which hampered investments in expensive capital goods, but there was also poverty in Europe. The crucial point of technological innovation is its capacity to increase not only land productivity but also output per capita and labor productivity, which in turn contribute to an increase of savings and capital needed for investments in agriculture and industrialization. Thus we have to turn to labor productivity.

2.8 Output per capita and labor productivity According to the theory of the ”high level equilibrium trap”, output per capita and labor productivity in Chinese agriculture have decreased since the end of the 18th century by the latest (Elvin 1974:319). This links up with the proposition of Boserup (1965), according to whom a rise in land productivity goes together with decreasing labor productivity, a proposition, however, for which she does not provide any empirical evidence but did modify later (Boserup 1983:186, also Grigg 1978:78f.; Netting 1993:271). According to Huang (1991:630) economic growth entails an increase of output (per capita, per household or per society) and should be distinguished from economic development, which entails increasing labor productivity through a rising ratio of capital per labor unit (Huang 1991:630; 2002:512). Huang (1990:11) and Feuerwerker (1992:764ff.) concede that there may also be growth of total output and of output per capita in a pre-industrial, agricultural economy with commercialization. But according to them, economic growth in such a Smithian economy goes together with declining labor productivity, whereas Li (1998a:165) and Wong (1997:19) point out that even labor productivity may increase. Thus, labor productivity, i.e. an

127 increasing use of capital per unit of labor is the crucial variable. However, an agricultural system with land scarcity and without imports of food as it was in the case of China does not necessarily end up in a vicious circle of intensification, high population growth and decreasing labor productivity because technology could be improved. In contrast to Elvin’s proposition, technological progress went on during Ming and Qing times and productivity increased (Deng 1993:199f.). The fact that population and man/land-ratio increased in China is a clear indicator of technological progress and of a declining production function, whereas population increase with constant or decreasing man-land-ratio would point to land expansion, and hence, extensive growth (Deng 1999:188ff.).

Labor productivity can be measured in different ways: either in number of laborers or in labor time spent (Lewis 1954 in Wong 1990:15; Grigg 1992:3; Li 1998a:134). Pomeranz (2000, 2002) and Huang (1990, 2002) refer to output per work unit per day (working time). However, labor productivity in a pre-industrial agriculture is often measured (for lack of better data) as total agricultural output divided by the number of agricultural workers per year35. Huang (2002:512) has objected that the extension of working days per year is in fact an indicator for involution36. It is true that the number of agricultural workers may decline while labor time they spend increases. This happened both in China and in Europe of 18th and 19th century (Pomeranz 2002:557; Kjaergaard 1994, chap. 6; Buchheim 1994:49-54; Rawski 1979:115 in Lee/Wang 19999:175). But using the number of work days – as Huang proposes – does not really capture the point, as peasants may be better off by accepting lower daily returns but working more days (Wong 1990:16f.). The use of underused labor potential (more working days in a year) entails an increase in efficiency indeed, hence of labor productivity (both in China and in Europe). The absolute relevance of labor productivity had also been questioned. As Pomeranz (2002:500f.) pointed out, in pre-industrial economies with underemployment, finding new ways of employment and increasing output per capita was probably more important than increasing labor productivity. Where food shortages were common – as it was the case in China and in Europe – maximizing total output was more important than just labor productivity. Therefore, more relevant than labor productivity is

35 Labor productivity may be increased by 1) larger fields with an constant number of workers, 2) constant field size with fewer workers, 3) a constant amount of workers and field size, but by intensifying land use or 4) by multi-cropping (Bray 1986:2f.). 36 Huang (1990:13,143) has maintained that output per capita increased while output per worker declined in Jiangnan, which Myers (1991:620) finds an implausible argument. But Huang’s statement would be valid if population grew slower than the agricultural working force. Population declined in Jiangnan between 1850 and 1920, but both output per capita and labor productivity increased (cp. Appendix VIII.3.1). The same is true for the whole of China (see table 7), despite the fact that the population grew from 412 to 480 mil (Appendix VIII.2.3). 128 total factor productivity (TFP) as the rate of growth of total output minus the rates of growth of all inputs such as land, labor and capital37. But let us turn now to output per capita and labor productivity.

2.8.1 Average output per person and per agricultural worker

According to Perkins (1969:14f., 29) output per capita of total grain fluctuated between 200 kg/person – the minimal per capita consumption – and 350 kg/person, which corresponds to an average of 285 kg/person between 1400 and 1957. Perkins (1969:18f., 279, 302) assumes that labor productivity has remained relatively stable or has even slightly increased in some regions between 1650 and 1950, with the exception of the 19th century (Chao 1986:208, 217; Lee/Wang 1999:30, 169; Myers 1980:5). The numbers given by Lee/Wang (1999:31) also point to a steady increase of output per capita from 260 kg in 1929 to 285 kg in 1952. In Appendix VI.1 estimates of the output per capita between 1400 and 1957 are given (cp. table 7 and Appendix VIII.2 for estimates based on data provided by Perkins and Liu/Huang).

These figures, however, only represent the total output divided by total population. Since children, old people and adults, women and men do not consume the same quantities, different consumption values result for adults after adjusting the values (Fei 1939:125). The different population categories also have different working capacities, and not all members of a household are working (for instance children and old people). Therefore, output per person should not be confounded with output per worker. Non-agricultural population – urban population and rural population not engaged in agriculture – as well as the faction of the agricultural population being exclusively consumers should be subtracted from the total population. The non-agricultural, urban population amounted to about 10% on average during Ming and Qing times, thus a figure somewhat lower than the 13.5% assumed by Deng (1999:182). Non-workers (i.e. exclusive consumers) in peasant households amounted to about 17.3% on average, between 15.8 and 18.6% (ibid.:184). Hence the rural labor force represented about 74% of the total population. As about 25% of the rural labor force did not work in agriculture but in the home production, the percentage of the agricultural labor force is reduced to 59% of the total population (Deng 1999:185). The result is an average labor productivity of around 320 kg/worker (see Appendix VI.2). This is a conservative estimate and the real number may lie well at 50% agricultural workers per total population (one worker per two consumers and 360 kg/w) or even below 50%. According to Li (1998a:23) the

37 There is a general trend that yield per acreage is maximized where land is scarce (as in Asian countries), whereas yield per worker is maximized where labor is scarce (as in America). European countries being in between these two extremes (cp. Grigg 1982:114ff.). 129 agricultural population amounted to 90% of the rural population and to 75% or 70% of total population in Jiangnan between 1620 and 1850. The labor force of a household of five persons consisted of husband and wife during the Ming times (2 of 5), whereas during Qing women increasingly retired from agriculture and specialized on silk and cotton production. Thus, the labor force per average household decreased to somewhat between 1 and 1.5 (ibid.:24, 185). At least for those highly productive regions the percentage of agricultural workers declined roughly from 35% in 1620 to 20% of the total population in 1850 or from 40% to 23% of rural population (cp. Appendix VIII.3.4)38.

Elvin (1973, chap. 16) and Huang (1990, chap. 1) maintain that labor productivity declined in densely populated areas such as the Lower Yangzi with the beginning of the 17th century (cp. Li 1998a:133, 216)39. This of course corresponds to the Malthusian proposition of decreasing labor productivity due to intensification or production, land shortage and overpopulation. In table 7 I have computed the labor productivity for an agricultural working force of 40% (kg/w 1) and 25% (kg/w 2) of the Chinese population. The data for output per capita are provided by Liu/Huang (1978:31-34) and by Perkins (1969:17,19) (cp. also Appendix VI.2 and 3).

Table 7: Estimated grain output per capita and per worker

Liu/Huang kg/p kg/w 1 kg/w 2 Perkins kg/p kg/w 1 kg/w 2

1700 316 792 1267 1700 571 1426 2282 1750 252 631 1009 1750 391 976 1562 1800 249 624 998 1800 376 941 1505 1850 251 627 1002 1850 402 1004 1606 1910 272 680 1089 1914 434 1086 1737 1930 273 682 1092 1930 447 1118 1789

1700-1850 267 669 1069 435 1087 1739 %/year -0.15 -0.16 -0.16 -0.23 -0.23 -0.23 factor 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.7 0.7 0.7 1850-1930 265 663 1061 428 1069 1711 %/year 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.14 0.14 0.14 factor 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1

38 During the Ming time 40’000 peasants produced enough food for 190’000 soldiers, which corresponds to a rate of almost 1:6 (17% labor force). During Ming and Qing times, one peasant in the south produced enough food for nine to ten adults (1:10), which would make a labor force of 9% (Deng 1999:186). 39 According to Huang (1990:13ff.) the agricultural potential in the Yangzi delta had already been exhausted by the early Ming-times. The economic growth was achieved by a shift from rice agriculture to the production of cotton and silk (including mulberry trees) as well as other handicraft production with a lower marginal physical product of labor. 130 These figures are compatible with the statement made by Chao et al. (1995) according to whom productivity per capita and worker declined in the late 18th and early 19th century, but rose again in the late 19th and early 20th century. According to Rawski (1989:330f.) agricultural output rose annually between 1.4% to 1.7% from 1914/18 to 1931/36, while population grew by 0.8%. Thus, output per capita grew by 0.6% to 0.9% during this time period (see also Brandt 1989:9, 108-119 for similar figures). According to the figures in table 7 the grain output only increased between 0.11% and 0.14%.

After the crisis in the middle of the 17th century, the Chinese economy recovered during the 18th century and until the 1820s labor productivity increased (Myers 1980:5). Perkins (1969:26) estimates that the capita output may have slightly decreased between 1770 and 1850. According to Myers (1980:6), the agriculture recovered between 1860 and 1910 and so did labor productivity. Between the First World War and the 1930s wheat and rice production rose by 0.9% per year, whereas population only increased by 0.75% per year (Myers 1980:20). Between 1911 and 1957 the production could keep pace with the population growth. It was only in the late 1950s and 1960s when the population began to grow steeply by more than 2% that the agricultural production could no longer be increased accordingly within the framework of pre-industrial agriculture (Perkins 1969:29, 78). Industrial inputs (such as fertilizers and herbicides, new seeds, improved irrigation, new implements and machines etc.) were increasingly used (Perkins 1969:29), so that both agricultural production and labor productivity increased again (Lee/Wang 1999:31), despite of the fact that population began to grow steeply during that time period (Netting 1993:251ff.; Myers 1980:22f.).

2.8.2 Regional differences

There are not only fluctuations in time but also regional differences in both labor productivity and grain output per capita. Li Bozhong (1998a, chap. 8) has shown, that labor productivity rose between 1700 and 1850 in the most densely populated regions of the Lower Yangzi. In Jiangnan grain output (husked rice) per worker increased from 1121 kg/w in 1620 to 1518 kg/w or by 35%; in Songjiang (Jiangsu) it increased from 1359 in 1620 to 1958 kg/w in 1850 or by 44% (cp. table 8 and Appendix VIII.3.4). This data is corroborated by figures on the increase of grain output (husked rice) per ha in Jiangnan: from 1687 kg/ha in the 17th century to 2137 kg/ha in the 18th century (Perkins), from 2587 kg/ha during Ming to 3037 kg/ha during Qing and from 2250 in 1620 to 2700 in 1820 (Li 1998b:481, 1998a:126). These increases of land productivity by 26%, 17% or 20% went without a proportional increase of labor input and, therefore, roughly correspond to the increase in labor productivity (Li

131 Bozhong 1998b:481ff., 1998a:126ff.)40. The increase of labor productivity in grain production continued at least until the 1930s: in Jiangnan it grew by 25% between 1870 and 1930 and in Songjiang by 10% (cp. Faure (1989:54; see Brandt 1989:131ff. for higher estimates for Jiangsu and Guangdong). The involution assumed by Elvin and Huang is, therefore, not a very plausible proposition (Li 1998b:484)41.

Table 8: Estimated output per capita and per worker in Jiangnan and Songjiang42

Jiangnan Songjiang kg/p kg/w kg/p kg/w

1550 ...... 725 1813 1620 475 1121 435 1359 1820 ...... 537 2235 1850 419 1518 392 1958 1930 458 2290 557 2785

These figures are corroborated by data on labor productivity provided by Hu (1983 in Deng 1993:161). According to him, labor productivity was between 2200 and 2500 kg/w in Southern China during Ming and Qing times. There are several reasons for this increase in labor productivity in the most densely populated regions. 1) It was often not before the 18th and the early 19th century when the most advanced cultivation techniques (such as multi- cropping and inter-cropping and improved irrigation techniques) were systematically used. Higher capital inputs (improvements of irrigation, beancake manure, higher yielding seed combinations etc.) increased the number of workdays per year. As output per ha increased faster than labor input, output per worker and year did not decrease, but increase (Li 1998b:483). 2) Between the middle of the 16th century and 1850, the total amount of rice land decreased in Jiangnan at the expense of land cultivated with mulberry trees and cotton. Land and labor productivity in rice production, however, increased by using more manure, practicing double-cropping of rice and wheat as well as by using low quality rice land for cotton and mulberry trees (Li 1998a:10, 139ff.). Thus, there was a reduction of agricultural land (for grain) without population decrease, for which the only explanation seems to be technological progress (see also Deng 1999:190). This clearly shows that land as well as labor

40 As Deng (1999:190) observes, many labor saving innovations also reduced land per worker and thus were at the same time land saving. 41 In the more productive regions, the increase of the agricultural output per capita was considerably higher than the average of 0.6% to 0.9% per year. According to Rawski (1989:271) it amounted to an annual increase of 1.7% per capita in Manchuria and the lower Yangzi between 1924 and 1941. Agricultural output per capita grew by between 0.9 and 1.3% annually from 1895 to 1935 in Jiangnan and Guangdong (Brandt 1989:133).

132 productivity may be increased not only by mechanical, but also by organizational and biological innovations (Liu 1986:57; Bray 196:3ff., 27, 115; Li 1998a:168ff.). Mulberry trees and cotton needed more work and manure than rice, but they also yielded higher output per ha than rice on land not well suited for rice (Li 1998a:11, 132). The labor productivity of women was higher in spinning, weaving and raising silkworms than in rice production. Therefore their specialization on home production paid off (ibid.:12, 148ff.). Because the supply of agricultural labor was thereby reduced, men were forced to intensify production on smaller fields. The reduction of farm size, therefore, was the result of an intensification of production and not of an increase of man-land ratio. The specialization of women in processing cotton and silk and raising silkworms not only increased their productivity but also the labor productivity of men, because their work input rose slower than rice output43. Hence, double- cropping of rice and wheat, an optimal household size and a more efficient division of labor increased productivity of households in Jiangnan up to 1850 (Li 1998a:12, 152f., 155)44. A process propelled by an increasing commercialization and specialization in an efficient market system, a pre-industrial scenario well described by Adam Smith (cp. Wong 1997, Li 1998a:160-166; see Appendix VIII.3.2, 3.3 and 3.4).

Myers (1970:138,152) shows that in Shandong and Hebei yield per land unit increased whereas land size per households decreased between 1910 and 1930 (see Table 9). This again can not be explained otherwise than with an increase in yield per worker, i.e. of labor productivity.

42 Data on Jiangnan and Songjiang are computed from Li (1998:138ff.,151) and Faure (1989:46, 49). 43 Before the above-mentioned division of labor between agriculture by men and textile production by women perhaps 2 out of 5 persons constituting a household actually worked in agriculture. After the establishment of the new division of labor only 1 or 1.2 persons worked in agriculture, thus increasing the labor productivity (for the same or higher outputs; Li 1998a:22ff.). The output per worker may increase, while output per person remaining equal or even declining (cp. Appendix VIII.3.4 on Jiangnan and Songjiang). 44 Thus, contrary to what Huang (1990) maintains, agricultural productivity did not stagnate with the expansion of cottage industry. Land and labor productivity in rice production increased, even though the area cultivated with rice and wheat decreased and so probably the total output did. At the same time household incomes increased due to handicraft production as less efficiently used or underused household labor was invested in this sector (cp. Appendix VIII.3.1). A regional specialization and division of labor emerged between the Lower Yangzi (textile production) and the Middle Yangzi (rice production) (cp. Myers 1980, chap. 4) on the trade and the effectiveness of the market). 133 Table 9: Estimated land productivity and ha per household in Shandong and Hebei

Shandong Hebei wheat sorghum land wheat land kg/ha kg/ha ha/hh kg/ha ha/hh

1910 584 823 1.25 486 1.45 1930 884 1175 0.92 775 1.31

% 51 43 – 36 60 – 11 increase factor 1.51 1.42 0.73 1.59 0.90

Whereas some provinces flourished with growing total output as well as rising output per worker and per capita, other provinces most probably experienced a decrease in the late 19th and early 20th century. This was especially the case in the marginal hill areas in the southwest (Guizhou, Yunnan) and northwest (Shaanxi, Gansu), which also suffered from an ecological deterioration resulting from extensive agriculture due to a low population density (Lee/Wang 1999:31; Netting 1993:237; Wong 1997:19,49; Osborne 1998). More regional and local studies are, however, needed, to provide a more subtly differentiated picture of the development of labor productivity.

2.8.3 Labor input and labor productivity

A decrease of labor productivity in the course of an increasing intensification of production (land productivity) is – as we have seen – not imperative. It is true that intensification does entail a higher workload. This is also the reason why production is not being intensified unless the pressure to do so (because of population growth and/or resource scarcity) is sufficiently high. However, increasing work input does not necessarily decrease output per worker. The output per land unit can be raised by increasing either the capital input (such as more and better irrigation techniques and new manure, new crops and higher yielding seed combinations, more work animals, implements and machines) and/or by increasing the work input (through the expansion of double-cropping, more weeding, more input of manure and more careful dyke building). The change in labor productivity (output per worker per year) must be determined empirically. Several studies have shown that labor productivity may in fact increase with an intensification of production (Salehi-Isfahani 1987:879; Netting 1993:271; Deng 1999:190; Hunt 2000). The output per labor will increase if output per land unit increases faster than labor input. Higher yielding crops, improved irrigating techniques and higher manure input increase output per field, while the amount of labor for weeding and dyke building remains about the same (Bray 1984:603). This was the case in the most densely

134 populated regions of China, as we have seen above. On the other hand, the use of plough and draft animals (ox, horse) does not always increase labor productivity, as among others Pryor (1985:729) and Netting (1993:272) have shown. This is because work input – especially the costs for animal care and fodder production – often increases faster than the output per ha (Pingali/Binswanger 1983:11; Netting 1993:273).

Europe

As we have already seen, even the ”agricultural revolution” in Europe was mainly based on the introduction of new crops (vegetable, potatoes), on crop rotation, convertible husbandry, stable feeding and fodder production and land reclamation (Sabean 1990:52ff.; Netting 1993:274; Kjaergaard 1994, chap. 3 and 4). This raised land productivity but labor productivity hardly increased (Bray 1984:584; Boserup 1983:197f., 200; Overton 1996:6f.; Clark 1991:454f.; Allen 1989:80; Thompson 1968:63-74 cited in Pomeranz 2002:554f.). Even some of the innovations of the 19th century considerably increased labor input. For instance, seeds were previously broadcasted (sown by hand), which not only wasted seeds, but also hampered weeding. Later sowing was done more carefully and in a linear way, which – together with caring for work animals – increased labor input for weeding considerably. Despite increasing output per ha (higher harvest rates) output per labor unit did not increase (Bray 1984:563; Mokyr 1990:58f.). At least land productivity increased more than labor productivity in England and Wales (Grigg 1982, Allen 1994, Turner/Beckett/Afton 2001). Whereas land productivity rose by factor 1.92, labor productivity only grew by factor 1.28 and cultivated grain acreage by factor 1.15 between 1700 and 1850 (cp. Appendix, VIII.1.5). The growing utilization of labor saving machines in agriculture since the middle of the 19th century only paid off when rural workers migrated to the industrial centers and real wages began to rise. It was only after the industrial take-off – first in the USA and later in Europe – that labor productivity began to increase (Grigg 1992:5, 47). It was the growing industrial sector attracting rural labor, which forced agriculture to raise its labor productivity by using more capital input. Furthermore, since the first half of the 19th century England (and Western Europe) became increasingly dependent on imported agricultural products from Eastern Europe and later from overseas (Grigg 1982;78, 1992:5, 8ff., 46-55; Wilkinson 1973:114; Bray 1984:584f.; Ponting 1991:243ff.; Boserup 1983:203; Overton 1996:75ff.). But not only food but also raw materials such as cotton, manure (guano) and wood had to be imported (Pomeranz 2000:12, 19, 23f., 46, 57f., 68).

135 By using the data provided by Allen (1994), Grigg (1982) and Turner/Beckett/Afton (2001) on the agriculture in England and Wales between 1700 and 1850 we may try to estimate labor productivity (cp. Appendix VIII.1). According to Grigg (1982:188-191) hardly any increase of labor productivity took place between 1700 and 1750. After 1750 total population as well as the agricultural labor force increased and accordingly real wages decreased until the 1840s. Thus according to him, labor productivity has decreased by 0.10% between 1700 and 1750, but increased by 0.57% between 1750 and 1800 and by 0.18% between 1800 and 1850, which corresponds to an average annual increase of 0.22% (factor 1.38) between 1700 and 1850 (cp. Appendix VIII.1.2). According to Allen (1994) and Turner/Beckett/Afton (2001) labor productivity increased by 0.32% between 1700 and 1750, decreased by 0.10% between 1750 and 1800 and increased again by 0.23% between 1800 and 1850. This corresponds to an average annual increase of 0.15% (factor 1.25) between 1700 and 1850 (see also Overton 1996, Appendix VIII.3 and 4). This increase of labor productivity took place before the introduction of labor saving inputs from the middle of the 19th century onwards. Probably some land saving procedures (better farming methods, better farm implements and more manure) also contributed to an increase of labor productivity (Deng 1999:190). Working days per worker and year increased in England by about 20% between 1760 to 1830 (Pomeranz 2002:557; Buchheim 1994:50f.). Agricultural labor force grew by factor 1.62 between 1700 and 1850, and the length of a workday may have increased by about 20% or more between 1760 to 1830 (Pomeranz 2002:557)45. Whereas total grain output and land productivity roughly grew by factor of 2, labor productivity only increased by factor of 1.25 in England & Wales (cp. Appendix VIII.1.5). Thus, the statement by Boserup is still valid, that the agricultural labor force increased until 1850, which made an intensification of the production necessary, and that during the so-called ”agricultural revolution” labor productivity only increased moderately and only gained momentum after the 1850s when industrial inputs were increasingly used (cp. Grigg 1982:42f., 191).

Table 10 compares data on labor productivity provided by Allen, Grigg and Turner/Beckett/Afton in England and Wales with data provided by Perkins and Liu/Huang on the four most productive provinces in China with a grain producing labor force of 0.33% in 1700, 0.25% in 1750 and 0.20% in 1800 and 1850 of the total population (cp. Appendix VIII.3.5). In the last three columns of table 10, the three different estimates of labor

45 In Denmark working time increased from 35-40 hours per week in 1500 to 60 hours in 1800 (Kjaergaard 1994:146-154). 136 productivity (kg/w 1, kg/w 2, kg/w 3) in the four most productive provinces are compared with the labor productivity in England and Wales.

Table 10: Labor productivity in England and Wales and the four most productive provinces in China compared

England & China 4 47 China 4 48 China 4 49 Ch4/ Ch4/ Ch4/ Wales 46 E&W 1 E&W 2 E&W 3

kg/w kg/w 1 kg/w 2 kg/w 3

1700 2227 1632 2910 2271 0.7 1.3 1.0 1750 2485 1715 2656 2186 0.7 1.1 0.9 1800 2563 2121 3199 2660 0.8 1.2 1.0 1850 2855 2130 3413 2771 0.7 1.2 1.0 ø kg/w 2533 1900 3044 2472 0.8 1.2 1.0 factor 1.3 1.3 1.2 1.2

%%% % 1700-1750 0.22 0.10 -0.18 -0.08 1750-1800 0.06 0.43 0.37 0.39 1800-1850 0.22 0.01 0.13 0.08 1700-1850 0.17 0.18 0.11 0.13

The labor productivity may have increased by factor 1.3 (Allen, Grigg and Turner/Beckett/Afton) in England and Wales between 1700 and 1850. This is at about the same pace as in Chinese agriculture of the most productive regions. According to these data, labor productivity in China was roughly the same as in England and Wales (see also Pomeranz 2002:544). However, average labor productivity in the rest of European agriculture was much lower than in England and Wales (Grigg 1982:103), but the same also holds true for less productive areas in China. In the light of these data, the proposition of a general trend to a declining output per worker (labor productivity) in Chinese agriculture is hardly plausible.

2.9 Standards of living The theory of the Malthusian trap predicts general poverty and impoverishment. Poverty and misery were wide-spread in China as in other pre-modern societies and during the period of

46 Allen (1994), Grigg (1982), Turner/Beckett/Afton (2001) 47 Liu/Huang 1978 48 Perkins 1969 49 Liu/Huang 1978; Perkins 1969 137 early industrialization (Ho 1959:226; Elvin 1973, chap. 17; but see Lee/Wang 1999:19; Mokyr 1990:225f.). The living standard of a largely agricultural population depends on the total agricultural output, on technology, on population size and on the income distribution (Deng 1999:204f.). The best proxy for the living standard is the grain output per capita through agricultural production and through the marketed output of handicraft production converted into grain, as grains were the most important food in 18th century Eurasia (Pomeranz 2002:565).

The general standard of living was probably not lower in China than in Europe up to the middle of the 19th century (Pomeranz 2000:35, 39; Robert Fortune 1847 in Lavely/Wong 1998:730; Deng 1999:204f.; Mokyr 1990:219). The agricultural output per capita in China increased between 1870 and 1930: by 0.6% to 0.9% (Rawski 1989:330f.), by between 0.9 and 1.3% annually from 1895 to 1935 in Jiangnan and Guangdong (Brandt 1989:9, 133) and by 0.5% in Jiangnan between 1910 and 1930 even according to Huang (1990:13, 143). Although the level of consumption varied according to class membership and depended on the general state of the economy, it is questionable whether ordinary people had a lower living standard in China than in Europe (Mote 1977:198ff.; Perkins 1969:15; Anderson 1988:96, 113-117). Interestingly enough the living standard was especially high in the densely populated regions. Since the 17th century more fish, meat and tofu was consumed, more tea and wine drunk and more sugar consumed in the lower Yangzi region than anywhere else in China (Lee/Wang 1999:34, 39, 172, 175; Wong 1997:26ff.). According to Pomeranz (2000:49f.) the average income per person was about the same but probably somewhat higher in China than in Europe. Income seems to have been more equally distributed in China than in Europe. On the other hand food prices seem to have been higher in Europe than in China (Pomeranz 2000:49ff., 2002:550f., 557, 565)50.

Involution (Huang) or Malthusian trap (Elvin) does entail a decline in real wages per day, which has occured in China as well as in Europe. In Europe real wages decreased after 1750 and only began to increase from the 1840s onwards (Grigg 1982:191; Schofield 1981:80f.). And it was only then, when real wages reached the same level as they had in 1430 (Abel 1980:136, 161, 191; Clark 1991:446; Mokyr 1988:69-92 on England). In China farm laborers‘ real wages declined after the 1730s and remained roughly constant until the 1820s (cp. Chao 1986:218ff.; Perkins 1969:299). I have not found data on real wages for the time between

50 On grain prices in China cp. Chao (1986:130), Perkins (1969:146, 128), Brandt 1989, Rawski 1989, Faure 1989 and Myers 1970; on Europe cp. Grigg (1982:55ff.; 1980:86), Wilkinson (1973:71f.) and Slicher van Bath (1963:221-230). 138 1820 and 1900, but between 1901 and 1933 real wages increased in China (Rawski 1989:326; Brandt 1989:107-122; Myers 1970:141-151). Perkins (1969:59f.) mentions a seasonal shortage of agricultural labor in the 1930s and shows that an agricultural laborer’s cash wage in the Yangzi rice/wheat region would have bought 1187 kg rice per year (Buck 1937:306)51.

According to Deng (1999:204f.) population increase may serve as an indicator for the standard of living because the majority of the Chinese population consisted of landholding peasants – land-owners or long-term tenants – and the households had a high population elasticity to agricultural output. Therefore, the fertility of women increased with higher income and more food available; in other words a higher living standard52. Therefore, population growth would point to an increase, not to a decrease in the standard of living (Deng 1999:207,209), and a comparison of population growth in pre-modern China and Europe may indicate a different level of living standards. The following table shows that China had a higher population growth rate from 1700 to 1800. Afterwards Europe’s population grew faster. The tabulated numbers for Europe are the means calculated from McEvedy/Jones (1978) and Birg (1996), but taken separately the two data sets show the same trend (Appendix VII.1)53.

Table 11: Estimated population growth rates in Europe and China compared

Europe54 China55

1700-1750 0.46 Ä 1.27 1750-1800 0.47 Ä 0.54 1800-1850 0.70 Å 0.38 1850-1900 0.78 Å -0.06

2.9.1 Grain consumption per capita

The population approach is only a rough approximation to living standards and we may choose a more direct method to evaluate the Malthusian propositions made by Jones and Elvin by using the grain output per capita as a proxy for living standard, since about 80% of

51 Increasing real wages may also be an indicator for a growing marginal value product of labor and, hence, of an increasing labor productivity (Chao 1986:9, 217, 226; Brandt 1989:124-133). 52 Life expectancy is another proxy for living standard. According to Pomeranz (2000:35ff.) life expectancy was on average the same as or even higher in China than in Europe (Lavely/Wong 1998:721f.; Lee/Wang 1999:35f., 54f.). 53 Whereas between 1500 and 1800 Chinese population increased by factor 3.3 or by 0.4% per year, especially between 1700 and 1800, the European population rose by factor 2.2 or by 0.27% per year on average (Liu/Huang 1978:29f.; McEvedy/Jones 1978:19). 54 McEvedy/Jones 1978; Berg 1996

139 the consumption consisted of grain, 15% of vegetables and 2-3% of meat (Eastman 1988b:62). The average grain output per capita between 1700 and 1930 is shown in Table 12:

Table 12: Estimated grain output per capita in China

Liu/Huang Perkins L/H&P Liu/Huang Perkins L/H&P kg/p kg/p ø kg/p % % %

1700 316 571 443 1700-1750 -0.45 -0.76 -0.64 1750 252 391 321 1750-1800 -0.02 -0.07 -0.05 1800 249 376 313 1800-1850 0.02 0.13 0.09 1850 251 402 326 1850-1910 0.13 0.13 0.13 1910 272 434 353 1910-1930 0.02 0.15 0.10 1930 273 447 360

1700-1850 -0.15 -0.23 -0.20 factor 0.8 0.7 0.7 1850-1930 0.11 0.14 0.12 factor 1.1 1.1 1.1 1700-1930 -0.06 -0.11 -0.09 factor 0.9 0.8 0.8

According to these data, grain output per capita declined by factor 0.7 (-0.20%) between 1700 and 1850, especially between 1700 and 1750, but increased again by factor 1.1 (0.12%) between 1850 and 1930. According to Rawski, agricultural output per capita in China grew by 0.6% to 0.9% between 1910 and 1930 (1989:330f.). This runs contrary to Elvin’s proposition that output per capita declined after it reached its peak in the late 18th century. The average output per capita increased from 326 kg/p in 1850 to 353 kg/p in 1910 and to 360 kg/p in 1930 in the whole of China. In the most productive provinces it increased from 555 kg/p in 1850 to 600 kg/p in 1910 and to 612 kg/p in 1930 (cp. Appendix VIII.3.5). These estimates on grain output per capita are corroborated by figures on Jiangnan and Guangdong (cp. Appendix VIII.3.4, see also Brandt 1989:131ff. on eastern and central China). This was still above the minimal subsistence need of the assumed 180 or 220 kg per person. In any case, we are far away from the output per capita reaching subsistence level, which according to Elvin (1974) would be the ultimate indicator for overpopulation and impoverishment (Lee/Wang 1999:168; Wong 1997:29).

During the middle of the 19th century the economic situation in China deteriorated as popular uprisings and wars ravaged the country (Feuerwerker 1980:7), but improved again towards

55 Liu/Huang 1978 140 the end of the 19th century up to the 1930s. The agricultural total output continued to grow and was able to feed a growing population, as we have seen. Commercialization and specialization increased and more work was invested into handicraft production and wage labor, which contributed to an overall increase of family incomes (Brandt 1989; Faure 1989; Rawski 1989). After the end of Qing dynasty, water and pest control by the state almost broke down and political security deteriorated during the warlord period (1912-1923) (Mallory 1930:94f.). Floods and droughts, pests and famines, banditism and wars reduced resources and labor force, and peasants got increasingly into debt (Myers 1970:124; Eastman 1988c:91ff.). However, the consumption of clothes – taken as an indicator for the general living standard – increased between 1870 and 1927. Agriculture and handicraft production provided sufficient income for peasant households (Eastman 1988c:95, 97ff.). It was only during the international economic crises in the beginning of the 1930s, when the output prices decreased more than the input prices and the production of rural textile production declined, that the living standard of peasant households deteriorated (Eastman 1988c:97; Faure 1989:202f.). Despite of these factors, production of food kept pace with a population growth. It was only in the 1950s and 1960s, when population growth soared, that the pre-modern Chinese agriculture could not produce enough food for its population any more (Perkins 1969:29ff.)56. Thus, it seems that the decline of the general living standard in the 1930s was due to deterioration of international market conditions and of the domestic political situation rather than to a decline in agricultural production. These facts obviously do not support the thesis of the Malthusian trap (Eastman 1988c:96).

Thus, despite the deterioration of ecological conditions, population growth and a decreasing land-man ratio, there seems to have been no general deterioration of the living standard, except during times of political or politically induced crisis (wars, rebellions, neglect of public works by a weakened state). An approximate calculation of average consumption is possible. Let us assume that the constant size of an average household is about 4.5 persons (an old person, a married couple and 1.5 children) with an aggregate consumption need of around 1000 kg (Fei 1939:125) or 800 kg (Deng 1999:180) of unhusked ”total grains” per year (also Perkins 1969:300f.). The output per person is computed based on data provided by Perkins (1969:17,19; cp. Appendix VI.2). A comparison of average yields per household with its average subsistence (of 800 kg and 1000 kg) needs shows an increasing average surplus per

56 Compared to other countries, the output of grains and tubers per person in the year 1957 was still high: between 270 and 290 kg/person in China, compared with 250 in Japan, 180 in India and 215 kg/person in Pakistan (Perkins 1969:33ff.). 141 household (surplus 1 and surplus 2 according to the assumed subsistence need of 1000 kg or 800 kg per household) between 1700 and 1930.

Table 13: Estimated output and surplus per household

output 1 output 2 output 1 (P) output 2 (L/H) kg/p57 kg/p58 kg/hh kg/hh

1700 571 443 2568 1995 1750 391 321 1757 1446 1800 376 313 1693 1407 1850 402 326 1807 1468 1910 434 353 1954 1589 1930 447 360 2013 1621

surplus 1 surplus 2 kg/hh (P) kg/hh (L/H) kg/hh (P) kg/hh (L/H)

1700 1568 995 1768 1195 1750 757 446 957 646 1800 693 407 893 607 1850 807 468 1007 668 1910 954 589 1154 789 1930 1013 621 1213 821

As these figures show, the surplus per household decreased from 1700 to 1850 but increased from 1850 to 1930 but there was always a surplus above subsistence level. If this calculation is roughly plausible, it does not support the proposition of a Malthusian trap. These “guesstimates” are corroborated by data on productivity per person provided by Liu/Huang (1978) and Perkins (1969; cp. Appendix VI.2 and 3). I have assumed a constant consumption level although the level of consumption varied over time and so did the composition of crops59. I have also ignored the distribution of grain surplus between rural and urban populations (rents and taxes) as well as regional differences (in productivity and commercialization). And I have neither considered additional income through handicraft production nor wage labor60. Thus, our comparison only gives a rough impression of the

57 Perkins 1969 58 Liu/Huang 1978; Perkins 1969 59 In the first half of the 20th century more maize and tubers and somewhat more wheat and rice were planted, but less barley and sorghum (Kaoliang) (Perkins 1969:33ff.). 60 Rice imports were not very important, except in the coastal regions, which specialized on manufacture and home production (Brandt 1989, Faure 1989, Rawski 1989). Towards the end of the 19th century rice imports could only feed about 1 to 2 million out of 400 million people in China (Ho 1959:289ff.). China also exported grain (Perkins 1969:130f.) For data on export and import of grain in England and Wales, cp. Grigg (1982:78), Wilkinson (1973:114) and Overton (1996:75ff.). 142 economic potential of Chinese agriculture to feed its population, but it shows again that output per person did not decrease to subsistence level. These estimates of household consumption in Table 13 are also corroborated by data on the average food intake by Chinese households in 1929/33. According to Buck (1937:407, 419), “an average adult consumer unit” in China’s agricultural sector had an average daily intake of 3295 kcal, 100 g protein, 27 mg of iron and 0.44 g of calcium. Since the minimum intake is estimated at 2800 kcal, 70 g protein, 15 mg of iron and 0.8 g of calcium, there was only a deficit in calcium (cp. Appendix VII.4).

Yet another confirmation of our findings contradicting the theory of a Malthusian trap is provided by Lippit (1974) and Riskin (1975) on the economic potential of Chinese agriculture. One way to measure the economic potential of pre-industrial agriculture is to estimate the potential surplus above mass consumption. The surplus mainly consists of rents, interests and profits not invested, i.e. the worker and peasant total income subtracted from the total current output. According to Lippit (1974:76) the total surplus amounted to 19% of the NDP in 1933. Riskin (1975:69) objects that this estimate does not consider income claimed by bandits and military units (which is almost impossible to estimate), by local officials as surtaxes as well as output lost through rural underemployment and underutilization of land. According to Riskin (ibid.:70) the potential surplus of Chinese agriculture amounted to 24.5% of the NDP around 193061. The surplus from the industrial sector amounted to 12.3% of the NDP. Thus, the total surplus of Chinese economy was at 36% of the NDP, to which (pre- modern) agriculture contributed about 2/3 and the industrial sector 1/3 (ibid.:74f.)62. This is remarkable considering the relatively bad conditions such as floods, civil war, international economic crisis and a weak state which prevailed in China at that time (Myers 1980:6, 19, 22f., Riskin 1975:81). These findings also contradict Elvin’s proposition that a lack of savings and investments in Chinese economy let the output per capita fall to subsistence level63.

61 Luxury consumption contributed 16.9%, land tax 2.1% and underutilized land and labor 5.5% of NDP in 1933 (Riskin 1975:70). In the 18th and the early 19th century the surplus may have been even higher (Anderson 1988:115). 62 Net consumption expenditures claimed over 94% of net domestic expenditures in 1933 leaving less than 6% for government consumption, communal services and investments. Net domestic investment was less than 2% of net domestic expenditures (Riskin 1975:79). Farm output increased by 1% per year between 1911 and 1957 (Perkins 1969:29). Riskin assumes that it increased by 1.5% in the 1920s and that investments (in farm equipment, supplies and livestock) amounted to about 1.8% of household income, i.e. 1.2% of the NDP (see also Buck 1937:467). The output of the rural handicraft production increased by 1.1% per year between 1912 and 1931. Hence, a potential surplus over massproduction of 36% of the NDP was enough for the necessary investments (Riskin 1975:80). For investment rates in the late 18th and the early 19th century in England cp. Pierenkemper (1996:15f.). 63 Huang (1985:20) mentions that Elvin does acknowledge the existence of surplus (1973:285-316) but that his graph (ibid.:313) is showing how output per capita falls to subsistence level and surplus is eaten up by a growing population. According to Myers (1980:22f.), Chinese economy increased by 13% and the agricultural sector by 143 Although China was poor, it was not caught in a vicious circle of misery and poverty. Compared to Meiji Japan the output per capita was certainly not lower in Chinese agriculture (Riskin 1975:82).

Also a comparison of grain output per capita shows that the most productive regions of China were not behind England and Wales. The population of England and Wales increased by the factor 3.09, whereas the Chinese population increased by the factor 2.99 between 1700 and 1850. However, the total agricultural output increased during this time period by the factor 2 in England and Wales (according to Allen 1994; Turner/Beckett/Afton 2001; Grigg 1982) and by the factor 2.2 in the most productive provinces of China. Hence, there was a decrease in grain output per capita in England and Wales by the factor 0.67 on average and about the same (0.74) in the most productive provinces of China. Whereas productivity per capita increased in England and Wales during 1700 and 1750, but massively decreased between 1750 to 1850, it declined in China between 1700 and 1800, but increased between 1800 and 1850. The average grain output per person in the four most productive provinces in China (597 kg/p) was 1.3 times higher than the average in England and Wales (476 kg/p) between 1700 and 1850 (cp. Appendix VIII. 3.5).

Table 14: Grain output per capita in England and Wales and the four most productive provinces in China compared

England & China 465 Ch4/ England & China 467 Wales64 E&W Wales66 kg/p kg/p % kg/p % kg/p

1700 499 754 1.5 1700-1750 0.28 -0.64 1750 573 546 1.0 1750-1800 -0.29 -0.05 1800 495 532 1.1 1800-1850 -0.78 0.08 1850 335 555 1.7

1700-1850 476 597 1.3 1700-1850 -0.27 -0.20 %/year -0.27 -0.20 factor 0.7 0.7

We may conclude from these figures that the average grain output per capita was higher in the most productive provinces of China than in England and Wales and it increased in China

4% per year and capita between 1949 and 1977. These growth rates would not have been possible without capital, which in turn points to a rather high saving rate in China (Myers 1991:620f.). 64 Allen 1994; Grigg 1982; Turner/Beckett/Afton 2001 65 Liu/Huang 1978; Perkins 1969 66 Allen 1994; Grigg 1982; Turner/Beckett/Afton 2001 67 Perkins 1969 144 between 1800 and 1850 and until 1930 whereas it decreased in England and Wales from 1750 to 1850.

It might be objected that grain output is not an appropriate proxy for comparing living standards in China and Europe as the amount of meat and food other than meat was higher in Europe than in China (cp. Huang 2002). However, the patterns of food intake in England and China were quite similar, contrary to Huang’s assertion (2002:506ff.). Between 1787 and 1793 the average weekly intake of an English laborer was 4.1 kg bread and 0.2 kg potatoes, 0.14 kg meat, 43 g fat and 0.28 l milk per person and week. In caloric terms bread and potatoes contributed 90% of all calories, but meat only 5%, milk 1.5% and fats 3.2%, in addition to this 49 gr of protein were consumed on average68. This is comparable with Chinese consumption patterns: 80% grains, 15% vegetables and 2-3% meat (cp. chap. 2.5.1). For the 1930s figures are available for both England and Jiangnan. In England 1.7 kg bread and 1.45 kg potatoes, 0.64 kg meat, 329 g fat and 1.6 l milk were consumed per person and week. This amounted to 2540 kcal, 78 g protein, 96 g fats, 14 mg iron and 0.65 g calcium per person and day (Oddy 1990:269,274). An “adult consumer unit” in a peasant household in Jiangnan consumed 3486 kcal, 98 g protein, 23 mg iron and 0.42 g calcium (Buck 1937:407,419). The amounts of calories, protein and iron were higher in Jiangnan and in China, though we have no figures for fat. Calcium intake was higher in Europe but still did not reach the minimum. These figures are probably not fully comparable. However, they do not support the Malthusian proposition on China.

2.9.2 Distribution of land

It may be objected that the above-mentioned figures on average consumption of average households do not reflect the real distribution of land and hence do not invalidate the proposition of growing impoverishment of a large part of the Chinese population. However, it can be shown that while population and man-land-ratio increased, the unequal distribution of land decreased (more owners and long-term tenants and less households without land), so the above-mentioned average values tend to correspond to the actual land distribution (Chao 1986:168; Brandt 1989:138,147; Faure 1989:163). Several factors were responsible for this decrease of unequal land distribution.

While population and commercialization (i.e. the production of cotton and silk, tobacco and tea) increased, the marginal value of agricultural products and the household incomes also

68 Even in 1863 the figures were not very high: 4.9 kg of bread and 1.8 kg of potatoes, 0.41 kg of meat, 145 g of fat and 0.88 l of milk per person and week. This amounted to 2600 kcal, 66 g protein, 60 g fats, 14.9 mg of iron and 0.44 g of calcium (Oddy 1990:269, 274; cp. Appendix VII.3). 145 increased. Peasant households were able to buy small parcels of land or were forced less often to sell their land due to debts (Chao 1986:106ff.)69. As big landowners incurred increasing transaction costs by controlling both unfree and free labor, the long term leasing of small parcels of land for a fixed rent was more profitable. In this way, not only control costs could be reduced to a considerable extent, but also tenants were forced to intensify their production on smaller plots (Chao 1986:125). At the same time, long time lease of land created a de facto double ownership ”one field, two owners” (Eastman 1988b:77; Fei/Chang 1945:76). The result was a reduction of unequal distribution of land (Chao 1986:139-145, 163ff., 184-191; Netting 1993:243f.).

The trend towards land fragmentation and more equal land distribution was also furthered by the predominant mode of land inheritance. Land was distributed to all sons according to the mode of partible inheritance (homoyogenitur, Stover/Stover 1976:122). Rich peasants had more land but also more children than poorer peasants, i.e. more sons among whom they had to distribute their land. Therefore, sons of rich peasants became poorer (downward mobility) whereas industrious sons of poor peasants could buy or lease more land (upward mobility) (Huang 1985:78; Chao 1986:105; Netting 1993:244; Stover/Stover 1976:111)70. Thus, the percentage of landless households (and of big land-owners) decreased and land became more equally distributed, as poor peasant households could save money and afford to buy or rent some additional land as well as due to the rule of partible inheritance of land. This again does not support Elvin’s proposition of a growing impoverishment of the Chinese peasant population. The distribution of land also has consequences for the reproductive behavior. Hence we briefly have to come back to the reproductive strategies of households.

2.9.3 Reproductive strategies

It could be assumed – as the theory of the Malthusian trap does – that the value of children as laborers increases with increasing intensification of production thus leading to higher birth rates and to population growth. However, Boserup (1983:186, 1990:23f.) has pointed out that labor-intensive land use in densely populated areas is no incentive for high fertility rates (Netting 1993:27; Cleveland 1998). Households practicing labor-intensive agriculture on scarce land, as in China, had to adjust their size to the available amount of land by female

69 Whereas land prices were stable between 1510 and 1750 they increased from 1750 onwards, except during the middle of the 19th century. This price increase was due to an increased demand rather than to a reduced supply of land (Chao 1986:129ff.). 70 In contrast to this, the system of primogeniture, prevailing in most parts of Europe and Japan, increased the unequal distribution of land in each generation as well as the percentage of landless population (Chao 1986:109; Wilkinson 1973:75, 80). The percentage of landless households increased since the 16th and 17th century in England due to population increase and enclosures (Grigg 1982:206ff.). 146 infanticide and restriction of marital fertility (TMFR) (Netting 1993:86, 270, 315ff., see chap. 1.4). Thus, families with small or medium-sized farms had fewer children than households with large farms. Landless households, on the other hand, had more children, since children contributed to family income as wage laborers (Netting 1993:269ff.; Herlihy 1998:59-66 on Europe; Netting 1993:96-99 on Japan)71. Thus, if extensive agriculture is practiced, the field area (farm size) is expanded as the household grows in number. If, however, intensive agriculture is practiced (and land is scarce), the size of a household must adjust to farm size. This explains why in China poorer peasants had fewer children than richer farmers (cp. chap. 1.4 and Appendix I.3)72. Thus, the high elasticity of household size to income variations prevented a decline of the living standard of households73. At the same time, non-agricultural production of rural households (especially in the textile sector) generated additional income and contributed to an improvement of the standard of living (Chao 1986:108).

2.9.4 Non-agricultural production of rural households

To compensate for a decrease of land per capita, the production had to be intensified by raising yields per land. Another important household strategy was the expansion of non- agricultural activities, such as wage labor and handicraft production, which generated additional income (as we have already seen in Jiangnan).

Since the time of the Han dynasty, but increasingly after the late 15th century markets expanded and market cities emerged. At the same time handicraft production of rural households increased, especially with regard to spinning and weaving of cotton and silk as well as the cultivation of cotton and mulberry trees (Chao 1987:56; Elvin 1974:268; Eastman 1988e:142-147; Myers 1980:96f.; Wong 1997:21, 37f.). Rural handicraft production had several advantages. 1) A hitherto under-employed household labor force (of women and children) could be put to work with higher labor productivity74. 2) Handicraft production required only low capital inputs, especially for spinning, which even poor farmers could afford. 3) The work was less demanding and simpler than in rice cultivation and not

71 However, this is not corroborated by the numbers given by Fei (1939, cp. Appendix I.3). 72 Herlihy (1998:59ff.) points to the effectiveness of preventive checks, i.e. of households adjusting birth rates to available land resources in Europe. A higher marriage age and birth control were reactions to increasing food prices and decreasing rates of land per household (cp. Wilkinson 1973:73ff., Boserup 1987:697ff. and Wrigley/Schofield 1981 on Europe, Lee/Wang 1999:51f. for China). 73 According to Elvin (1974) China had a problem of overpopulation, a position shared by Mallory (1930) and others. However, it is difficult to understand why under such condition real wages increased, as they did between 1901 and 1933 (Rawski 1989:326; Brandt 1989:107-122; Myers 1970:141-151; Perkins 1969:299; Buck 1937:306). 74 There was hardly rural unemployment in Chinese agriculture, but rather seasonal underuse of labor force (Boserup 1972:322f.). Perkins (1969:57ff.) mentions a shortage of agricultural labor in the 1930s. The potential

147 dependent on weather conditions (Li 1998:150). 4) It created an additional income for consumption and the purchase of land. 5) By combining agriculture and handicraft production, households could diversify their production, increase their income and reduce risks (Netting 1993:238; Elvin 1974:275f., 283). In prosperous regions about 20 to 30% of the output of peasant households was marketed during the Qing times; in the early 20th century it was even 30 to 40%. According to Buck (1930:111) 54% of all crops were sold for cash in China, 40% in North China and 60% in east central China (see also Chao 1986:57; Feuerwerker 1990:234; Eastman 1988b:71, 1988d:102f., 1988e:141ff.; Rawski 1972:54f.; Huang 1990:44ff., 78ff.; Bray 1986:135).

Huang (1990; 2002:510-520) maintains that the involutionary growth through intensification of production was the result of growing overpopulation and increasing land pressure. The Chinese households had to invest additional labor into silk and cotton production, which had a lower marginal product of labor (labor productivity) than agriculture. Pomeranz (2002:546ff.) questions these assertions on several grounds. First, he shows that the difference in productivity in relation to land and to labor was not as great as asserted by Huang75. After subtracting the rents from the output, 100 adult days of labor in the cotton complex (growing, spinning and weaving of cotton) yielded about 588 kg of wheat equivalents or 5.9 kg per day and adult consumer. This is considerably higher than what English agricultural laborers (3 kg) or (rural and urban) weavers (between 4 and 5.5 kg) earned in England in the middle of the 18th century (Pomeranz 2002:550f.). Second, Pomeranz argues that marginal productivity of labor in agriculture was always higher than in handicraft production. While marginal productivity in agriculture declines with a fixed stock of land, marginal productivity (price) in handicraft production remains about constant. If the marginal productivity in agriculture falls to the marginal productivity in handicraft production, peasant producers will devote more labor to handicraft production. If the price per cloth declines (as it was the case between 1750 and 1840), more labor will be invested into agriculture again. If households’ consumption

of seasonally underused labor of peasant households was tapped through off-season wage labor and non- agricultural production. 75 Pomeranz accepts that one mu of cotton land required twice as much labor than one mu of rice/wheat land, thus 2:1 (Huang 2002:510). But one mu (one fifteenth of one ha) of cotton yielded 150 cash per day, one mu of rice/wheat 260 cash per day. As a consequence the ratio decreased to 1.7:1 and with further adjusting the ratio for the quality of labor (children instead of adult labor) to 1.3:1. Considering output not in relation to land but to labor, it took 60 days for the growing, spinning and weaving of cotton to earn 2 shi of rice required to feed one adult person, thus, 5.3 times longer than through rice/wheat production (Pomeranz 2002:547). This is a considerably lower ratio than the ratio of 18:1 for rice and 27:1 for wheat stipulated by Huang. Since mainly old people and children worked in the ”cotton complex”, the 180 work days should be reduced to 100 adult work days, and the ratio further declines to 3:1. Furthermore, by taking into consideration the value added per labor day, the ratio further declines to 2:1; i.e. a day labor in the cotton complex yielded 50% as much value added as one in grain production (Pomeranz 2002:548). 148 targets were not met, handicraft production was going on with more total labor being invested in both activities (Pomeranz 2002:549, 576f.)76. This intensification of labor can occur without population pressure, as in Europe, where exposure to market opportunities and the availability of new consumables were more important factors than enclosure and proletarianization, overpopulation and land pressure (Overton 1996:133-192, 197-207; Pomeranz 2002:552; Feuerwerker 1990:212). Third, the advantage of handicraft production is a higher income per year in return for less average income per day, i.e. more work days per year and household (Pomeranz 2002:550). Even if labor productivity in the cotton complex may have been lower that in grain production, handicraft production has considerably contributed to household income77. The cotton and cloth output per capita of the agricultural population in Jiangnan increased from 90 kg/p in 1620 to 117 kg/p in 1850. At the same time grain output per capita declined from 448 kg/p to 350 kg/p, but increased again between 1850 and 1930 to 458 kg/p (cp. Appendix VIII.3). I have no data on cotton and cloth output per capita in the 1930s but all the data point to an increase of cotton production and handicraft output of cloth (Perkins 1969:283; Brandt 1989:123, 135). According to Brandt (1989:72f.) cash crop marketing rose from one half to two third of the annual output of peasant households in Jiangnan and Guangdong between 1890 and 1930. The output of handicraft production in China grew by 1.1% per year (Riskin 1975:80) or 1.4% per year (Rawski 1989:330) between 1912 and 1931 (see also Chao 1975:175). This amounts to an annual increase per capita of 0.3 and 0.6% and to an annual increase of cloth consumption per capita of 0.8% between 1871/80-1901/10 and of 0.7% between 1901/10 and 1931/36 (Brandt 1989:135; Eastman 1988c:85f.).

The peasant households produced textiles for both the Chinese and the world market where subsistence farmers were highly competitive. Cotton and silk were mainly from domestic production, but cotton was also imported from India (Elvin 1974:313f.). The factor, product and credit markets in China were highly efficient, and certainly not less efficient than in Europe (Myers 1980, chap. 4; 1991:614ff.; Wong 1990:12f.; 1992:605; but see Huang 1990:106-111 for an opposite view). Farmers bought and sold their products on regional markets, and the putting out system (of merchants and home workers) which prevailed in Europe hardly existed in China (Elvin 1974:286ff.; Feuerwerker 1990:234; Eastman

76 As subsistence farmers they had to continue production at all costs until the production target as required by consumption was reached. However, as subsistence farmers they had a buffer in food production and could flexibly adjust their supply of non-agricultural products to market demand (Elvin 1974:275f., 283). 77 Data on Jiangnan (Li Bozhong) shows that there was a decline of physical labor productivity in grain and cotton from 1345 kg/w in 1620 to 1216 kg/w in 1850, although at the same time labor productivity in grain production increased from 1121 kg/w to 1518 kg/w. 149 1988e:145). However, Chinese textile production (by peasant households) experienced a sharp decrease in demand on the world market after 1830 (though less on the domestic market). It lost its advantage facing stiff competition from the European textile industry. Furthermore, long distance trade and transportation infrastructure suffered heavily during the turmoil of mid 19th century, which also damaged the rural textile sector in China. On the other hand domestic and international market and trade soared in England at the same time, supported by its naval and military power (Pomeranz 2002:578). However, towards the end of the 19th century Chinese handicraft production recovered. China now imported and processed industrially produced yarn, whereas home made yarn production had previously been a bottleneck of domestic textile production. The output of handicraft production grew by 1.1% per year (Riskin 1975:80) or 1.4% per year (Rawski 1989:330) between 1912 and 1931 (cp. Chao 1975:175; Eastman 1988c:85f.; Brandt 1989:135).

Agricultural output, handicraft production and wage labor increased between 1876 and 1930. Rawski (1989:330f.) has estimated that agricultural output grew by between 1.4% and 1.7%, whereas handicraft production increased by annually 1.4% between 1914/18 and 1931/36 (see also Riskin 1975:80). With a potential surplus over mass production of about 30% of the NDP there were enough means available for investments (Riskin 1975:80). As a consequence, output and income per capita and, thus, the standard of living of Chinese households rose until the worldwide economic crisis in the 1930s. An increase of output per capita of 0.4% to 0.9% (Rawski 1989:326, 330) in Chinese agriculture and handicraft production seems plausible. Even Huang (1990:13,143) assumes an increase of 0.5% between 1910 and 1930 (see also Eastman 1988c:84ff., 88ff.; 1988e:143f.; Gernet 1988:488, 511; Brandt 1989:123)78. This data – also corroborated by statements made by peasants themselves (Buck 1937:459f.; Myers 1970:125, 208) – again does not support the thesis of the Malthusian trap.

In pre-industrial China an economy of Smithian type prevailed. It was characterized by a growth of total and per capita output through specialization, intensification, extension of market transactions and supported by a state investing in infrastructure (water control, transport, risk management etc.) but also by technological progress (mechanical, biological and organizational). There was a balance of population and resources in China far above subsistence level (Wong 1997:29). The ”high-level equilibrium trap” in China describes, thus,

78 See also Brandt (1989:123, 125, 129, 135) on Central and Eastern China, Faure (1989:153, 157, 160f.) on Guangdong and Jiangsu, Myers (1970:56f.) on Shandong and Hebei and Li Bozhong (1998) on Jiangnan and Songjiang (see Appendix VIII.3.4). 150 a similar type of economy as in Europe known as ”industrious revolution” (DeVries), a highly successful pre-industrial economy (Wong 1997:41f.).

III. Discussion We may now draw some provisional conclusions, which may contribute to an explanation of the diverging developmental paths of Europe and China.

As already mentioned, the data on China (and on Europe) that were used in this essay are rather scanty. Without pressing the data too hard, they should, nevertheless, allow for reasonable estimates of general trends. Furthermore, it is difficult to compare statistically China with Europe, as there are not only considerable differences within China (Perkins 1969:19; Reynolds 1985:271) but also within Europe (cp. Slicher van Bath 1963:280; Grigg 1982:103, 166, 174f.). However, the data on Chinese agriculture may be good enough to show that the high-level equilibrium trap is not a plausible explanation for the data presented in this article.

3.1 Agriculture As Wilkinson (1973) and Boserup (1972) have maintained that it is the scarcity of resources, not plenty, which may lead to an intensification of production and to the implementation of innovations, be they mechanical (new cultivation methods, new tools), biological (new crops, new seeds, new kinds of manure) or organizational (property rights and rent system, agricultural infrastructure). This was true for both China and Europe.

China had a highly efficient agriculture. Wet rice cultivation in southern and central China was far more productive than dry field agriculture both in Europe and northern China (Li 1998:171). Even in dry land agriculture yields seemed to be higher in China than in Europe as a comparison between Shandong and Holland in the 18th century shows (Pomeranz 2000:33, 45). Furthermore soil fertility remained equal or may have even increased in some areas over time in Chinese irrigation agriculture but decreased in Europe (and in Chinese) dry land agriculture (Bray 1984:107, 111, 125; Eastman 1988d:122f.; Li 1998a:171). The technology used in European agriculture was not superior to its Chinese counterpart until the early 19th century. This fact was also acknowledged by contemporaries such as the members of the ”Walsh society for the improvement of agriculture” and the French physiocrats, cited by Pomeranz (2000:45). This translated into yields per ha in the four most productive provinces in China that were about 2.1 times higher on average than in England and Wales, the most prosperous country in Europe, between 1700 and 1850, although the growth rate was (by

151 factor 1.9 versus factor 1.4) higher in England and Wales than in China (see Table 6). Also the increase of total output of grain was probably somewhat higher in China (increase factor 2.2 on average) than in England and Wales where it increased by a factor 2 (Allen 1994, Turner/Beckett/Afton 2001, Grigg 1982; cp. Appendix VIII.3.5). Labor productivity in China’s most productive provinces was roughly the same as in England and increased at about the same rate as in England and Wales between 1700 and 1850. However, whereas the annual increase was higher in England and Wales (0.22% versus –0.07%) from 1700 and 1750, it was higher in China (0.53% versus 0.22%) from 1800 to 1850 (cp. Table 10), and average labor productivity continued to grow until 1930 (VIII. 1 and 3). Grain output per capita was on average 476 kg between 1700 and 1850 in England and Wales, whereas in China of the four provinces it amounted to 597 kg. The annual average increase in output per capita was about the same in England and Wales and in the four most productive provinces in China (cp. Table 13; VIII. 1 and 3). However, productivity per capita increased again in China between 1850 and 1930 by 0.12% or factor 1.1 (see table 12, Appendix VIII.3.5). This was far above the minimal subsistence need of the assumed 180 or 220 kg per person, and far away from the output per capita reaching subsistence level, which according to Elvin (1974) would be an indicator for overpopulation and impoverishment. The still unexhausted growth potential of Chinese agriculture is also indicated by the potential surplus which amounted to almost 25% of the NDP in 1933: two third of the total potential surplus of Chinese economy (Riskin 1975; Lippit 1974). Hence, there was also enough investment capital for an industrial take-off in China (for England cp. Pierenkemper 1996:15f.).

In pre-industrial Europe food (mostly grains and potatoes) accounted for about 80% of an average household‘s total expenses and cloth for another 13%. It was only when income and real wages began to increase from the 1840s onwards that animal products were increasingly consumed (Grigg 1982:118-123). This was not very different from China (Pomeranz 2002), but the Chinese agriculture could also supply fibers in sufficient quantities for its textile sector whereas Europe became increasingly dependent on cotton imports to match the demand in the middle of the 19th century (Pomeranz 2000:45). Both in China and in Europe handicraft production by rural households played an important role. The extent of commercialization (domestic and international trade) and the market integration of the rural textile production were probably more advanced in China than in Europe: about 20 to 30% of the output of peasant households was marketed during Qing time, in the early 20th century it was even 30% to 40% (Eastman 1988e:141ff.). Furthermore, markets were highly efficient in China and also handicraft production flourished, thus leading to a relatively high living standard (as

152 compared to Europe) (Wong 1997:17-22 on product and factor markets). Economic growth was only interrupted by political or politically induced crises (such as war, rebellions, floods and droughts), as Eastman (1988d:129) states (see also Myers 1980:91-118;). The question, then, is why there was no industrial take-off in China.

According to Boserup (1983:197ff.; 1987:693) the industrial revolution in Europe was the result of innovations in the proto-industrial sector as a reaction to both a scarcity of labor and an energy crises. According to Pomeranz (2000:19) labor force and capital were available in sufficient quantities, but land was scarce, because the energy crisis was largely due to a shortage of land and to a zero-sum-game between fields, pastures and forests characterizing the solar energy system (Sieferle 1997). Capital appears of not having been scarce, and all agree that there was a shortage of energy. An increase of land productivity without a rise of labor productivity and with the urban sector expanding and attracting rural labor force may explain why labor force also became scarce. Wilkinson (1973, chap. 6) explains the industrial revolution in England as a reaction to scarcities in different sectors of the economy. The solution of scarcity in one sector produced scarcity in another where new technological solutions had to be found in turn: coal mining instead of charcoal, steam-powered pumps to empty coal pits instead of horse-powered kettle-buckets, increasing land productivity by new labor intensive methods, higher yielding crops, import of crops and manure as well as of cotton and timber (Pomeranz 2000:12, 19, 23f., 46, 57f., 68). Furthermore, the improvements of the transportation system (canals, turnpike roads, etc.) became crucial. The most important innovations were land saving, not labor saving (Buchheim 1994:49-54). This is consistent with the fact that in a solar energy regime production is largely dependent on land, and therefore substituting capital, labor and/or imports for land is crucial (Pomeranz 2000:49f.)79.

According to Wilkinson (1973) innovation in order to cope with scarcity may not only lead to an intensification of production but also to a change of the mode of production, i.e. to the transition of an aristocratic pre-industrial state to an industrial capitalist system. As I have argued in this essay, it was only in the first half the 20th century when Chinese pre-industrial agriculture reached its productive capacity, whereas the agricultural potential in Europe was already exhausted in the 19th century or even earlier (Perkins 1969:29; Feuerwerker

79 Consequently, the workload increased during the Industrial Revolution, which made it essential to develop and use more labor saving machinery (Wilkinson 1973:135; Buchheim 1994:50). The solution of this problem came with the use of the rotational power of steam machines at the end of the 18th century. Steam powered railway substituted for horses and pastureland in the middle of the 19th century. The rotational energy of steam engines was also used in textile sector. The result of this process – being a combination of pressures and opportunities – was steam engine and bituminous coal, which formed the basic technology of the Industrial Revolution (Wilkinson 1973, chap. 6; Pierenkemper 1996:10-37). 153 1990:235ff.; Deng 1993:173). If these two propositions are accepted we may conclude that Europe was forced at an earlier date than China to solve its resource scarcity problem by innovations, which later turned out to have been the foundations of the industrial take off and the establishment of a new mode of production80.

According to Boserup (1972) there are several conditions for an industrial take-off. First, an increasing urbanization as well as a growth of the commercial and the manufactural sector lead to a growing demand for agricultural products and labor force as well as to an increasing supply of industrially made (or imported) inputs for agriculture. Second, a high elasticity of peasant households to demand leads to an intensification and specialization of production in order to satisfy a growing demand of the non-agricultural sector. And the relative and absolute decrease of rural labor force as well as the higher capital and labor inputs leads to an increase of labor productivity (1972:312f., 315f., 326). Secure land property rights and a well- developed transportation system are seen as additional conditions (ibid.:315f.; Grigg 1982:106). Probably, there was no agricultural revolution i.e. no capitalist transformation of the Chinese agriculture not because of its backwardness but because the urban, industrial sector did not grow fast enough, did not offer attractive wages for peasants and did not produce enough industrial inputs for the agricultural sector. According to Myers (1970:293), Chinese agriculture did not experience an industrial revolution because the industrial sector was not dynamic enough. On the other hand – and perhaps more important – the conditions in Chinese agriculture were not as bad as in the English counterpart: fewer landless households, more landholding peasants (owners or long-term tenants), comparatively high productivity of Chinese agriculture, relatively high incomes through agriculture and non-agricultural household production (cp. Boserup 1972:315ff., 323 on French, Danish and Southeast Asian versus English type of peasants).

This proposition is also corroborated by Deng (1999:202f.) according to whom underutilized labor force in the agricultural sector always was a precondition for industrialization, but this is, according to him, not sufficient to explain why there was no industrial takeoff in China. The reason for it was that the Chinese peasants did not leave their land because opportunity costs would have been high. This may be explained by the fact that peasants were landholding

80 There may have been other obstacles to industrialization. According to Pomeranz coal deposits and industrial centers were far distant from each other in China, whereas in England the new industry was built up near coalmines. However, as Jones (1998:93) has pointed out, the amount of available resources is (mainly) a function of technology, of transportation and of imports (but see Pomeranz 2002:578ff.). But, as Pomeranz (2002:580) states, it helped that coalmines were near and it helped that steam powered pumps were used in England. As coal deposits were distant from Jiangnan, and transportation costs would have been very high, it had to look for other means to solve its energy problems. 154 (owners or long-term tenants) and land was distributed more equally because of the rule of equal inheritance and the fact that there were no enclosures (Feuerwerker 1990:237). The opportunity for handicraft production and seasonal wage labor of household members made agriculture attractive and contributed to its viability (Rawski 1989:299-321). The opportunity costs to leave the land were, thus, much higher in China, i.e. the most productive provinces than in Europe, i.e. in England where the primogeniture system prevailed, commons were dismantled, enclosures had produced landless households (Grigg 1982:206-212) and agriculture was less profitable for small peasant households (Chao 1986:109). It was only after the process of industrialization had taken off that Europe outpaced China and later marginalized it (Deng 1999:324ff.). According to Deng, until the middle of the 19th century China was not only wealthier but also more powerful than Japan, where reforms were made by the state and the transition towards a capitalist state and towards industrialization started. Opportunity costs for such reforms and for industrialization were much higher in China than in Japan because it was wealthier and more powerful. The Meiji Japan, in turn, had nothing to loose and therefore a high incentive for reforms and modernization. The same constellation prevailed in Europe between England on one side and Germany and France on the other but in general between China and all Europe.

However, it is not sufficient, that such an economic transition (industrialization) is economically necessary, it also must be politically possible. Therefore, political factors must be taken into consideration (Perdue, this volume).

3.2 State Europe consisted of a fragmented political system of independent states, which waged internecine wars against each other for their survival up to the beginning of the 19th century. Each one of them aimed at increasing its power and wealth in order to compete successfully against rival states. Military competition and frequent wars propelled a process of military innovations (in the artillery, the navy and in the organization of the army) during the 17th and the 18th century (McNeill 1982). While the expenditures for the military soared, the economic potential was lower in Europe than in China and the state was checked by other elite factions (aristocracy and merchants in autonomous cities). China, on the other hand, represented a uniform political system with a central state, focussing on the integration of its territory as well as on welfare and prosperity of the peasant population. In China relative peace ruled (with the exception of peasant uprisings, frontier wars and pirate attacks). The Chinese state established internal peace and stabilized its borders in the Northwest, where peace ruled since

155 the middle of the 18th century. It could rely on a stronger economy and had more control of the aristocracy and the merchants in the cities. The central state was stable and largely unchallenged up to the 19th century, and the need for military armament was not as high as for the European states (Perdue 1998:14, 21; Wong 1997). The comparatively low capacity of European agriculture as well as the military competition in a multipolar political system forced European states into commercial-military colonial expansion from the 16th century onwards in order to tap the sources of wealth of the Orient in order to increase state revenues. Increasing military power was a precondition of the European expansion, first in the Americas in the 16th century and in Asia since the middle of the 18th century (Cipolla 1999, Frank 1998). The principal motive for this colonial expansion has always been economic exploitation and the control of trade as well as the elimination of European competitors abroad. Since the Chinese central state was not subjected to military competition, hardly any technological and organizational progress took place within the military sector. Furthermore, the Qing state militarily concentrated on its land army and on the central Asian frontier, but it neglected the establishment of a navy and its deployment at the coast81. In contrast European states built up colonial empires which contributed to the accumulation of capital (gold and silver, commercial capital, state revenues), enhanced military capacity and technology (cp. Tilly 1992, Cipolla 1999) and added agricultural land, thus substituting European land by importing raw materials, food, fodder and manure as well as emigration (see Pomeranz 2000, Jones 1991). Thus, whereas territorial expansion of the Chinese state came to a standstill and external peace was established at about 1760 (Perdue, this volume), the military competition between European states continued as their colonial expansion in Asia accelerated since the middle of the 18th century (Sanderson 1995:192ff.).

Until the beginning of the 19th century China had been a super power of international trade, which exported high-grade products (such as silk, cotton, porcelain, paper and tea). Up to that time China displayed a positive balance of trade: about half of the 400 million silver dollars, which came from south America to Europe between 1571 and 1821, went to China as payment for imports (Gernet 1988:409; Eastman 1988d:129). It was only after the British militarily forced the Chinese state to admit opium imports from India that the balance of trade became increasingly negative for China. Although European powers did not colonize China, they considerably weakened the Chinese state in numerous wars (starting with the first Opium

81 The Chinese had a powerful navy in earlier times, which the European fleets could not have matched. But the Chinese state redirected its revenues to the building up of a land army at the beginning of the 15th century which had to quell rebellions and had to face the increasing threat by warlike groups from the steppe at the northern border (Gernet 1988:340f). 156 War). At the same time relative peace ruled in Europe during the 19th century when industrial growth gained momentum. While European nation states became politically more efficient, better legitimated and militarily more effective, the Chinese central state became territorially over-stretched, politically inefficient and militarily weak. This contrasts with the 18th century when China provided a more efficient administration than Europe. The Chinese state experienced its most severe political and economic crises in the middle of the 19th century and it could not prevent foreign powers (such as Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Japan) from enforcing trade, duty and tax privileges by military means. The ruling elite increasingly lost its legitimacy for being non-Chinese and having lost all wars against the foreigners (Feuerwerker 1990:235f.). Whereas China heavily suffered from political uprisings and economic crisis in the middle of the 19th century, political consolidation, industrialization and expansion of trade gained momentum in Europe, especially in England (Pomeranz 2002:578). The foreign powers supported the Chinese state to suppress the popular uprisings in the middle of the 19th century, which caused large destruction and left the country in disarray. The Chinese state lost its sovereignty and had to pay exorbitant reparations after numerous lost wars against the invaders. After the end of this turmoil, especially after 1872, some attempts at industrialization were made in the private sector. However, these were hampered by a heavy taxing of the domestic trade, exorbitant reparation payments and the lack of capital (Gernet 1988:474ff., 481, 501f.; Eastman 1988f). The foreign interventions thus damaged the Chinese economy and in the end prevented the modernization of the state (Gernet 1988:474, 477). Thus, no modern national state (or smaller nation states) emerged in China, which was a precondition of industrialization and modernization in Europe and later in Japan (Rowe 1990:261f.; Osterhammel 1995:160f., 169-173).

IV. A provisional conclusion As mentioned in the introduction, the data I used is rather scanty and does not allow me to answer positively the question of the delayed development of China as compared to Europe. Nevertheless, we may draw two conclusions, as provisional as they might be. First, progress in agriculture seems not to be a precondition to industrial take-off, rather the contrary is true. It is agricultural stagnation, which makes industrial transition necessary and political conditions made it possible. European agriculture had exhausted its growth potential long before the Chinese. In China the land productivity was high and continued to increase, labor productivity and per capita in pre-industrial agriculture were high as well and increased again from 1800 onwards until 1930. Markets were highly efficient, handicraft production

157 flourished, as did both domestic and foreign trade. The balance of trade was highly positive up to the beginning the 19th century. Second, the political crises of the middle the 19th century, the impact of various interventions by foreign powers and the dramatic decrease in state efficiency prevented the emergence of a modern nation state in China. Foreign interventions damaged not only the economy (foreign trade, reparations, granting privileges, lack of capital) and seriously hampered the industrialization, but also prevented the modernization of the state, as it took place in Europe and later in Japan.

In terms of technologist and distributionalist positions I maintain that economy, i.e. agriculture, was important. The problem, however, was not that China had a less efficient agriculture than Europe, but a more efficient one, which contributed to a delayed industrialization. Chinese similarities with all pre-modern societies such as exploitation of peasants, corruption of state officials, the Confucian ideology and the Chinese family organization were probably less important, but the inefficient state in China of the 19th and 20th century was also hampering the industrial development. But here again the efficient state (with a low budget, a small number of officials supervising a huge territory and investments in agriculture) as well as the peace, which ruled China until the beginning of the 19th century, turned into disadvantages when confronted with foreign invasions and furthering capitalism.

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167 VI. Appendix

I.1. Average size of households in China After the abolition of the ting system, which concentrated on counting only the male members of households, the household census were improved by including female members. Consequently, the average household size from 1720 onwards was somewhat higher than they had been before.

ø size of household

1502-1522 District Ch’ang-shu 5.18 (Ho 1959: 17) 1522-1552 District Yin-hsien 3.31 (Ho 1959: 18) 1522-1552 District Feng-hua 3.20 (Ho 1959: 18) 1522-1552 District Ting-hai 2.87 (Ho 1959: 18) 1522-1552 District Hsiang-shan 4.68 (Ho 1959: 18) 1505-1557 District Wu-chiang 3.12 (Ho 1959: 19) 1512-1633 District Lien-chiang 2.56 (Ho 1959:20) 1541 District Chien-ning 3.90 (Rawski 1972:171) 1558 District Lung-yen 6.20 (Rawski 1972:171) 1593 District Fu-ning 2.85 (Rawski 1972:171) 1596 District Fu-chou 2.90 (Rawski 1972:171) 1601 District Shao-wu 4.12 (Rawski 1972:171) 1636 District Ting-chou 4.60 (Rawski 1972:171) 1636 District Yen-ping 4.25 (Rawski 1972:171) 3.84 1728-1750 Chekiang, 8 villages 4.70 (Wakefield 1998:50f.) 1769-1838 Prefecture Jiaxing 5.23 (Li Bozhong 1998:23) 1771 District Hsiao-shan 4.50 (Ho 1959: 41) 1773 Prefecture Yung-ping 5.50 (Ho 1959: 42) 1778 Province Chihli 4.77 (Ho 1959: 62) 1784 Prefecture Hangzhou 4.65 (Li Bozhong 1998:23) 1812 All China, 12 provinces 5.33 (Ho 1959: 56) 1928 All China 5.26 (Ho 1959: 86) 1930 Village Taitou 4.80 (Yang 1945:9) 1933 All China 5.29 (Ho 1959: 86) 1934 Village Ch’ao-chou 5.27 (Freedman 1966:64f.) 1935 Village Kaihsienkung 4.00 (Fei 1939:29) 1936 All China 5.58 (Ho 1959: 86) 1938 Village Luts’un 5.70 (Fei/Chang 1945:298) 1938 Village Yits’un 4.40 (Fei/Chang 1945:298) 1938 Village Yuts’un 5.00 (Fei/Chang 1945:298) 1938 Village Kiangts’un 4.10 (Fei/Chang 1945:298) 4.95 1502-1938 N = 31 4.45

168 I.2 Sex ratios and female infanticide Values are given in men per 100 women

1771 District Hsiao-shan ø 132, 128 (< 16) (Ho 1959:41) 1773 Prefecture Yung-ping ø 121, 115 (< 16) (Ho 1959:42) 1778-1833 All China ø 120 (101–154) (Ho1959:58) 1778 Province Chihli ø 119, 123 (< 16) (Ho 1959:62) 1774-1873 Liaoning ø 135 (<1) (Lee/Wang 1999:51) 1870s All China ø 200, 430 (< 6) (Dickemann 1979:341) 1870s Swatow ø 124 (< 1) (Dickemann 1979:341) 1870s Swatow ø 175 (< 11), 166 (< 1) (Dickemann 1979:341) 1872 Zhejiang, 1 Prefecture ø 125, 194 (< 16) (Ho 1959:68) 1872 Zhejiang, 1 Prefecture ø 194, 431 (< 16) (Ho 1959:68) 19th century Amoy ø 148 –173 (< 1) (Dickemann 1979:341) early 20th century Lower Yangzi ø 375 (< 1) (Dickemann 1979:341) 1929/31 All China ø 108 (Buck 1956:376) 1934 Kaihsienkang ø 113, 125 (< 16), 135 (<6) (Fei 1939:22)

average (N=9, 6, 5) ø 137, 186 (< 16), 193 (<1)

I.3 Household size and wealth District Chi-hsi (Ho (1959:6)

class number of households ø size of households 1371 1376 1371 1376

officials, military 386 547 7.5 7 craftsmen 262 285 6.4 6.3 peasants 9074 9074 4 4

North- and Southchina 1929-33 (Buck 1956:368,370, cp. also Myers 1970:132f.)

Land property ø size of households north south China

1. fifth 7.92 6.8 7.31 2. fifth 6.07 5.49 5.76 3. fifth 5.13 4.93 5.02 4. fifth 4.57 4.48 4.52 5. fifth 3.98 3.94 3.96

Village Yutsun 1936 (Fei/Chang 1945:264)

class number of ø size of households households

rich peasants 6 11.2 middle peasants 31 5.7 poor peasants 75 4.6 landless 44 4.3

169 Village Wuxi 1941 (Faure 1989:90):

Size in mu number of ø size of households households

7.00 and more 2 7.5 5-00 – 6.99 3 4.67 3.00 – 4.99 22 3.91 1.00 – 2.99 40 3.3 0.99 or less 8 3.63

II.1 Estimated development of Chinese population according to various sources Data is provided by Chao (1986:35-41), Eastman (1988a:4), Perkins (1969:16), McEvedy/Jones (1978:171), Schran (1978:644) and Lee/Saito (in Lee/ Campbell/ Wang 2002:600).

Chao ™SRS Perkins ™SRS McEvedy/Jones ™SRS Schran ™SRS Lee/Saito ™SRS mm mmm

1193 120 1086 108 1500 100 1600 200 1850 430 1391 60 1400 65-80 1550 128 1700 200 1873 420 1592 200 1600 120-200 1600 150 1800 350 1893 453 1657 70 1650 100-150 1650 130 1900 500 1913 491 1776 268 1770 270 (±25) 1700 150 1933 550 1800 295 1812 360 (±25) 1750 215 1848 426 1850 430 (±25) 1800 320 1873 350 (±25) 1850 420 1893 385 (±25) 1870 400 1913 430 (±25) 1900 450 1933 500 (±25) 1920 485 1953 583 (±15) 1950 520 1957 647 (±15)

170 Estimated development of Chinese population according to Zhao/Xie (1988)

™SRS ¨SRS increase year ™SRS ¨SRS increase year m% % m % %

1500 92 1730 129 7.5 0.73 1510 93 1.1 0.11 1740 159 23.3 2.11 1520 94 1.1 0.11 1750 183 15.1 1.42 1530 95 1.1 0.11 1760 205 12.0 1.14 1540 95 0.0 0.00 1770 238 16.1 1.50 1550 96 1.1 0.10 1780 283 18.9 1.75 1560 96 0.0 0.00 1790 308 8.8 0.85 1570 97 1.0 0.10 1800 299 -2.9 -0.30 1580 97 0.0 0.00 1810 361 20.7 1.90 1590 98 1.0 0.10 1820 380 5.3 0.51 1600 98 0.0 0.00 1830 400 5.3 0.51 1610 99 1.0 0.10 1840 418 4.5 0.44 1620 99 0.0 0.00 1850 436 4.3 0.42 1630 99 0.0 0.00 1860 370 -15.1 -1.63 1640 - - 1870 388 4.9 0.48 1650 88 - 1880 367 -5.4 -0.55 1660 91 3.4 0.34 1890 380 3.5 0.35 1670 94 3.3 0.32 1900 400 5.3 0.51 1680 94 0.0 0.00 1910 405 1.3 0.12 1690 100 6.4 0.62 1920 440 8.6 0.83 1700 100 0.0 0.00 1930 468 6.4 0.62 1710 111 11.0 1.05 1720 120 8.1 0.78

171 II.2 Estimated development of Chinese population according to Liu/Huang (1978) Liu/Huang (1978:29f.). Some figures have been corrected for exceedingly high growth rates by Maddison (1998:169).

™SRS ¨SRS pop year corr. ™SRS ¨SRS pop year corr. m% %m m% %m

1500 103 - 1730 151 -1.9 –0.20 210 1510 124 20.4 1.9 117 1740 219 45 3.79 229 1520 133 7.3 0.7 1750 260 18.7 1.73 1530 139 4.5 0.4 1760 268 3.1 0.30 274 1540 144 3.6 0.4 1770 272 1.5 0.15 290 1550 146 1.4 0.1 1780 342 25.7 2.32 306 1560 151 3.4 0.3 1790 359 5 0.49 323 1570 155 2.6 0.3 1800 340 -5.3 -0.54 341 1580 162 4.5 0.4 1810 385 13.2 1.25 360 1590 162 0 0.0 1820 381 -1 -0.10 1600 160 -1.2 -0.1 1830 409 7.3 0.71 1610 153 -4.4 -0.4 1840 412 0.7 0.07 1620 145 -5.2 -0.5 1850 412 0 0.00 1630 138 -4.8 -0.5 1860 377 -8.5 -0.88 1640 130 -5.8 -0.6 1870 358 -5 -0.52 1650 123 -5.4 -0.6 1880 368 2.8 0.28 1660 152 23.6 2.1 135 1890 380 3.3 0.32 1670 148 -2.6 -0.3 1900 400 5.3 0.51 1680 126 -14.9 -1.6 1910 423 5.8 0.56 1690 144 14.3 1.3 1920 472 11.6 1.10 1700 138 -4.2 -0.4 1930 480 3.6 0.17 1710 149 7.9 0.8 156 1957 647 11.97 3.03 1720 154 3.4 0.3 177

Major population losses due to political crisis Population loss in % between pre-crisis and post-crises population

1590-1650 24% 1660-1680 18% 1850-1870 13%

172 II.3 Estimated demographic development in China (1800-1930)

Liu/Huang Maddison McEvedy/ Chao Perkins Schran Zhao/Xie Jones

1800 340 341 320 295 299 1850 412 412 420 426 436

% 0.38 0.38 0.55 0.74 0.76 ø0.56

1850 412 420 430 430 436 1870 358 400 350 420 388

% -0.70 -0.24 -1.02 -0.12 -0.58 ø-0.53

1910 423 1900 450 1910 413 491 405 1930 480 1920 485 1930 500 550 468

% 0.63 0.38 0.96 0.57 0.73 ø0.65

II.4 Estimated demographic development of China, Europe and Great Britain The date of the first three columns are taken from McEvedy/Jones (1978:171,19,49) on Europe including European Russia. Those of the last two columns are from Liu/Huang (1978:29f.) for China and from Livi-Bacci (1992:13) whose data on Europe do not include Russia.

China 1 Europe 1 GB China 2 Europe 2

1500 100 81 5 103 67 1600 150 100 6.25 160 89 1700 150 120 9.25 138 95 1800 215 180 16 340 146 1900 450 390 42 400 295

1500-1600 0.41 0.21 0.22 0.44 0.28 1600-1700 0.00 0.18 0.39 -0.15 0.07 1700-1800 0.36 0.41 0.55 0.91 0.43 1800-1900 0.74 0.78 0.97 0.16 0.71

average 0.38 0.39 0.53 0.34 0.37 factor 4.5 4.8 8.4 4 4.4

173 II.5 Population growth in Europe and China Birg (1996:51) on Europe and Liu/Huang (1978:29f.) on China

Europe III China II mm

1700 120 138 1750 163 260 1800 203 340 1850 276 412 1900 408 400 1950 549 580 Europe China %% %% 1700-1750 0.61 1.27 1700-1750 0.61 1.27 1750-1800 0.44 0.54 1700-1800 0.53 0.91 1800-1850 0.62 0.38 1700-1850 0.56 0.73 1850-1900 0.79 -0.06 1700-1900 0.61 0.53 1900-1950 0.60 0.75

Population growth rate per year in Europe, China and Japan (Wilson 2001:30)

Europe China Japan %% %

1500-1600 0.211 0.063 0.258 1600-1700 0.182 0.02 0.276 1700-1800 0.405 1.089 -0.035 1800-1850 0.774 0.748 0.267 1850-1900 0.773 -0.187 0.682 1900-1950 0.556 0.688 1.248 average 0.457 0.391 0.423

II.6 Population density in eight macro regions (Skinner 1977 in Myers 1980:11)

area 1843 1893 1953 qkm m p/sq.km m p/sq.km m p/sq.km

Northchina (without Manchuria) 746‘470 112 150 122 163 174 233 Northwestchina 771‘300 29 38 24 31 32 42 Upper Yangzi 423‘950 47 111 53 125 68 160 Middle Yangzi 699‘700 84 120 75 107 92 131 Lower Yangzi 192‘740 67 348 45 233 61 316 Southeastcoast (incl. Taiwan) 226‘670 27 119 29 128 36 159 Yun-Kwei 470‘900 11 23 16 34 26 55 Lingnan (incl. Hainan) 424‘900 29 68 33 78 47 111

total 3'956‘300 406 103 397 100 536 135

174 III.1 Total cultivated area and land per person

Perkins (1969:16,240), Chao (1986:87) and Heijdra (1998:452). The multi-cropping index (MCI) measures the number of harvests per field and year.

(Perkins) cultiv. land ha/p MCI (Chao) cultiv. land ha/p (Heijdra ) m ha m ha

1400 25 (±5) 0.34 1.3 1393 34 0.58 0.28 1600 33 (±15) 0.21 1.3 1581 53 0.26 0.21 1685 49 (±15) 0.22 1.3 1662 38 0.52 - 1766 63 (±15) 0.23 1.3 1784 59 0.22 - 1850 81(±15) 0.19 1.4 1812 63 0.21 - 1873 81(±3) 0.23 1.4 1887 77 0.18 - 1893 83 (±3) 0.21 1.4 - 1913 91 (±3) 0.20 1.4 - 1933 98 (±3) 0.19 1.3 1933 0.20 1953 112 (±2) 0.19 1.3 1957 112 (±2) 0.17 1.3

III.2 Total cultivated area, interval increase and land per person (Liu/Huang 1978:29f.)

™SRS ™ODQG ¨ODQG land/p ™SRS ™ODQG ¨ODQG land/p m m ha % ha/p m m ha % ha/p

1500 103 38.667 - 0.38 1730 151 60.667 -4.21 0.40 1510 124 39.200 1.38 0.32 1740 219 59.400 -2.09 0.27 1520 133 38.000 -3.06 0.29 1750 260 60.000 1.01 0.23 1530 139 37.667 -0.88 0.27 1760 268 61.667 2.78 0.23 1540 144 38.333 1.77 0.27 1770 272 63.333 2.70 0.23 1550 146 39.067 1.91 0.27 1780 342 65.867 4.00 0.19 1560 151 40.133 2.73 0.27 1790 359 68.600 4.15 0.19 1570 155 44.667 11.30 0.29 1800 340 71.200 3.79 0.21 1580 162 44.600 -0.15 0.28 1810 385 74.000 3.93 0.19 1590 162 44.667 0.15 0.28 1820 381 74.133 0.18 0.19 1600 160 44.667 0.00 0.28 1830 409 73.533 -0.81 0.18 1610 153 43.667 -2.24 0.29 1840 412 77.867 5.89 0.19 1620 145 42.800 -1.98 0.30 1850 412 80.667 3.60 0.20 1630 138 41.867 -2.18 0.30 1860 377 82.467 2.23 0.22 1640 130 40.867 -2.39 0.31 1870 358 80.133 -2.83 0.22 1650 123 40.000 -2.12 0.33 1880 368 78.200 -2.41 0.21 1660 152 51.000 27.50 0.34 1890 380 82.333 5.29 0.22 1670 148 51.800 1.57 0.35 1900 400 81.733 -0.73 0.20 1680 126 47.933 -7.46 0.38 1910 423 89.400 9.38 0.21 1690 144 53.667 11.96 0.37 1920 472 95.133 6.41 0.20 1700 138 53.933 0.50 0.39 1930 480 100.467 5.61 0.21 1710 149 57.400 6.43 0.39 1957 647 111.867 4.20 0.17 1720 154 63.333 10.34 0.34

175 III.3 Cultivated land and cultivated land per person in China and in the rice region (Grigg 1974:88)

All China cult. land pop p/sq.km ha/p m ha m

1400 25.25 70 277 0.36 1600 22.53 160 477 0.21 1760/70 63.42 270 425 0.23 1873 81.60 350 428 0.23 1913 91.78 430 468 0.21 1933 98.98 500 505 0.19

Rice region cult. land pop p/sq.km ha/p m ha m

1400 14.95 45 301 0.33 1760/70 31.71 170 536 0.18 1873 42.01 214 509 0.19 1913 42.82 262 611 0.16

III.4 Geographical distribution of cultivated land in percentage of total cultivated area (Perkins 1969:18)

1400 1770 1873 1913 1957

Northeast 0 2 2 9 15 Northwest 6 6 13 13 19 North 35 42 33 31 26 Subtotal 41 50 48 53 60 East-Central 45 39 31 27 23 Southeast-Southwest 14 11 21 20 18 Subtotal 59 50 52 47 41 Total 100 100 100 100 100

III.5 Population density per total area and per cultivated area and cultivated area per person in 1928 (Cressey 1930:3)

p/sq.km p/sq.km ha/p

Southwestern Tableland 61 1636 0.06 Guangdong/Kwangsi 111 1365 0.07 Highlands Southeastern Coast 163 1048 0.09 Central mountain Belt 113 754 0.12 Red basin of Sichuan 227 573 0.17 Yangzi Plain 350 499 0.15 Loess Highlands 82 485 0.20 North China Plain 253 382 0.26 Manchurian Plain 35 313 0.43 average 155 784 0.17

176 III.6 Cultivated land and cultivated land per person in Japan (Grigg 1974:92f.).

cult. land pop. pop/sq.km land/capita cult. land pop pop rural/ land/capita sq.km m ha/p sq.km rural ha/p ha/p

1580 10‘100 - - - 1600 14‘948 18 856 0.116 1700 30‘300 25 825 0.121 1800 30‘300 25 825 0.121 1867 32‘320 27 835 0.119 1877 41‘410 35 845 0.118 41‘410 32 772 0.129 1905 54'237 47 866 0.115 1920 59'590 55 922 0.108 59'590 37 620 0.161 1934 60‘600 68 1122 0.089 60‘600 37 610 0.163

IV.1 Estimated total output of total grain in Chinese agriculture Total output in billion kcal (Liu/Huang 1978:31-34). Kcal are converted into m kg by using 2800 (1) and 2650 kcal (2) as equivalent for 1 kg.

™RXWSXW ™RXWSXW  ™output (2) ™RXWSXW ™RXWSXW  ™output (2) billion kcal m kg m kg billion kcal m kg m kg

1500 72760 25986 27457 1730 131485 46959 49617 1510 80974 28919 30556 1740 157573 56276 59462 1520 83136 29691 31372 1750 173808 62074 65588 1530 85197 30428 32150 1760 180252 64376 68020 1540 88205 31502 33285 1770 185403 66215 69963 1550 90356 32270 34097 1780 213565 76273 80591 1560 93774 33491 35386 1790 225136 80406 84957 1570 101041 36086 38129 1800 224841 80300 84846 1580 104017 37149 39252 1810 245713 87755 92722 1590 104897 37463 39584 1820 246582 88065 93050 1600 105060 37521 39645 1830 256483 91601 96786 1610 102357 36556 38625 1840 266737 95263 100655 1620 99421 35508 37517 1850 273602 97715 103246 1630 96654 34519 36473 1860 266674 95241 100632 1640 93402 33358 35246 1870 258104 92180 97398 1650 90556 32341 34172 1880 260478 93028 98294 1660 114497 40892 43206 1890 273619 97721 103252 1670 114816 41006 43327 1900 281796 100641 106338 1680 102700 36679 38755 1910 305358 109056 115229 1690 117101 41822 44189 1920 335376 119777 126557 1700 115827 41367 43708 1930 353369 126203 133347 1710 125060 44664 47192 1957 432377 154420 163161 1720 134638 48085 50807

177 IV.2 Estimated total output of unhusked grain Total output according to (Deng 1999:180). The minimal subsistence of an average person is about 180 kg of unhusked grain. This is multiplied by population figures in order to get the total output.

pop ™RXWSXW pop ™RXWSXW pop ™RXWSXW m m kg m m kg m m kg

1500 103 18540 1650 123 22140 1800 340 61200 1510 124 22320 1660 152 27360 1810 385 69300 1520 133 23940 1670 148 26640 1820 381 68580 1530 139 25020 1680 126 22680 1830 409 73620 1540 144 25920 1690 144 25920 1840 412 74160 1550 146 26280 1700 138 24840 1850 412 74160 1560 151 27180 1710 149 26820 1860 377 67860 1570 155 27900 1720 154 27720 1870 358 64440 1580 162 29160 1730 151 27180 1880 368 66240 1590 162 29160 1740 219 39420 1890 380 68400 1600 160 28800 1750 260 46800 1900 400 72000 1610 153 27540 1760 268 48240 1910 423 76140 1620 145 26100 1770 272 48960 1920 472 84960 1630 138 24840 1780 342 61560 1930 480 86400 1640 130 23400 1790 359 64620 1957 647 116460

IV.3 Percentage contribution of increase of output/ha and increase in cultivated area to the increase of total output of total grain (Perkins 1969:33)

1400-1770 1770-1850 1914-1957

increase of output/ha 42% 47% 24-45% increase of cultivated 58% 53% 76-55% area

total 100% 100% 100%

178 V.1 Output of rice in different provinces Data on paddy kg/ha according to Perkins (1969:21,315) and Bray (1984:508)

Sung Yuan Ming Ching Republic Province 960- 1280- 1368- 1500- 1600- 1700- 1800- 1957 1279 1367 1499 1599 1699 1799 1899 East Zhejiang 3015 3547 - - 4500 - - 5137 Jiangsu 2445 2602 - 3375 3375 4125 3757 3247 Center Jiangxi (North) - - - 3000 - 3172 3172 3000 Jiangxi (™ ------2572 Hunan - - - 2160 - 2407 3502 3195 Hubei 1912 - - 1875 1867 2002 4162 3877 Southeast Guangdong - - - 3840 3630 3652 9742 6750 Guangdong (™ - - - 3120 3840 3352 7777 3412 Kwangsi - - 2250 - - 3285 - 3000 Southwest Sichuan 1335 - - - - - 1972 4807 Yunnan - - - - 2850 2850 - 3352 Fujian (Southeast) *3600 - - *5000 - - - - Ø yield 2461 3074 2250 2810 3410 3105 4869 3850

V.2 Output per ha of millet and wheat Millet according to Chao (1986:209ff.) and Perkins (1969:267); wheat according to (Chao 1986:211f.) and Perkins (1969:267,276), for Ming/Qing see Yu 1980 (in Deng 1993:160).

millet wheat kg/ha kg/ha

1130 780 1313 810 1930 1125 1930 1013 1952 1170 1952 825 Ming/Qing 1314

V.3 Output per ha of all grain (millet, wheat and rice) Data according to Chao (1986:215) and Wu 1985 (in Deng 1993:161)

grain kg/ha

1313 1255 1952 1785 Ming 2653 ø 2494 Qing 2696 ø 2646

179 V.4 Output per ha of ”total grain” Perkins (1969:17)

kg/ha

1400 1042 1600 1680 1770 1522 1850 1822 1933 1815 1957 2070

V.5 Output per ha of ”total grain” in different provinces Perkins (1969:19)

1400 1776 1851 1957 kg/ha kg/ha kg/ha kg/ha

Northwest Shaanxi 465 638 938 998 North Hebei 375 780 900 1283 Shanxi 390 1125 1410 1080 Shandong 713 818 1223 1448 Henan 360 855 1028 2220 East Anhui 863 1725 2355 2453 Jiangsu 863 2018 3098 3105 Zhejiang 1500 2715 4298 5055 Central Hubei 1500 1703 3870 3615 Henan 1200 1553 1613 3638 Jiangxi 1508 2108 3068 3315 Southeast Fujian 1530 3563 3188 3315 Guangdong 668 2175 2295 3503 Guangxi 728 2775 1013 2370 Southwest Yunnan – 2063 2243 2858 Guizhou – 863 2550 3180 Sichuan 803 1013 2198 3713

average China 898 1676 2193 2773

180 V.6 Average output per ha in China’s four most productive and four least productive provinces

The average output per ha in the 4 most productive and the 4 least productive areas in China differed by factor 3.7 in 1776 and 1851 (most/least), the average yield per ha of all regions being 1676 kg/ha or 2193 kg/ha respectively. The average yield per ha in the four most productive provinces was roughly 1.7 times higher (above ø) and in the four least productive provinces about 2.2 times lower (below ø) than the average land productivity in the whole of China.

1776 1851 kg/ha kg/ha

Fujian 3563 Zhejiang 4298 Jiangxi 2775 Hubei 3870 Zhejiang 2715 Fujian 3188 Guangdong 2175 Jiangsu 3098

ø kg/ha 2807 3614 above ø 1.67 1.65

Henan 855 Henan 1028 Shandong 818 Guangxi 1013 Hebei 780 Shaanxi 938 Shaanxi 638 Hebei 900

ø kg/ha 773 970 below ø 2.17 2.26

™DYHUDJH 1676 2193 most/least 3.63 3.73

181 V.7 Estimated land productivity according to Liu/Huang (1978) Yields of ”total grain” in 1000 kcal/ha (Liu/Huang 1978:31-34). One kg of total grain contains between 2800 (1), 2500 kcal (2) or 2650 kcal (3).

ø output/ha ø output/ha 1000 kcal kg/ha 1 kg/ha 2 kg/ha 3 1000 kcal kg/ha 1 kg/ha 2 kg/ha 3

1500 1881.7 672 753 712 1730 2167.3 774 867 821 1510 2065.7 738 826 782 1740 2652.8 947 1061 1004 1520 2187.8 781 875 828 1750 2896.8 1035 1159 1097 1530 2261.9 808 905 856 1760 2923.0 1044 1169 1107 1540 2301.0 822 920 871 1770 2927.4 1046 1171 1108 1550 2312.9 826 925 876 1780 3242.4 1158 1297 1228 1560 2336.6 835 935 885 1790 3281.9 1172 1313 1242 1570 2262.2 808 905 856 1800 3157.9 1128 1263 1196 1580 2332.2 833 933 883 1810 3320.5 1186 1328 1257 1590 2348.5 839 939 889 1820 3326.1 1188 1330 1259 1600 2352.1 840 941 890 1830 3488.0 1246 1395 1321 1610 2344.1 837 938 887 1840 3425.6 1223 1370 1297 1620 2323.0 830 929 879 1850 3391.8 1211 1357 1284 1630 2308.7 825 924 874 1860 3233.7 1155 1294 1224 1640 2285.6 816 914 865 1870 3221.0 1150 1288 1219 1650 2263.9 809 906 857 1880 3330.9 1190 1332 1261 1660 2245.0 802 898 850 1890 3323.3 1187 1329 1258 1670 2216.6 792 887 839 1900 3447.8 1231 1379 1305 1680 2142.6 765 857 811 1910 3415.7 1220 1366 1293 1690 2182.0 779 873 826 1920 3525.3 1259 1410 1335 1700 2147.6 767 859 813 1930 3517.3 1256 1407 1332 1710 2178.8 778 872 825 1957 3865.1 1380 1546 1463 1720 2125.9 759 850 805

182 V.8 Estimated land productivity according to Deng (1999) Figures of total output are taken from Deng (1999:180), those for population and cultivated land from Liu/Huang (1978:31-34).

pop ™RXWSXW ™ODQG kg/ha pop ™RXWSXW ™ODQG kg/ha mm kgm ha mm kgm ha

1500 103 18540 38.667 480 1730 151 27180 60.667 448 1510 124 22320 39.200 569 1740 219 39420 59.400 664 1520 133 23940 38.000 630 1750 260 46800 60.000 780 1530 139 25020 37.667 664 1760 268 48240 61.667 782 1540 144 25920 38.333 676 1770 272 48960 63.333 773 1550 146 26280 39.067 673 1780 342 61560 65.867 935 1560 151 27180 40.133 677 1790 359 64620 68.600 942 1570 155 27900 44.667 625 1800 340 61200 71.200 860 1580 162 29160 44.600 654 1810 385 69300 74.000 937 1590 162 29160 44.667 653 1820 381 68580 74.133 925 1600 160 28800 44.667 645 1830 409 73620 73.533 1001 1610 153 27540 43.667 631 1840 412 74160 77.867 952 1620 145 26100 42.800 610 1850 412 74160 80.667 919 1630 138 24840 41.867 593 1860 377 67860 82.467 823 1640 130 23400 40.867 573 1870 358 64440 80.133 804 1650 123 22140 40.000 554 1880 368 66240 78.200 847 1660 152 27360 51.000 537 1890 380 68400 82.333 831 1670 148 26640 51.800 514 1900 400 72000 81.733 881 1680 126 22680 47.933 473 1910 423 76140 89.400 852 1690 144 25920 53.667 483 1920 472 84960 95.133 893 1700 138 24840 53.933 461 1930 480 86400 100.467 860 1710 149 26820 57.400 467 1957 647 116460 111.867 1041 1720 154 27720 63.333 438

VI.1 Output of total grain per capita according to various sources Output per kg according to Chao (1986:208), Perkins (1969:279,302) and Lee/Wang (1999:31).

Chao kg/p Perkins kg/p Lee/Wan g

11th cent. 367.5 1914/18 337.5 1929 260.0 1812 303.5 1931/37 307.5 1957 285.0 1882 257.0 1957 285.5 1978 300.0 1949/1952 235.5 1986 370.0

183 Estimates of rice and maize output per capita in several regions (for Li Bozhong cp. Appendix VIII.3, Faure 1989:54).

grain per capita kg/p

Songjiang 1550 725 Li Bozhong (1998) Songjiang 1620 435 Li Bozhong (1998) Songjiang 1820 537 Li Bozhong (1998) Songjiang 1850 392 Li Bozhong (1998) Songjiang 1920 557 Faure (1989:54) Jiangnan 1620 475 Li Bozhong (1998) Jiangnan 1850 419 Li Bozhong (1998) Jiangsu (S) 1920/30 458 Faure (1989:54) Jiangsu (N) 1920/30 324 Faure (1989:54) Guangdong 1920/30 532 Faure (1989:54)

VI.2 Estimated output per capita according to Perkins (1969) Based on data provided by Perkins (1969:19,279). The data on cultivated area (ha/p) are taken from Liu/Huang (1978). The output per capita is computed as the product of the output per land (kg/ha, see table 5) and land per capita (ha/p, see Appendix VIII.2).

Perkins kg/ha ha/p kg/p

1700 1463 0.39 571 1750 1698 0.23 391 1800 1792 0.21 376 1850 2008 0.20 402 1900 2088 0.20 418 1910 2068 0.21 434 1930 2130 0.21 447 1957 2422 0.17 412

184 VI.3 Agricultural output per capita according to Liu/Huang (1978) Output in 1000 kcal and kg per capita (Liu/Huang 1978:31-34), whereby 2650 kcal equal 1 kg. Output per worker is twice or four times the output per person. Outputs per agricultural worker are computed by assuming that they constituted about 50% (1) or 25% (2) of the total population. Note that the figures on labor productivity, by following this method, are conservative because the agricultural population only represents roughly about three fourth of the total population (minus urban population and minus rural population not engaged in agriculture. The estimates on labor productivity would be higher if computed on the basis of total output per agricultural worker.

ø output/p ø output/p 1000 kcal kg/p kg/w 1 kg/w 2 1000 kcal kg/p kg/w 1 kg/w 2

1500 706.40 267 533 1066 1730 870.76 329 657 1314 1510 653.01 246 493 986 1740 719.51 272 543 1086 1520 625.08 236 472 944 1750 668.49 252 505 1009 1530 612.93 231 463 925 1760 672.58 254 508 1015 1540 612.53 231 462 925 1770 681.63 257 514 1029 1550 618.88 234 467 934 1780 624.51 236 471 943 1560 621.02 234 469 937 1790 627.12 237 473 947 1570 651.88 246 492 984 1800 661.30 250 499 998 1580 642.08 242 485 969 1810 638.22 241 482 963 1590 647.51 244 489 977 1820 647.20 244 489 977 1600 656.62 248 496 991 1830 627.10 237 473 947 1610 669.00 253 505 1010 1840 647.42 244 489 977 1620 685.67 259 518 1035 1850 664.09 251 501 1002 1630 700.39 264 529 1057 1860 707.36 267 534 1068 1640 718.48 271 542 1085 1870 720.96 272 544 1088 1650 736.23 278 556 1111 1880 707.82 267 534 1068 1660 753.27 284 569 1137 1890 720.05 272 543 1087 1670 775.78 293 586 1171 1900 704.49 266 532 1063 1680 815.08 308 615 1230 1910 721.89 272 545 1090 1690 813.20 307 614 1228 1920 710.54 268 536 1073 1700 839.33 317 634 1267 1930 722.64 273 545 1091 1710 839.33 317 634 1267 1957 668.28 252 504 1009 1720 874.27 330 660 1320

185 VII.1 Population growth as a proxy for living standard in China and Europe Population (in m) and annual population growth rates compared in Europe (McEvedy/Jones 1978 and Birg 1996) and in China (Liu/Huang 1978)

Europe (1) Europe (2) China McEvedy Birg Liu/Huang mm m

1600 100 160 1650 105 123 1700 120 120 138 1750 140 163 260 1800 180 203 340 1850 265 276 412 1900 390 408 400 1950 515 549 580

%% % 1600-1650 0.10 -0.52 1650-1700 0.27 0.23 1700-1750 0.31 0.61 1.27 1750-1800 0.50 0.44 0.54 1800-1850 0.78 0.62 0.38 1850-1900 0.78 0.78 -0.06 1900-1950 0.56 0.60 0.75

1700-1750 0.31 0.61 1.27 1700-1800 0.41 0.53 0.91 1700-1850 0.53 0.56 0.73 1700-1900 0.59 0.61 0.53

VII.2 Population growth rates in England & Wales and the most productive provinces in China Population growth rates in the most productive provinces of China (MPP) and in England & Wales (McEvedy/Jones 1978:43) (for unadjusted population figures on China cp. Perkins 1969:207,212).

Zhejiang Hubei Jiangxi Fujian Guangdong Jiangsu ™SRS %/year mmmm m m m

1746 11.9 7.5 8.4 7.6 6.4 20.9 62.7 1776 19.3 14.8 16.8 11.2 14.8 28.8 105.7 1.76 1819 27.3 28.8 23.6 15.9 21.4 39.3 156.3 0.91 1851 30.1 33.8 24.5 20.1 28.4 44.3 181.2 0.46 1893 18.3 19.7 17.7 13.7 26.7 28.4 124.5 -0.89 1913 19.2 21.8 17.7 13.9 30.8 33.7 137.1 0.48 1933 22.0 27.3 16.5 13.1 34.0 34.9 147.8 0.38

England/Wales % MPP %

1700-1750 0.09 1750-1800 0.87 1749-1819 1.26 1800-1850 1.34 1819-1851 0.46 1850-1900 1.22 1851-1893 -0.89 1893-1933 0.43

186 VII.3 Per capita consumption in England (1787-1937) Data on consumption per capita per week and on intake of energy, protein as well as calcium and iron per day in England between 1787/93 and 1937 are given by Oddy (1990:269,274). The minimum energy intake is estimates at 2800 kcal (Oddy 1990:273f.; Buck (1937:407) as well as a minimum intake of 80 g of protein (Oddy ibid.:273f.) or 70 g (Buck 1937:419). Minimum intake of calcium is estimated at 0.8 g and of iron at 0.015 g (ibid:419).

bread potatoes sugar fats meat milk kg/week kg/week g/week g/week kg/week l/ week

1787/93 4.1 0.2 57 43 0.1 0.3 1796 2.5 2.3 85 99 0.3 1.6 1841 3.2 2.0 255 136 0.4 0.9 1863 4.9 1.8 198 145 0.4 0.8 1890 3.0 1.3 425 147 0.8 0.9 1900 3.0 1.4 454 218 0.5 1.0 1937 1.7 1.5 482 329 0.6 1.6

energy protein fat carbohydrate iron calcium kcalgggmgg

1787/93 1990 49 31 380 8.4 0.25 1796 2170 62 43 382 11.7 0.47 1841 2300 62 51 399 13.1 0.39 1863 2600 66 60 450 14.9 0.44 1890 2240 65 70 342 11.1 0.35 1900 2400 65 71 375 12.1 0.46 1937 2540 78 96 343 13.7 0.65

VII.4 Per capita consumption in China (1929/1933) The following table provides data on the consumption per adult male in peasant households per day in China for 1929/33 by Buck (1937:407,419). For protein intake In China see also Simoons (1991:327,363,476,477).

energy grain protein animal prot iron calcium kcal % g % mg g

China 3295 83.1 100 4 27 0.44 wheat region 3186 82.2 108 2 33 0.50 rice region 3400 83.9 91 6 21 0.38 Yangzi 3486 85.9 98 4 23 0.42

VIII Comparing Europe (England) and China A statistical comparison between China and Europe is not an essay task. There are not only considerable differences within China but also within Europe (for Europe cp. Slicher van Bath 1963:280, Wong 1997:16, Grigg 1980, 1982), and all data is highly questionable. I will focus data on England & Wales, where the industrial take-off took place first and which was the region with the most advanced agriculture within Europe. This data is then compared with data on the agriculture in the whole of China and in the four most productive provinces (Appendix V.6). The data cannot be pressed to hard, but may nevertheless give an impression about the state of these two agricultural systems.

187 VIII.1 England and Wales

The data on England & Wales is provided mainly by Allen (1994), Turner/Beckett/Afton (2001) and Grigg (1982). Other sources include Clark (1991), Campbell/Overton (1991), Overton (1991, 1996) and Grigg (1980). The data is mostly on Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire and as the following tables suggest, differ widely.

VIII.1.1 Urban and rural population in England and Wales Data on total population, urban and rural population as well as on agricultural workers in England and Wales are given by Grigg (1982:187,213) and Allen (1994:107); see also Overton (1996:76,138) and (Schofield 1981:64).

™SRS urban urban/™ rural rural/™ agr. worker ag.w/™ mm% m% m%

1700 5.8 1 0.17 4.8 0.83 1.3 0.22 1750 5.9 1.5 0.25 4.4 0.75 1.4 0.23 1801 8.8 3 0.34 5.8 0.66 1.7 0.19 1851 17.9 9.7 0.54 8.2 0.46 2.1 0.12

%% % % 1700-1750 0.03 0.81 -0.17 0.15 1750-1800 0.80 1.40 0.55 0.39 1800-1850 1.43 2.37 0.69 0.42 1700-1850 0.75 1.53 0.36 0.32 factor 3.09 9.70 1.71 1.62

VIII.1.2 Cultivated area and yield in England and Wales according to Grigg (1982) Grigg (1982:185ff.) provides the following data on total cultivated area and sown are (without fallow land). He examines grain output per ha in England & Wales as well as for Norfolk & Suffolk. In order to adjust acreage to grain production, the data on cultivated land with and without fallow are taken from Allen (1994:112). Form this data on output per ha the total output, the output per ha (including and excluding fallow land) as well as the output per worker and per capita may be estimated. However Grigg does not specify yields of different crops (especially grain) and the different percentages of total area sown with these crops.

grain (+fall) grain (-fall) E&W Norf/Suff ™RXWSXW (+ fallow) m ha m ha kg/ha kg/ha m kg kg/ha kg/w kg/p

1700 2.80 2.40 908 1008 2180.83 779 1678 376 1750 2.75 2.46 909 1008 2234.92 813 1596 379 1800 2.75 2.55 1412 1345 3598.67 1309 2117 409 1851 3.22 2.88 1691 2132 4871.56 1513 2320 272

1700-1750 -0.04 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.09 -0.10 0.01 1750-1800 0.00 0.07 0.88 0.58 0.96 0.96 0.57 0.15 1800-1850 0.32 0.25 0.36 0.93 0.61 0.29 0.18 -0.81 1700-1850 0.09 0.12 0.42 0.50 0.54 0.44 0.22 -0.22 factor 1.15 1.20 1.86 2.12 2.23 1.94 1.38 0.72

188 VIII.1.3 Cultivated area and yield in England and Wales according to Allen (1994) and Turner (2001) More detailed data on grain production in England and Wales is provided by Allen (1994:104,112) and Turner/Beckett/Afton (2001:163f.; cp. also Clark 1991:215). Data on cultivated land with and without fallow and the percentages of land sown with different grains (wheat, rye, barley and oats) are provided by Allen (1994:112). Total grain output (m kg) is calculated as the product of yield per ha for different grains weighted by the respective percentages of land. (It has been assumed that one bushel of grain equals 35.238 liter or 60 English pounds or 27.2 kg, see Huang 2002:511.) Average land productivity (kg/ha) is computed as the sum of output/ha of the different grains weighted by the respective percentages of land for total land sown with grain with fallow (kg/ha 1) and without fallow (kg/ha 2). Productivity per worker and per capita are computed as total output divided by workers engaged in agriculture and total population according to the data given by Grigg (192:187,213) and Allen (1994:107) (see above).

Allen ™FXOWLY grain grain (-fallow) ™RXWSXW (+fallow) m ha m ha m ha m kg kg/ha 1 kg/ha 2 kg/w kg/p

1700 2.80 2.40 2.16 2997.44 1071 1388 2306 517 1750 2.75 2.46 2.28 3601.28 1310 1580 2668 610 1800 2.75 2.55 2.44 4638.96 1687 1901 2729 527 1851 3.22 2.88 2.88 6483.12 2013 2251 3087 362

1700-1750 -0.04 0.05 0.11 0.37 0.40 0.26 0.29 0.33 1750-1800 0.00 0.07 0.14 0.51 0.51 0.37 0.05 -0.29 1800-1850 0.32 0.25 0.33 0.67 0.35 0.34 0.25 -0.75 1700-1850 0.09 0.12 0.19 0.52 0.42 0.32 0.19 -0.24 factor 1.15 1.20 1.33 2.16 1.88 1.62 1.34 0.70

Turner ™FXOWLY grain grain (-fallow) ™RXWSXW (+fallow) m ha m ha m ha m kg kg/ha 1 kg/ha 2 kg/w kg/p

1700 2.80 2.40 2.16 3507.71 1007 1309 2698 605 1750 2.75 2.46 2.28 4308.48 1329 1608 3191 730 1800 2.75 2.55 2.44 4834.53 1465 1656 2844 549 1851 3.22 2.88 2.88 6630.54 2019 2022 3157 370

1700-1750 -0.04 0.05 0.11 0.41 0.56 0.41 0.34 0.38 1750-1800 0.00 0.07 0.14 0.23 0.20 0.06 -0.23 -0.57 1800-1850 0.32 0.25 0.33 0.63 0.64 0.40 0.21 -0.79 1700-1850 0.09 0.12 0.19 0.43 0.47 0.29 0.10 -0.33 factor 1.15 1.20 1.33 1.89 2.01 1.54 1.17 0.61

189 VIII.1.4 Cultivated area and yield in England and Wales according to Overton (1996) Overton (1991:302,303) provided data on output per land for wheat, rye, barley and oats in Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire. Data on cultivated land population as well as percentage of area per grain (see also Overton 1996:94-98) are taken from Grigg and Turner, as in the tables above.

™FXOWLY grain grain (-fallow) ™RXWSXW (+fallow) m ha m ha m ha m kg kg/ha 1 kg/ha 2 kg/w kg/p

1700 2.80 2.40 2.16 2567.80 917 1189 1975 443 1750 2.75 2.46 2.28 3570.40 1298 1566 2645 605 1800 2.75 2.55 2.44 4894.22 1780 2006 2879 556 1851 3.22 2.88 2.88 6387.17 2218 2218 3042 357

1700-1750 -0.04 0.05 0.11 0.66 0.70 0.55 0.59 0.63 1750-1800 0.00 0.07 0.14 0.63 0.63 0.50 0.17 -0.17 1800-1850 0.32 0.25 0.33 0.53 0.44 0.20 0.11 -0.88 1700-1850 0.09 0.12 0.19 0.61 0.59 0.42 0.29 -0.14 factor 1.15 1.20 1.33 2.49 2.42 1.87 1.54 0.81

190 VIII.1.5 Cultivated area and yield in England and Wales (summary) We may summarize the data provided by Allen (1994), Turner/Beckett/Afton (2001) and Grigg (1982) on total output (m kg), land productivity (kg/ha), labor productivity (kg/w) and output per capita (kg/p) for England and Wales.

™2XWSXW m kg m kg m kg m kg m kg % % (A) (T) (G) (A&T) (A&T&G) (A&T) (A&T&G)

1700 2997.44 3507.71 2180.83 3252.58 2895.33 1700-1750 0.39 0.31 1750 3601.28 4308.48 2234.92 3954.88 3381.56 1750-1800 0.36 0.51 1800 4638.96 4834.53 3598.67 4736.74 4357.38 1800-1850 0.65 0.64 1850 6483.12 6630.54 4871.56 6556.83 5995.08

1700-1850 factor 2.16 1.89 2.23 2.02 2.07 1700-1850 0.47 0.49 %/year 0.52 0.43 0.54

Output/ha kg/ha kg/ha kg/ha kg/ha kg/ha kg/ha kg/ha (A) (T) (G) (A&T) (A,T&G) (A&T) (A,T&G)

1700 1071 1007 908 1039 995 1700-1750 0.48 0.35 1750 1310 1329 909 1319 1182 1750-1800 0.36 0.51 1800 1687 1465 1412 1576 1521 1800-1850 0.49 0.45 1850 2013 2019 1691 2016 1908

1700-1850 factor 1.88 1.64 1.86 1.94 1.92 1700-1850 0.44 0.43 %/year 0.42 0.47 0.42

Output/w kg/w kg/w kg/w kg/w kg/w kg/w kg/w (A) (T) (G) (A&T) (A,T&G) (A&T) (A,T&G)

1700 2306 2698 1678 2502 2227 1700-1750 0.32 0.22 1750 2668 3191 1596 2930 2485 1750-1800 -0.10 0.06 1800 2729 2844 2117 2786 2563 1800-1850 0.23 0.22 1850 3087 3157 2320 3122 2855

1700-1850 factor 1.34 1.17 1.38 1.25 1.28 1700-1850 0.15 0.17 %/year 0.19 0.10 0.22 0.15 0.17

Output/p kg/p kg/p kg/p kg/p kg/p kg/p kg/p (A) (T) (G) (A&T) (A,T&G) (A&T) (A,T&G)

1700 517 605 376 561 499 1700-1750 0.36 0.28 1750 610 730 379 670 573 1750-1800 -0.44 -0.29 1800 527 549 409 538 495 1800-1850 -0.77 -0.78 1850 362 370 272 366 335

1700-1850 factor 0.70 0.61 0.72 0.65 0.67 1700-1850 -0.28 -0.27 %/year -0.24 -0.33 -0.22 -0.28 -0.27

The total output more than doubled between 1700 and 1850. Land productivity also almost doubled especially due to a reduction of fallow land (kg/ha1 minus kg/ha 2). Labor

191 productivity increased but significantly less than land productivity. The grain output per capita decreased between 1700 and 1850.

VIII.1.6 Yields in different European countries (1850) Agricultural productivity in Europe varied widely as the following table of wheat yields in several European countries in 1850 shows (Grigg 1982:174f.). It also indicates that the figures of Allen, Turner and Clark on yields per ha are probably too high. According to Allen and Turner/Beckett/Afton the average wheat yield was about 1900 kg/ha in England and Wales in 1850. The divergence might be explained by the difference between England & Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom.

1850 kg/ha 1850 kg/ha 1850 kg/ha

Denmark 1200 United Kingdom 990 Norway 570 Belgium 1050 Austria 770 Spain 460 Netherlands 1050 France 700 Greece 460 Germany 990 Italy 670 Russia 450

VIII.1.7 Harvest rates in different European countries (1500-1820) The differences in agricultural productivity within Europe can also be seen from the following table, which shows harvest rates in different countries (Grigg 1992:34). Harvest rates may be a proxy for differences in output per land unit and probably for output per capita and per worker:

A England, B France, B/A C Germany, C/A D Russia D/A Holland Italy, Spain Scandinavia Easteurope yield/seed yield/seed yield/seed yield/seed

1500-1549 7.4 6.7 0.9 4 0.5 3.9 0.5 1550-1599 7.3 ...... 4.4 0.6 4.3 0.6 1600-1649 6.7 ...... 4.5 0.7 4 0.6 1650-1699 9.3 6.2 0.7 4.1 0.4 3.8 0.4 1700-1749 ... 6.3 ... 4.1 ... 3.8 ... 1750-1799 10.1 7 0.7 5.1 0.5 4.7 0.5 1800-1820 11.1 6.2 0.6 5.4 0.5 ......

192 VIII.2 China

VIII.2.1 Population and agricultural output in China according to Liu/Huang (1978) The figures on the development of the Chinese population, on cultivated area and on total output are taken from Liu/Huang (1978). There are no figures on the agricultural labor force. The relation between population and agricultural work force is held constant at 1/4.

pop agri. work ™ODQG ™RXWSXW kg/ha kg/w kg/p m m m ha m kg

1700 138 35 53.93 43708 813 1264 316 1750 260 65 60.00 65588 1096 1008 252 1800 340 85 71.20 84846 1195 996 249 1850 412 103 80.67 103246 1284 1004 251 1910 411 103 92.20 115229 1293 1088 272 1930 480 120 100.50 133347 1331 1092 273

% % %%%% 1700-1750 1.27 0.21 0.82 0.60 -0.45 -0.45 1750-1800 0.54 0.34 0.52 0.17 -0.02 -0.02 1800-1850 0.38 0.25 0.39 0.14 0.02 0.02 1850-1910 0.00 0.22 0.18 0.01 0.13 0.13 1910-1930 0.78 0.43 0.73 0.14 0.02 0.02

1700-1850 0.73 0.27 0.57 0.31 -0.15 -0.15 factor 2.99 1.50 2.36 1.58 0.79 0.79 1850-1930 0.19 0.28 0.32 0.04 0.11 0.11 factor 1.17 1.25 1.29 1.04 1.09 1.09 1700-1930 0.54 0.27 0.49 0.21 -0.06 -0.06 factor 3.48 1.86 3.05 1.64 0.86 0.86

193 VIII.2.2 Population and agricultural output in China according to Perkins (1969) The numbers for average yield per ha for the whole of China given by Liu/Huang (1978) are lower than those given by Perkins (1969:19, Appendix V.6). By adjusting the data provided by Perkins, the following figures for average yield per ha, for total output, output per worker and person as well as the increase rates may be computed:

pop agri. work ™ODQG ™RXWSXW kg/ha kg/w kg/p m m m ha m kg

1700 138 35 53.93 78904 1463 2282 571 1750 260 65 60.00 101880 1698 1562 391 1800 340 85 71.20 127590 1792 1505 376 1850 412 103 80.67 161939 2008 1606 402 1910 411 103 92.20 190670 2068 1737 434 1930 480 120 100.50 214065 2130 1789 447

% % %%%% 1700-1750 1.27 0.21 0.51 0.30 -0.76 -0.76 1750-1800 0.54 0.34 0.45 0.11 -0.07 -0.07 1800-1850 0.38 0.25 0.48 0.23 0.13 0.13 1850-1910 0.00 0.22 0.27 0.05 0.13 0.13 1910-1930 0.78 0.43 0.58 0.15 0.15 0.15

1700-1850 0.73 0.27 0.48 0.21 -0.23 -0.23 factor 2.99 1.50 2.05 1.37 0.70 0.70 1850-1930 0.19 0.28 0.35 0.07 0.14 0.14 factor 1.17 1.25 1.32 1.06 1.11 1.11 1700-1930 0.54 0.27 0.43 0.16 -0.11 -0.11 factor 3.48 1.86 2.71 1.46 0.78 0.78

VIII.2.3 Average agricultural yield in China (summary) Average values from the data sets provided by Perkins (1969) and Liu/Huang (1978)

ø mil kg ø kg/ha ø kg/w ø kg/p

1700 61376 1138 1773 443 1750 83820 1397 1285 321 1800 106337 1494 1251 313 1850 132758 1646 1305 326 1910 154942 1681 1413 353 1930 173915 1731 1441 360

%%% % 1700-1750 0.63 0.41 -0.64 -0.64 1750-1800 0.48 0.13 -0.05 -0.05 1800-1850 0.44 0.19 0.09 0.09 1850-1910 0.26 0.03 0.13 0.13 1910-1930 0.58 0.15 0.10 0.10

1700-1850 0.52 0.25 -0.20 -0.20 factor 2.16 1.45 0.74 0.74 1850-1930 0.34 0.06 0.12 0.12 factor 1.31 1.05 1.10 1.10 1700-1930 0.45 0.18 -0.09 -0.09 factor 2.83 1.52 0.81 0.81

194 VIII.3 The most productive provinces of China As we will focus on a comparison between England & Wales and the four most productive regions of China between 1700 and 1850 (cp. Appendix V.6), we have to take the regional variation of productivity into account. As we have seen the land productivity in these four provinces was about 1.7 times the average of the whole of China. But the land productivity in the four least productive provinces were 2.1 times lower than the average (cp. Appendix V.6 and 7). In the following table the average data provided by Perkins and Liu/Huang is multiplied by factor 1.7 to get estimates for the most productive provinces and divided by 2.1 for the least productive ones.

most prod least prod ø kg/ha ø kg/w ø kg/p ø kg/ha ø kg/w ø kg/p

1700 1935 3014 754 542 844 211 1750 2375 2185 546 665 612 153 1800 2539 2126 532 711 596 149 1850 2798 2219 555 784 621 155 1910 2857 2401 600 800 673 168 1930 2942 2449 612 824 686 172

VIII.3.1 Population and agricultural output in Jiangnan (1620-1850) The lower Yangzi region (Jiangnan) had specialized on rice/wheat as well as on cotton/silk production. (Here, I have omitted silk and only considered cotton.) There was an efficient rice trade between the lower and middle Yangzi region, from Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Henan and Sichuan (Myers 1980:92ff.; Wong 1997:17,21). Population figures for Jiangnan are provided by Li Bozhong (1998a:19-23). The number of agricultural worker is two-fifth (2 worker per household) of agricultural population during Ming time, but for 1850 it is 6 m rather than 10 because women largely retired from agriculture and specialized on spinning and weaving (ibid.:184). Figures on total acreage (ibid.:26f.,186), on multicropping index (ibid.:33), on percentage of cultivated land planted with rice and wheat (ibid.:33), on fertilizer used (ibid.:84) and on yields of rice, wheat and cotton per land unit (ibid.:125ff.) are all taken from Li (1998a). (I have not included beans, rapeseed and silk.) I have estimated cotton yields on the basis of data on output (pi) per household in Songjiang converted in husked rice and multiplied by the number of households in Jiangnan (ibid.:151). All figures in rice are in husked rice, whereas the former tables are in paddy. Since one shi is 65 kg of husked rice and 75 kg of unhusked rice, the figures on Jiangnan and Songjiang have to be multiplied by 1.15 in order to make them comparable to the former figures (in paddy rice). For the conversion of Chinese into Western weights and measures, see Perkins (1969:314) and Li Bozhong (1998a:xvii).

195 ™SRS rural pop rural pop agri pop agri pop agri work 1 agri work 2 m % m % mmm

1620 20 85% 17 10% 15 6 6 1850 36 80% 29 10% 26 10 6

ag work 1/ ag work 1/ ag work 1/ agri work 2 agri work 2 agri work 2 ™SRS rural pop agri pop ™SRS rural pop agri pop

1620 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.30 0.35 0.40 1850 0.28 0.34 0.38 0.17 0.21 0.23

cultiv. land MCI rice wheat rice wheat m ha m ha m ha kg/ha kg/ha

1620 2.90 1.4 2.72 0.81 2123 1166 1850 2.79 1.7 2.51 1.37 3012 1124

™ULFH ™ZKHDW ™JUDLQ ø grain fertilizer cotton m kg m kg m kg kg/ha kg/ha kg rice/hh

1620 5779 945 6724 2322 1158 449 1850 7571 1535 9106 3260 2060 587

™FRWWRQ ™JF import rice ™JFL kg/p 1 kg/p 2 mio. kg rice m kg rice m kg m kg g,c/™SRS g,c/rural pop

1620 1347 8071 0 8071 404 475 1850 3052 12159 1417 16628 338 419

kg/p 3 kg/p 4 kg/p 5 kg/w 1 kg/w 2 g,c/agri pop g/rural pop g/agri pop g,c/ag work 1 g/ag work 2

1620 538 395 448 1345 1121 1850 468 314 320 1216 1518

196 VIII.3.2 Agricultural output in Songjiang (1550-1850) Figures on Songjiang are provided by Li Bozhong (1992:139ff.,151ff.). Data on spinning for 1620 and 1850 are estimates from working days not spent in agriculture (maximum working days for men is 300 days, for women 200 days (Li 1998:152). The difference between gross income and net income are estimated by the same rates as for 1550 and 1820.

ha/hh rice & wheat gross output net output kg gross output net output kg/ha kg/hh –(cost & rent) kg/p kg/p

1550 1.61 2095 3625 1768 725 354 1620 0.97 2619 2175 1059 435 212 1820 0.62 4018 2683 1309 537 262 1850 0.56 3801 1958 959 392 192

ag. worker gross output net output day ag. work kg/day 1 kg/day net per hh kg/w kg/w

1550 2 1813 884 375 9.7 4.7 1620 1.6 1359 662 270 8.1 3.9 1820 1.2 2235 1091 217 12.4 6.0 1850 1 1958 959 197 9.9 4.9

spinning spinning cotton ™QHWLQFRPH net cons. net cons. days (m + f) days (tot) in kg rice kg rice/hh kg/hh/day kg/p

1550 25 + 37 62 121 1888 5.2 1.0 1620 30 + 200 230 449 1507 4.1 0.8 1820 83 + 200 283 543 1852 5.1 1.0 1850 103 + 200 303 587 1545 4.2 0.8

Yet another computation based on other figures provided by Li (1998a:125,213f.) yields lower numbers but show the same trends: declining grain output per capita, but increased imports of grain and cotton and silk production as well as increasing labor productivity in grain production:

husked rice cultiv land output/land output/™SRS output/agri work (g) m kg m ha kg/ha kg/p kg/w

1620 5550 2.83 1913 278 925 1850 7725 2.69 2813 215 1288

197 VIII.3.3 Agricultural output in Jiangnan and Songjiang (1920/1930) Faure (1989:47,49,54) provides the following data on Jiangnan and Songjiang for 1920/30. Two similar values for output per ha are computed (ibid.:47,54). Density of rural population was at 5.4 per ha in 1930 (1989:49), which fits the 0.15 ha/p provided by Cressey for the lower Yangzi region. The output per household (of 5 persons) is computed from output per person (ibid.:54) and family size (1) and from output/ha and land per person (2: 0.15 ha/p or 3: 0.18 ha/p) (ibid.:49,54). Labor productivity is estimated from average output of a household of 5 with 1 or 1.2 agricultural worker.

1920/30 Jiangnan Songjiang Jiangnan Songjiang

™SRSPLO 28 3 output kg/hh 1 2290 2785 ™UXUDOSRS 24.2 1.6 output kg/hh 2 2070 2281 ™FXOWLY0KD 4.476 0.29 output kg/hh 3 2484 2737 output kg/ha (rice) 2044 2437 output/w 1 2281 2601 output kg/ha (maize) 641 600 output/w 2 1901 2167 ™RXWSXWKD 2684 3038 kg/p 458 557 ™RXWSXWKD 2760 3041 ha/p 0.18 (0.15) 0.20

According to Wen/Pimentel (1986:18) the combined annual output of rice and wheat per land unity in Jiaxing in the 17th century was between 4700 and 5200 kg/ha. We may summarize the data on kg/ha, kg/w and kg/p for Jiangnan and Songjiang.

VIII.3.4 Population and agricultural output in Jiangnan and Songjiang (summary)

Jiangnan Songjiang Jiangnan Songjiang Jiangnan Songjiang kg/ha kg/ha kg/p kg/p kg/w kg/w

1550 ... 2095 ... 725 ... 1813 1620 2322 2619 475 435 1121 1359 1820 ... 4018 ... 537 ... 2235 1850 3260 3801 419 392 1518 1958 1920/30 2760 3041 458 557 1901 2167

The following table shows the development of total population (I), rural population (II) and agricultural working force in Jiangnan (Li 1998a:19ff) and Faure (1989:47):

I tot pop II rural pop III agri. worker III of I III of II mm m%%

1620 20 17 6 35 40 1850 36 29 6 20 23 1920 28 24 4.8 17 20

We can see from these data that the estimates for Jiangnan are compatible with the data on the four most productive provinces of China provided by Liu/Huang (1978) and Perkins (1969).

198 VIII.3.5 Agricultural productivity in China’s four most productive provinces compared with England & Wales The yields in the four most productive provinces are 1.7 times higher than the average (Appendix VI.1). Output per ha fit data provided by Perkins. Output per capita is between data sets computed from Liu/Huang and Perkins. The labor productivity in the whole of China is computed with an average percentage of agricultural workers of 25% of the whole population. The labor productivity in the four most productive provinces is computed on the basis of output per capita and a decreasing percentage of agricultural worker from 1/3 (1700), 1/4 (1750 and 1800) and 1/5 (1850 onwards) (cp. Li 1998:184). Here we may rely on the lower figures provided by Liu/Huang.

4 provinces L/H P L/H & P L/H P L/H & P L/H P L/H & P kg/ha kg/ha ø kg/ha kg/p kg/p ø kg/p kg/w kg/w ø kg/w

1700 1382 2487 1935 537 970 754 1612 2910 2261 1750 1863 2887 2375 428 664 546 1714 2656 2185 1800 2032 3046 2539 423 640 532 1693 2559 2126 1850 2183 3413 2798 427 683 555 2134 3413 2773 1910 2198 3516 2857 462 738 600 2312 3691 3002 1930 2263 3621 2942 464 760 612 2321 3802 3061

%% % %% %% % 1700-1750 0.60 0.30 0.41 -0.45 -0.76 -0.64 0.12 -0.18 -0.07 1750-1800 0.17 0.11 0.13 -0.02 -0.07 -0.05 -0.02 -0.07 -0.05 1800-1850 0.14 0.23 0.19 0.02 0.13 0.09 0.46 0.58 0.53 1850-1910 0.01 0.05 0.03 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.13 1910-1930 0.14 0.15 0.15 0.02 0.15 0.10 0.02 0.15 0.10

1700-1850 0.31 0.21 0.25 -0.15 -0.23 -0.20 0.19 0.11 0.14 factor 1.58 1.37 1.45 0.79 0.70 0.74 1.32 1.17 1.23 1850-1930 0.04 0.07 0.06 0.11 0.14 0.12 0.11 0.14 0.12 factor 1.04 1.06 1.05 1.09 1.11 1.10 1.09 1.11 1.10 1700-1930 0.21 0.16 0.18 -0.06 -0.11 -0.09 0.16 0.12 0.13 factor 1.64 1.46 1.52 0.86 0.78 0.81 1.44 1.31 1.35

England/Wales kg/ha kg/p kg/w

1700 995 499 2227 1750 1182 573 2485 1800 1521 495 2563 1850 1908 335 2855

%%% 1700-1750 0.35 0.28 0.22 1750-1800 0.51 -0.29 0.06 1800-1850 0.45 -0.78 0.22

1700-1850 0.43 -0.27 0.17 factor 1.92 0.67 1.28

199 Raimund Kolb About Figures and Aggregates: Some Arguments for a More Scrupulous Evaluation of Quantitative Data in the History of Population and Agriculture in China (1644-1949)

This essay deals with some selected problems of historical statistics which I mentioned briefly in a lecture with the theme “Natural Disasters, Population, and the Strategies to Combat Famine in Late Imperial China” (September 2001, Wasan-Island/Ontario). The intention is to address primarily macro-historians who include China in their intercultural comparative studies and thereby are dependent on publications in western languages. I plead for greater historical factuality in statements regarding historical structures and for thorough textual criticism concerning quantitative data. I will present some well-known and a few less familiar facts and problems, which, in the end, can only represent a small selection of all those worth mentioning. Nevertheless, due to their complexity, the individual points of discussion can only be outlined.

Preliminary Remarks The field of World History and the study of Chinese history under comparative perspectives have been booming since the 1980s, especially in the USA.1 In clear confrontation to the concept of cultural relativism, there is broad consensus that the isolated study of cultures ultimately produces circular explanations and that only comparison will reveal the particular.

The question why Great Britain and later continental Europe, but not, for instance China, were first on the road to industrial revolution, is of special interest. It is important to consider the prerequisites and stimuli that lead to this process and its catalytic agents. By way of comparison, contrasting facts and generalizations, in the form of types of historical structures and courses, should give us a closer understanding of this most complicated problem. Macro- comparative representations are governed by methods of historical social science and therefore by structural orientation, system theory and statistics.

The typologies mentioned represent, at first view, attractive patterns of explanation, but regarding their historiographical solidity they are exposed to a number of serious hazards: (1) A high degree of generalization of large syntheses is hardly compatible with research into sources (one of the basic principles of historiography) and without research into sources there can be no sceptical reflection. Nobody will seriously contest that hypotheses, the more elaborate the better, have to be confronted with the sources in order to generate productive questions (cf. Rüsen 1997:51). However there is a tendency to simplification in comparisons, as complex cultural patterns (trans-cultural dimensions) cannot be compared as a whole but

1 Rolf Peter Sieferle points out that “world history” is not to be confused with “history of the whole world in which all regions are equal and are treated equally” (2001:47). Gale Stokes (2001) offers a synopsis of the achievements in research so far. Yet world history has a long-standing tradition in Germany and other European countries, going back to the eighteenth century, and especially highly esteemed during the first half of the 20th century (Schulin 1979; Osterhammel 2001). 200 only under certain aspects. On the other hand, extrapolated parts of complex patterns are only really comparable when analyzed and interpreted respectively in their context, which is the only means to gain value-added knowledge. (2) The argumentative simplification of structure- oriented explanations, the reduction of the complexity of the historical object of research, is problematic as it may end in fruitless as well as trivial statements. Above all it may lead to an overestimation of “the steering ability of social systems” (Haupt/Kocka 1996:18). Structure- oriented historians tend to forget that people create the structures and that basically openness and contingency prevail. Structures and processes are the objectification of human thought and action; they do not condition human thought and action (cf. Mooser 1998:535).2 There are no objective structures in social reality, no deterministic processes and no stringent theories according to which people act (van Dülmen 2000:51), but there are structures and theories as scientific concepts in the heads of historians (Suter 2001:183). (3) The idealization of certain structures and developments, reduced to a few selected factors (e.g. British industrialization), setting the standards in the investigation of national and regional cases, poses a further problem. The simple measuring of distance between the declared prototype or ideal-type and the cases in comparison “leads to theses on the supposed backwardness of the one after the other” that are hardly of any use (Haupt/Kocka 1996:18-19).

Therefore, it is inevitable that quite a few well thought-through generalizing concepts that have been verified many times, signalizing explanatory stability, suddenly reveal a lack of historical referentiality when applied to a particular case.3 When does a complex model of explanation, claiming to be universally applicable, cease to be so? Is the deviation from a

2 Presently a paradigmatic change is taking place within the historical social sciences based on a reevaluation of the role of events and a de-objectification of structures (cf. Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Sonderheft 19: Struktur und Ereignis. Göttingen 2001). Events are recognized as results of “achievements of cultural creation” by the actors involved, evoking a change in systems and structures (Suter/Hettling 2001:9,28). 3 When for instance, “[the] normal case in terms of the agrarian society was that technical innovations remained singular events and went up in smoke without having any far-reaching consequences” (Sieferle 2001:48), China, at least, marks an exception, even if one does not unreservedly share all the interpretations in Science and Civilization in China by Joseph Needham and his colleagues. We can definitely observe processes of innovation based on technological inventions that led to ameliorated utilization of the agrarian productive factors, although admittedly at a slow pace. The thesis of the tension between the center and the periphery in agrarian empires (ibid.:25) does not entirely do justice to the more or less cohesive role and importance of Chinese bureaucracy and its ideology as well as the sub-bureaucratic institutions of self-government. Neither will the historian, working in the fields of historical anthropology or historic popular culture, agree with the thesis “of a deep gap between high culture and popular culture” (ibid.:26), which cannot stand up to closer scrutiny in the case of China. This bipolarity is in any case unrealistic. The worlds of popular and traditional life are not closed systems. They are in constant dialogue and dispute with the ways of life of the elites (see Bausinger 1985; Burke 1997; Medick 2000). China’s elites, to a great extent, took part in popular culture and in everyday life as well as the festivities and rituals of the locally-conditioned religion. 201 constitutive parameter sufficient to inactivate the model? Is a historical model of development, considered to be universal, falsified by a single or a few contrasting examples?4

Naturally, macro-causal historical comparisons can be viewed, as Haupt and Kocka have done, as “indirect experiments” with the help of which “regularities specific to time and space” can be confirmed (1996:13). If ideal-typical theories are to play a constructive role, they must rely on data based on textual criticism and they should take into account the complexity of the historic topic and its change in the course of time. Theories are unable to represent the “historical reality”. Big history exposes the topic of research to the danger that Procrustes “builds the beds” for the questions as well as for the interpretation of the facts. It was especially J. K. Galbraith who pointed to “a disregard for inconvenient reality” in the case of economic theories. Wherever facts don‘t submit to the theories, they are cast aside (Cipolla 1988:53). The dictum of the “veto power of sources” (Koselleck) must be equally valid for historical social science, world history etc. and their arguments.

One of the latent problems of historical comparisons, especially with regard to China, is the anachronistic or anachronistic-fictional perspective. It is often supported by the conscious or unconscious intention to establish compatibility with Europe where cultural patterns of argumentative importance are concerned or even construct a technological and/or economic advance. This Sinophile/ethno-centristic perspective is very popular among Sino-Historians based in China or elsewhere. Two cases for exemplification: Francesca Bray writes of a so- called “Green Revolution” that was to have taken place in the southern half of China (favoured economic areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian) during the 12th and 13th centuries (1984:597ff). The scenario in these three provinces, reconstructed exclusively on the basis of normative sources, is subject to generalization, lacking in comparative insights into pre- modern agrarian processes of innovation and the conditions of transport and communication in China at that time and rather resembles an agrarian utopia.5 By comparison, the first

4 Can we claim the global development from the stage of food-gathering and hunting to that of tilling to be realistic although we know that, for instance, the subsistence economy of North American Plain Indians temporarily developed in the opposite direction after the assimilation of the horse? Doesn‘t it seem to be true that the “physical environments [...] are generally exploited with the least possible expenditure, relative to the available technical means in each case” (Rudolph/Tschohl 1977:280)? Chinese settlers, formerly sedentary peasants, became swidden agriculturalists in the appropriate habitat (e.g. Yunnan) in late imperial times. 5 According to F. Bray “Master farmers” (nongshi) were omnipresent in the countryside, instructing “their peers not only in new techniques [...] but also in the organization of mutual aid and so on”. They “channelled to the ordinary peasants the information contained in the agricultural books newly commissioned or reprinted on government order”. The Song government “offered financial incentives to its farmers to invest in improvements” and “refrained from overtaxing”. It “set up numerous agricultural colonies where new, improved techniques were put into practice”. It was crucial, said Bray, that after “some initial resistance to innovation [...] the rural population, alive to the benefits of the new technology, were willing to experiment and improve on their own 202 “Green Revolution” in Europe dates from the period of 1870 to 1914 (van Zanden 1991). Caution is perhaps advisable where the Chinese peasant in late traditional times is described as a modern Homo oeconomicus and is equipped with “a capacity for hard work; ready response to innovation; frugality; rational planning; an ability to calculate gain against loss” (Myers 1970:294). A.V. Tschajanow (1923) had already pointed to the fact that the expenditure of labor of Russia‘s small farmers was not in compliance with profit maximization. He noted that expenditure drops and consumption increases as income rises. Modern micro-historic studies confirm the “total exhaustion of marginal resources” in early modern households of small farmers (Beck 1986; Sabean 1990; Rösener 1997:170-172; Troßbach 1997:192-194). In other words, this is management beyond modern economic calculation. Tschajanow spoke of “self-exploitation” in this context (1923:25ff). Of course the links of peasant households to the market and its conditions played a modifying role. A large part of the mass of tenants, half-owners and small farmers in China from the 17th century to 1949 was dependent on survival strategies that left no consideration of the investment factors time and labor, especially beyond the agrarian favored regions.

Both Chinese historians, who are focused on brilliant performance, and western historians, like Needham and his colleagues, refer to China‘s leading position in technology up to the 13th century in comparison to Europe. They point to impressive inventions but fail to show the corresponding processes of innovation and their geographic as well as social expansion throughout the country. Consequently, the question of whether a process of invention took place at all and if it did, whether it was perhaps of only local significance remains unanswered. In the agrarian handbook Wang Zhen nongshu (1313) for instance, we find a water-powered spinning machine for the production of hemp yarn, which was allegedly common throughout Northern China (Elvin 1973:195). Historiographic proof of its diffusion has yet to come. Nevertheless, Elvin supposes that “[if] the line of advance which it represented had been followed a little further then medieval China would have had a true industrial revolution in the production of textiles over four hundred years before the West” (ibid.:198). Moreover, the concomitance of the non-concomitant in technological development remains unnoticed all too often, as for example, the simultaneity of shifting cultivation, spade and plough culture.

The respectable motive not to consider the world from the standpoint of Europe‘s uniqueness, which is popular among Sino-historians, is faced with a thesis not easy to refute: “[t]oday‘s initiative”. Furthermore, “Peasants bred locally new and improved varieties of rice and other crops, some of which travelled from hand to hand over vast distances [...].” (1984:598-600). 203 world was established in Europe, and if we want to understand it, we must study its European roots” (Sieferle 2001:47). Pomeranz (2000), among others, went so far as to ascertain an economic tie between Asia (China) and Europe in the 18th century, whereby he unfortunately kept only the economically favored regions in view on both sides. In response to this bold hypothesis, Vries rightly points to the fact that such a tie, should it ever have existed, must comprise homogenous developing potentials. His assumption “that the Chinese economy had already exhausted its entire potential to become as wealthy as it was in the eighteenth century, while Britain‘s economy still had plenty of room to maneuver” (2001:3-4), is worth a further discussion. How are we to explain that China and Europe, which are two quite different worlds in the 19th century should have been so similar one hundred years earlier (cf. ibid.:7)?

The transformation from a solar-agrarian regime to a fossil-energy regime in England and a little later in Continental Europe is considered to be the decisive trigger factor for Europe’s Industrial Revolution, thereby overcoming the “energy limitations of the agrarian system” (Sieferle 2001:15,31). Pomeranz shares this view and includes cotton as a further decisive factor to be considered (2000:43ff). In his opinion, the economic availability of domestic coal in England was superior to that in China where “the chances of such a revolution” were therefore “much dimmer” (ibid.:65). His main arguments are: (1) Because of the large number of natural disasters, orally transmitted knowledge of mining technology got lost between the 12th and 14th centuries and with it the significance of the mining industry. However, in Europe “technological expertise” was decisive in the “coal breakthrough”. (2) The geographical distribution of coal was unfavorable in China since the gravity point of economic activities shifted to the South, where only 1.8% of the country‘s coal deposits are today, whereas 61.4% of the deposits are expected to be located in the Shanxi Province and Inner Mongolia. (3) From the mining places to the economic centers of the empire transport costs were high, so the continued over-exploitation of the wood reserves seemed preferable. (4) Chinese miners, working underground, had to deal less with problems of penetrating water than with the imminent danger of firedamp (Pomeranz: spontaneous combustion). The techniques of ventilation were relatively backward. (5) Most of the coal mines were of minor size and shallow (ibid.:62-66).

Pomeranz worked out a general picture while remaining silent about the totally insufficient information at his disposal. First of all, the deficient state of knowledge on the Chinese mining industry in late imperial times, especially in western sinology, calls for deeper research on a provincial and local level. But there is, nevertheless, enough material easily available to get a more thorough understanding of this topic (see Ma Yunke 1932, MTFZS

204 1986, Qi/Shou 1990, and JJZL 1999). Many mining sites all over the country are well described in monographs (cf. Yu/Zhu 1986; MTFZS 1986).

During the second half of the 17th century China’s coal was extracted in half of the total amount of sub-prefectures and districts (zhou and xian), above all in the provinces of Zhili (=Hebei), Shanxi, Shandong, Shaanxi, Hunan and Sichuan as well as in the Northeast provinces (Fang Xing et al. 2000:730). The Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong (1662-1795) pursued a massive acceleration of the rate of production in coal mining. The first edict on the extraction of coal for the whole country was issued in 1740 (MTFZS:111-137). The intention was, among other things, to establish a key economic center in the province of Hebei with its metropolis Peking. Peking‘s coal supply came from three surrounding regions, of which Yuanping alone possessed more than 200 mines and produced an estimated amount of 95 000 tons in 1763 (Fang Xing et al., ibid; MTFZS :115). Pomeranz’s argument that Shanxi was the center of coal mining is anachronistic as it is based on modern prospecting. During late imperial times (1368-1911) the province of Shandong was the biggest coal producer in the country with fairly acceptable waterways (ibid:732; Qi/Zhong 1990:270-285). Besides Shandong, the province of Hunan (Middle-Southern China) represents a center of coal mining; there fifty of the seventy administrative units produced coal (ibid.:331-350). In Southwestern China (Sichuan) more than half of the sub-prefectures and districts (80 of 130) were coal producers during the 18th century. Inter-provincial transport and the price of coal itself appeared to be relatively moderate in price. However, saltmaking and metallurgy, two high-energy industries, were concentrated in the mining regions themselves (Fang Xing et al. 2000:735). Altogether, the argument of high transport costs, though generally correct where long-distance transport is concerned, calls for a critical micro-historic examination of the sources as the contrary is also documented on a local level for other provinces (ibid.:736-737; MTKFS :175-181). We need to know more about the inter-provincial coal trade (ibid.:736ff). Source materials show coal mining to be not only an alternative for the pauperized masses of peasants to earn their living, but also a source for the creating of prosperity (Qi/Zhong 1990). Chinese miners, as did their British colleagues, had to deal to a large degree with the drainage of the mines and consequently disposed of the appropriate technological knowledge, as was the case for the ventilation systems of the shafts (cf. MTFZS:200-206).6 Generally they did not

6 We should not forget that Chinese miners played a most important role in the development of the mining industries in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Malaysia, where not only their work morale but also their innovative powers were very welcome and sought after. Chinese miners ran the gold, tin and coal mines on the Outer Islands in the late 17th and 18th centuries (cf. Purcell 1952, chapter IV; Heidhues 1996). It would be a mistake to draw conclusions from today‘s miserable conditions in Chinese mining to the historical situation several hundred years ago. 205 have to dig very deep to reach the seams. The length of the adits could total more than one kilometer and their depth more than a hundred meters (Fang Xing et al. 2000:740). It is undoubtedly correct that most of the mines were rather small (8 to 10 persons), however there is established proof of the existence of large mines with several hundred, even a thousand, miners (Zhu Cishou 1988:839; Fang Xing et al. 2000:741; MTFZS :171).

A brief look into the primary sources on coal mining in China during the 18th century is sufficient to raise doubts if we could find the key reason for the absence of an independent industrialization in China in the backwardness of its mining and coal supply.

Comprehensive trans-cultural comparisons, as Osterhammel rightly noted, often reveal an insufficient command of the current level of research (2001:35, n.101).7 This is the reason for the perseverance of many an obsolete theory and explanation.

In Michael Mitterauer’s German-language essay “Rye, Rice, and Sugar Cane - three Agrarian Revolutions of the Middle Ages in Comparison” (2001), he raises some very interesting questions and theses. However, he persistently even failes to recognize the deficient level of

Western research on Chinese agricultural history and focuses largely on “tertiary” literature.8 The author is totally uncritical towards his sources and goes so far as to claim that fertilization in wet-rice cultivation was mainly achieved through dissolved nutrients and blue-green algae contained in the irrigation water (p.254). This contradicts not only the findings of modern agrarian science, but hundreds of historic agrarian handbooks and texts are proof of the immense importance of basic and additional fertilization of wet-rice fields. The soil fertility was considered to be largely dependent on organic fertilizers (You Xiuliang 1995:172-182; Li Bozhong 1998a:455-456). In obvious ignorance of agrarian processes of innovation, especially in the case of China, the author moreover claims that according to an imperial edict of the year 1012, the early-ripening Champa-rice was cultivated on a large scale in the drainage region of the Yangzi valley, consequently resulting in an enormous boost in rice production and the rise of the multiple cropping index (p.248). In reality the saturation point of early-ripening rice cultivation in the classic rice regions was not reached before the middle of the 19th century. During Song times (960-1279) and later, the combination of late-maturing

7 Nathan explained the scarceness of “successful comparative work” for China as follows: “One reason is practical: good comparison requires extended conceptual and empirical study of both entities being compared, which is time-consuming and difficult. The second reason is methodical: the failure to gain the benefits of both approaches (= hermeneutic and positivistic traditions) by learning how to combine them in valid ways in comparative studies” (1993:935). 8 With the exception of an essay by Francesca Bray, whose opus magnum in the series Chinese Science and Civilization (Agriculture). Vol.VI:2 (Cambridge, 1984) remains unnoticed, not a single serious paper on Chinese agrarian history is quoted. 206 rice and winter wheat dominated in the multiple cropping areas of the Lower-Yangzi region (Li Genpan 2002:3-28). The early-ripening rice reaches the rice baskets of Hunan und Hubei very late, namely in the eighteenth century (Ho 1959:169-176). As Kidata Hideto proved, even at the beginning of the 19th century only a single harvest a year was brought in from most of the wet-rice fields on the Jiangnan plain (Lower-Yangzi region; cfd. Li Bozhong 1998b:29). The multiple cropping index of China in the middle of the 19th century has been estimated at 1.4 (Chao Kang 1986:199).9

In his excursus on Chinese mills, Mitterauer overlooks the only comprehensive western text available on this topic, Joseph Needham’s pioneering book on Mechanical Engineering in Science an Civilization in China (Vol. IV, Part 2, Cambridge 1974). So it comes as no surprise that the relatively high standard of Chinese grain mills and their different driving systems remain unnoticed. Evidently Mitterauer did not have information on the Chinese nutritional habits and the importance of farinaceous products from wheat flour as well as the processing forms of rice flour at his disposal. Thus he minimized the role of grain mills, from which no “technological-industrial innovations” could be initiated (p.256). His claim that the possibilities of reclamation of land through internal colonization had been more or less exhausted in Song times (960-1279) is entirely opposed to the facts (p.259). Significant reclamations of land through colonization took place in Sichuan (Vermeer 1998:270), Guangdong and Fujian (Marks 1998:306-306; Buoye 2000:53ff) as well as in all further forested hilly and mountainous regions of China during late imperial times (cf. Cao Shiji et al. 1997; Eastman 1988:8-12; Zhang Fang 1998; Osborne 1994; Luo/Shu 1995:47-52, 59-66). The catalyst was the introduction of American food plants (mainly maize, sweet potatoes: food of the poor; cf. Guo Songyi 1988). Furthermore, we should not forget the massive colonizations in the Manchurian region in Northeast China during the 19th and the first decades of the 20th centuries (Cao Shuji et al. 1997:489, 495-509; Lee/Champbell 1997; Reardon-Anderson 2000).

The statement that “the dynamics of the Chinese agrarian revolution [...] [had] already reached its climax during Song times and [was] followed by a phase of stagnation” (p.259)

9 The historiographic euphoria describing the spread of early-ripening rice (c. 90 days ripening time) and the advantages of its double-cropping purposely overlooks the problems created thereby. For instance, in the agriculturally favored Taihu region (Lower-Yangzi) a growing period of about 200 days left only a few days between the harvest of the first and the transplantation of the second crop. Inclement weather could endanger the success of the second harvest. Two harvests of un-husked early-ripening varieties in this region yielded 4.7/4.8 shi (c. 360/380 kg) per mu (one mu = c. 0.06 ha) during Qing times. The cultivation of late-ripening rice could yield about 3.9 shi. Double cropping of rice means a substantial increase in the burden of work, not to speak of the expensive additional fertilizer etc. The increased output of no more than 8-9 dou, did not seem to be lucrative in the long run (Zhao/Liu/Wu et al. 1995:149-150). 207 contradicts the historical evidence. Apart from the fact that the use of the term “agrarian revolution” is highly questionable in this context (see above), when speaking of “stagnation” he stigmatizes the late imperial times, consistently ignoring the modern level of research on Chinese agrarian history. We don‘t know very much about the diffusion of agrarian knowledge and the standardization of agrarian-technological innovations, yet there is enough evidence of significant inventions (cf. Table 1) and innovations in post-Song times, not to speak of smaller cumulative ameliorations, to refute this thesis (Li Fengqi in NYLS 1995:216- 217, 270-272; Gang Deng 1993). Up to about 1800 we can observe a constant intensification of crop cultivation through the rise of the multiple crop index, new fertilizers, the spread of new food plants and the increase of yields per area unit (Zhao/Liu/Wu et al. 1995:46-65). The slow decline of harvest yields beginning in Mid-Qing must be attributed to the over-use of the soils, environmental degradation caused by massive deforestation (resulting in soil erosion, aggradation of lakes, rising of river beds, etc.) and the growing impact of natural disasters (ibid.:127-153).

The somewhat arrogant presentation of obsolete explanation paradigms under the pretext of current research yields few results of substantial value. Goldstone calls for a self-evident truth in demanding of historical comparisons that they consider the level of research in connection with the dominating disputes (1991:54).10 It should not remain unmentioned that the level of research of the history of China and other Asian countries is by no means adequately reflected in the secondary literature in western languages. This is especially true for the pre-modern history of the economy, agriculture and the environment. Where economic and agrarian history are concerned, Western research deals almost exclusively with the favored regions (above all the Lower-Yangzi drainage area and regions of Southern China in Guangdong und Fujian). The Lower-Yangzi region is relatively rich in source material and therefore of special interest to Chinese, Japanese, and Western historians. The results achieved by extrapolating the conditions in the most advanced economic areas and generalizing for the whole of China simulates compatibility with Europe, especially in economic and demographic respects. Vries, criticizing this methodic faux pas11 , speaks not without irony of “a world of surprising resemblances”(2001:3).12 Generalizing in this fashion means to deny the agro-ecological as

10 Therefore it is simply not enough for Vries (2000) to rest his economic theses on the 19th century, as he himself admitted (p.23,n.120), exclusively on Ph. Richardson‘s Economic Change in China - c.1800-1950 (Cambridge 1999). This valuable but very brief synopsis (text: 104 pages) draws only on selected western secondary literature in English. 11 We may call this a true “fallacy of the lonely fact” that is “the logical extension of a small sample, which deserves to receive special condemnation” (cf. Fischer 1970:109). 12 But Vries himself is not immune against the seductive power of unreasonable generalization when, for instance, he writes: “China‘s internal transport with its densely knit system of waterways probably was the most 208 well as economical and geographic-infrastructural diversity of the country and to ignore the still deficient level of research for all the other, economically less favored regions. There is an urgent need for further investigations into local history in order to do justice to Kracauer‘s (1966) demand of a “history in its wealth” by a productive “interpenetration of macro- and micro-history”. Macro-history offers orientation for micro-historians and macro-historians examine the stringency of their generalizing arguments on the basis of micro-historic facts.

Historical social scientists and structure-oriented macro-historians expect explanations of particular scientific value from their quantifying grip on the economic, social and demographic topics of research.13 Statistical series and aggregates are produced to gain insight into historical changes of the generative structure (Bevölkerungsweise) and the demographic system of a population, agrarian and manufacturing productivity, size and utilization of cultivated land and other natural resources, scope of nutrition (Nahrungsspielraum), nutritional patterns, landowning conditions, economic cycles and other topics. It goes without saying that historians, dealing with over-individual structures in historic economies and societies, energy flows in ecological and socio-economic systems, efficient in the world” (2001:4). Even in the key economic areas with their “efficient” waterways, the transport system was considerably restricted or even suspended in the frequent times of drought (cf. Cheng Qiaoyi 1981:1- 278; GDZRZH 1961). Compared to river and canal shipping, the overland transport, absolutely predominant in Northern China, has not yet been comprehensively described in any Western study. Carts, wheelbarrows, pack animals and human carriers were the main means of transport, altogether they were time-consuming and about five times more expensive than the water transport facilities (Feuerwerker 1980:44). Even under the most favorable conditions of water transport, a trunk, worth a few taels in the second half of the 17th century, went up in price to 100 or even 200 taels when shipped from Fujian in the South to Jiangnan in the Southeast. In the 18th century the price for the same commodity was more than doubled (Li Bozhong 1994b). About three quarters of the entire commerce in the 19th century consisted of “small-scale local trade” limited to the “local and intermediate [...] level” (Feuerwerker 1980:41). Besides the transport costs, the fees of intermediaries and the numerous internal custom duties increased the prices on the markets. The longer the distance covered, the more fees had to be paid to local bullies at the custom stations. Field investigations during the years between 1929- 1933 in 135 rural areas in North and South China, situated near cities and therefore infrastructurally privileged, showed that human carriers with poles still dominated the transportation system at that time (Buck 1937:350; Credner 1930/1975). Country roads, highways and waterways of all kinds were more or less neglected in late imperial times. Their maintenance was the duty of district magistrates who were without any funds to draw on for this expensive task. The last committed central government repairing and reconstructing cross-country roads worked under the Mongolian rule (Eastman 1988:106). Dyer Ball notices in his handbook of China, “In the North of China, where carts are used, the roads are worn below the surface and of the surrounding land, and in the heavy rains form water-courses for the deluges that pour from the skies to escape by: when in this state they have occasionally to be swum by travelers, and instances of wayfarers being drowned in the road are not unknown” (1925:569). At the beginning of the 20th century, market prices as well as transport charges on rice shipped on a junk from Anhui to nearby Shanghai, doubled the purchase price of the producer (Amano 1952/53:241ff; Feuerwerker 1980:41). In the 1930s the transport from Hangzhou (Lower-Yangzi region) to the surrounding hilly land increased the price of rice by about 50%. In some regions of China the original price of a commodity doubled over a distance of only eighty km (Tawney 1932:55-56). The available evidence makes it easy to agree with Feuerwerker‘s statement: “Poorly developed transport continued to be a major shortcoming of the Chinese economy throughout the Republican period. This is apparent at both the microscopic and macroscopic levels„ (1983:91). Pomeranz emphasizes the bad road conditions and at the same time the “cheap water-borne intra-regional transport” (2000:184-185). Vries borrowed this view without further doubts.

209 regulation systems and their transformation etc., keep an especially hungry eye on quantitative data. It is quite evident that Sino-historians, drawing on historically transmitted figures and aggregates, frequently avoid the necessary textual criticism, including questions about the authenticity of the source14 , time and place of origin, motives of investigation, modalities of the census and its recording, census techniques, processes of aggregation, quality of information, and coherence with comparable data.

Occasionally, demographic historians point out the scarcity of their Chinese material and its fragmented nature, but without any visible consequences in the presentation of their arguments and theses.15 But also among economic Sino-historians, textual criticism is not very popular, particularly when figures and aggregates are used to establish or support their theories. For instance, officially standardized weights and measures are considered to be of normative importance and a constitutive part of historic reality while the traditionally great variety on the local and even official levels, lasting until the end of Republican times and even far beyond that, is consequently ignored (see below).

Cipolla‘s thesis is worth a consideration: “The scientist‘s doubts about the available historical statistics come from the sensitivity for the period and the society he is exploring. The culture of the basically agrarian society of the past favoured a culture of approximation. Figures were not precisely applied, but to outline a more general idea of abundance and want. That‘s where the many quantifications without any basis come from” (1988:67).

Any reconstruction of the history of Chinese agriculture of late imperial times should, of course, refer to the correlation between population size, extension of cultivated land and agrarian productivity with regard to the local and regional conditions. Unfortunately it is impossible to deal with all the problems regarding figures and aggregates in this context, a modest potpourri will have to do for now. I shall concentrate on the Qing period (1644-1911),

13 Probably Le Roy Ladurie‘s dictum “il n‘est d‘histoire scientifique que de quantifiable” (1973:22) is somewhat too extremist, even for many of the most ardent followers of the histoire sérielle. The history of economics, grazing ground for the Cliometrians, is not fully congruent with quantitative history (Cipolla 1988:64-65). 14 We can distinguish as follows: (1) false sources with false content; (2) false sources with reliable content; (3) genuine sources with false data and finally (4) genuine sources with reliable data (cf. Cipolla 1988:35). 15 Stevan Harrell, for instance, describes the problems of the demographic source material in the introduction to his Chinese Historical Microdemography (1995), but all the following contributions generalize without any restraint regarding the insufficiencies of the sources drawn upon. The attitude towards the sources among the Chinese historical demographers is inconsistent as well. The most comprehensive reconstruction of the Chinese population history written hitherto, edited by Ge Jianxiong, presents Cao Shuji as author of the demography of the Qing period (1644-1911) in volume V. Cao draws exclusively on data in Local Gazetteers, which includes more than 3000 titles or about two for every district. Of course, he is right in claiming that Ho (1959) didn‘t make sufficient use of this kind of source and that his references could easily be falsified by other quotations (2001:55). But Local Gazetteers as sources of demography are no less problematic than any other sources. Cao mentions the dubiousness of many of the aggregates in his Gazetteers, yet he makes full use of them at the exclusion of other sources. 210 because of its relevance for the discussion of “Europe‘s special course”16 and consider some problems concerning the relatively large body of official statistics collected in Republican times (1911-1949).

Population Figures of Qing and Republican Times Stevan Harrell‘s remark that China‘s historical demography is still in its infancy (1995:1), nourishes the hope for substantial new findings in this sub-discipline in the near future. His view may be a little bit too optimistic. The different categories of demographic sources are well known not only regarding their information value and their deficits but also regarding the methodical means for the winning of relevant data. However, there is very little hope for the extraction of representative samples of data from the sources in order to reconstruct macro- demographic and micro-demographic processes of pre-statistic China in a historical- scientifically convincing way.

Qing The western level of research on the demography of late imperial and Republican China is represented by a large number of studies, which draw on different material or emphasize various kinds of sources according to the leading theory in question.17 Of course, population history cannot be fully analyzed when detached from its conditioning cultural and environmental factors. We will have to leave them aside in order to concentrate on quantitative aspects only.

The data of Qing time demographic sources18 can be qualitatively grouped into four phases:19

16 We are aware of the possibility that “historical phenomena and structures of essentially homogenous peculiarities can appear at different times” (Mommsen 1992:131). However, as far as we can see there is no indication of any potentiality for a Chinese departure for industrialization in earlier centuries. 17 See for instance Bielenstein (1987), Chao Kang (1986), Durand (1960), Harrell (1987; 195/ed.: Harrell, Ebrey, Tedford, Liu Ts‘ui-jung, Harrell/Pullum, Lee/Champbell/Anthony, Wang Lianmao), Ho (1959), Lee/Tan (1992), Lee (1995), Liu Ts‘ui-jung (1985), Perkins (1969), Schran (1978), Skinner (1986), Taeuber/Wang (1960) and Tedford (1986). 18 Prominent sources are the registers of the local baojia, the “Veritable Records„”(shilu), “Clear Registers” of the Ministry of Revenue (hubu qingce), governmental handbooks like the Huangchao xu wenxiantongkao (Continued Thorough Study of Documents of the Dynasty) or Guangxuchao Donghualu (Records of the Guangxu-Era from within the Eastern Gate of the Palace), “Draft Standard History of the Qing” (Qingshigao), c. 9000 titles of “Local Gazetteers” (difangzhi) as well as “Genealogies” (jiapu, zupu, zongpu etc.) and “Epitaphs” (muzhi). For further information on these sources in western languages see Endymion Wilkinson Chinese History - A Manual (Cambridge/Mass. 2000), Harrell ed. (1995), Harrell (1987), Ho (1959), Taeuber/Wang (1960) and Cressey (1934; on Republican Times). 19 Except for phase I, which we have added, the other three phases are mentioned by Taeuber/Wang(1960), Skinner (1986), and, with insignificant alterations, Ho (1959). Phases II and III are sometimes combined in Chinese studies (see Jiang Tao 1990; Wang Yumin 1992; 1993). 211 Phase I 1644-1740 Tax-Population System

Phase II 1741-1780 Expanding System

Phase III 1780-1851 Mature System

Phase IV 1851-1911 Disintegrating System

The key data of the phases correspond to historical events, which caused a qualitative change in the collection of data and consequently in their quality20. For us Phase III is of special importance, because of the popularly held notion that the climax of census in pre-statistic China was reached during these years. Let us take a brief look at the collecting, fixing and transmitting of population figures at that time.

Phase III: 1780-1851

Collecting of Data

An imperial edict of the year 1741 called for a yearly population and granary census on all the territorial levels of administration. Moreover it foresaw a census of the fiscal ding (fiscal units; see below) every five years (Jiang Tao 1990:32; Ho 1959:37).21 The census was to be based on the door placards of the local baojia22, which contain all the necessary information

20 In the years 1740/41 the central government started the first serious attempt to extend the baojia-system (first mentioned in the second half of the 11th century) realiter (not only nominally) over the whole country. This system was created in order for the state to install social and public order beneath the lowest administrative level, the district level. It would probably be better to regard 1757 as a crucial year, since from then on the baojia statutes (15 paragraphs) were in force. They provided a population census (including all ethnic minorities and even outsiders as well as migrants and vagrants) on a regular basis (Jiang Tao 1990:35). The year 1780 supposedly marks the beginning of the most reliable figures since the census of the early Ming times in 1381- 1382 and 1391 (Ho 1959:3). In 1774, while examining serial data of population figures, Emperor Qianlong discovered dubious regularities in population growing rates in quite a few local administration units. He concluded that the local officials tended to dismiss census as a mere formality (Wang Yumin 1992:186; Taeuber/Wang 1960:409-410). In 1775, harsh sanctions were decreed and consequently led, within one year, to a breathtaking “statistical” population growth of more than 40 million (Jiang Tao 1993:37; 47-48). Around 1780, the census figures in the whole country began to lose their “erratic unevenness” (Taeuber/Wang 1960:408). The next turning point was the Taiping-Rebellion (1851-1864), probably the greatest rebellion in Chinese history, which devastated many regions in Middle and South China. 21 From the very beginning there were doubts about the practicability of this order, as it went far beyond the capacity of the local administrations. At a conference of high officials, a tendency toward the adherence to the traditional fiscal population census became apparent. This attitude remained deeply rooted in the mentality of local officials during the following decades. On the other hand, no efforts were made to define the term hukou (household and mouths = population), the decisive concept in the new census system. According to Ho Ping-ti, a unique opportunity to establish a “census system” was lost (1959:37). 22 The baojia system consisted of groups of households (10 households = one pai, ten pai = one jia, ten jia =one bao), each with its own leader, and ideally “cutting across natural village lines, so that local influence would remain fragmented” (Fairbank 1978:29). Each household was registered by means of a door placard. The main function of this institution was keeping the local order intact and registering the local population. 212 on the households. As self-reporting of the households had been established, inspections were not considered to be necessary any longer (Jiang Tao 1993:47). It goes without saying that only figures of highly varying quality could be gathered in this manner. The baojia leaders acted (if they really acted at all) in close cooperation with the local officials and their “talons and teeth”, the clerks and runners. All too often district magistrates, due to their insufficient financial endowment, readily accepted bribes (cf. Park 1997). The reputation of their underlings was still worse, and they were considered to be greedy predators (Reed 2000).23

As baojia leaders were expected to collect and report data without pay not all of them were ready to cooperate fully. The first proposal for their compensation was made in 1928 (Skinner 1986:69, n.30). Liu Shiren specified the traditional tactics of the peasants in minimizing tax obligations before and during the collection of fiscal data (1936:108-109; cf. Hsiao 1967:106- 107), reflecting the general suspicion of every kind of governmental census. Nobody could ever really be sure that his data would not be used for fiscal purposes in the end. This was due to the fact that a lot of fees, some of them quite illegal, had been imposed on the peasants in addition to the regular tax and labor service. Of course, gentry, powerful clan-households and local bullies were exempted from additional burdens. Since fixed quotas had to be fulfilled, the deficits were distributed on the shoulders of the powerless rural dwellers.

It is widely agreed that the Taiping Rebellion, which started in 1851, caused a loss of power on the part of the central state as well as the rapid disintegration of the baojia institution. However, it would be misleading here to imply that this institution ever really worked well. There is general consent that the system did not function consistently in the administrative units in the years from 1741 to 1775 (Ho 1959:39-40).24 Until 1772 the fiscal character of the census had not yet been overcome.

The obligation to adapt to the local power structures can be seen as one of the many constitutive disadvantages of the baojia institution, as it certainly did not contribute to its efficiency. Moreover, we know that in remote areas of many provinces (such as Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Guangxi), especially where non-Han people lived (Jiang Tao 1993:57),

23 The reservations against the local magistrates and their helpers as well as the fear of them is manifested in sayings like these: “While living, do not enter the gate of the Yamen; and when dead, do not enter hell” (sheng bu ru guanmen, si bu ru diyu); “The large fowl does not eat small rice” (da ji bu shi si mi); or “To act as magistrate in one generation [he should be punished for his deeds by] being a beggar in ten generations” (yidai zuoguan shidai zu qier). Even an emperor (Qianlong) expressed his displeasure with his local officials by saying “A flock of sheep (=the people) is delivered to the jackals and wolves [masking as] shepherds “(qun yang fu yu chailangmu; cf. Chinese Repository 1848/July, pp.355-356). 24 The most comprehensive study on the history of the baojia institution written bei Wen Juntian (1936) draws exclusively on normative sources. There is no way to reach any qualitative conclusion from this study.

213 the baojia were either not established or out of function from the beginning in spite of an edict of 1757 (Li/Mo 1993:205). The willingness to cooperate on the side of the chieftains was probably not highly developed. Likewise, the population size of the barely accessible mountainous regions (the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, Shanxi and Sichuan), where masses of colonists from the North and Southeast of China settled, could not be properly registered (Jiang Tao 1993:58). Even in more densely populated regions where the institution worked best, women and children are underrepresented in the registers.25 Under these conditions the quality of collected data depended on the motivation, incorruptibility, and sense of duty of all persons involved. Where the baojia were not established, collecting data was impossible; where they did not work well, the results were affected accordingly. Unfortunately our sources don‘t offer any insight into the local conditions during the collection of data and thus the figures are of highly local-relative quality. Of course, the general “statistic” situation was of some importance. The commitment of the emperors and their central administration through the imperial edicts and sanctions had a certain influence on the motivation of local administrations, even if not on all of them. Time and again the census procedure became nothing but a farce. Certain algorithms were used to simulate the expected population growth. Transmitted from one administrative level to the other, some of the aggregates reached the realm of fiction. No less frequently the census was totally ignored over a period of time, clearly manifested in rapidly shrinking population sizes or a long-term stability of the figures (Jiang Tao 1990:44-45).26

Women are for the most part not adequately documented and children rarely so. In some provinces, for instance in Jiangsu from the beginning of the 19th century, often only the male adult population was taken into consideration in the Local Gazetteers (baojia figures!).

Almost insoluble problems arise with the quantification of internal migration. This factor further magnifies the obscurity of our figures. Besides officially ordered migration for colonizing the uncultivated land in hilly and mountainous regions (Cao/Wu/Ge 1997), countless uncontrolled migrations took place. Many of these also occured over long distances

Nevertheless, there are enough texts in relevant sources to prove the discrepancy between the normative claims of the institution and its social reality (cf. Hsiao 1967:72-83). 25 For instance, the Xining district (Guangdong) supposedly reported 68,109 women and 128,683 men in 1828, a ratio of 189:100; the Dongwan district (Guangdong) showed a ratio of 190:100 for the period from 1786-1796 and the Ruogao district (Jiangsu; 1775-1804) of 100:c.145 (Jiang Tao 1990:45). 26 The population of Sichuan oscillated “statistically” between 38.2 mill.(1840), 65.6 mill. (1880), 84.7 mill. (1898), 52.8 mill. (1911) and 62.3 mill. in 1953 (Li Shiping 1987:181-182; Ho 1959:283, App. II). A striking drop occurred between 1865 (53 mill.) and 1866 (44.7 mill.) as well as a sudden rise from 1869 (46.5 mill.) to 1870 (55.4 mill.). Only the incompleteness of the data can serve as an explanation. In the district of Luzhou (Sichuan) the population in the year 1823 shows no change when compared to that of 1811, although the growth there was estimated at c.40% (Jiang Tao 1990:44). 214 and often were either unnoticed by the officials or not adequately recorded (cf. Li Xingsheng 1996:612-623, 636-639; 1048-1126). These migrations not always resulted in a permanent new residence but frequently in temporary stays, or even in permanent vagabondage. Apropos – also in Europe of early modern time internal migrations are one of the weak points of demographic research (Pfister 1994:104ff). Due to the concern for the internal social order, more than 5570 migrations are officially reported in China just for the time between 1836 and 1911. Of these, 2332 of them took place during 1856 and 1865, the time of the great rebellions (Chi Zihua 2001:37). The rural mobility during late imperial times must have been considerable. But there was also a constant rural exodus of variable intensity.27 According to the sources the number of long-term and seasonal vagrants increased dramatically during Qing times. Natural disasters, famine and nutritional bottlenecks are etiologically dominant (see below). Unfortunately it is almost impossible to know the sizes of city populations as our main source of information, the Local Gazetteers, shows population figures not only for the municipal area itself but also for the considerable agrarian surroundings which were administratively attached to the city. In the case of district cities (e.g. Shanghai), figures include the population of the whole district, not only of the city concerned and its immediate surroundings (Zou Yiren 1980:2; Cao Shuji 2001:726ff; Johnson 1995:119). In a word – all of the reconstructed sizes of city populations are more or less crude estimations, which are of limited use for the serious study of historic urbanization.28 Above all, historic figures of small market towns (Marktflecken), of special interest for the reconstruction of the urban past, are

27 Most of the migrations mentioned in Qing sources are not quantifiable. However, without the slightest doubt we can assume massive population movements according to qualitative sources (cf. Lu Deyang 1997:86-91). During the Qianlong era (1736-1795), the estimated share of migrants in the province of Sichuan totaled c. 60% of the whole population, with most of them from Hunan, Hubei, and Guangdong (Cao Shuji 1997:103ff). The surroundings of Peking were populated by myriads of migrants during the Jiaqing era (1796-1820) as the eyewitness Zhang Shiyuan described (JSWB j.35:884). This is, of course, a subjective judgment similar to Tang Cenglie‘s estimate in the second half of the 19th century that the average amount of “floating population” in each of the Chinese provinces was about two million (JSWXB j.34:5/2). This means about 44 mill. people in the whole country or more than 10% of the total population were migratory. Li Xun estimated the number of migrants at about ten percent of the total population already for the 15th century (cit. in Kolb 2002:298, n.23). Eyewitnesses emphasize the omnipresence of vagrants in Chinese cities and market towns in the 18th and 19th centuries (Zhi Zihua 2001:6ff; Kolb 2002:298ff). 28 W. T. Rowe, in his pioneering study on the city of Hankou (Hankow) stated a fact that is equally true for all the other Chinese cities in late imperial times: “As might be expected, it is impossible to arrive at reliable population figures for nineteenth-century Hankow. Not the least reason for this is the fact that the population was subject to great seasonal fluctuations between periods of high and low market activity. Moreover, the mobility of the inhabitants rendered contemporary Chinese (as well as western) census-taking machinery totally inadequate to the task of compiling their numbers. Thus official figures in periodic baojia enrollments yield a population size so understated that they have served more to mislead modern scholars than to enlighten them” (1984:38). According to Rowe, relatively trustworthy figures are furnished by estimations of foreign missionaries and local residents of a town (ibid.:40). However, his exemplifications are not convincing at all, showing quite disparate numbers that differ by more than one million people (ibid.). 215 not sufficiently available to permit solid estimations, even for populations29 and commercial activities in the economic key region of the Lower-Yangzi (Liu Shiji 1987:128-138). One might infer from the paucity and vagueness of exploitable figures on the demography of late imperial cities that the quantitative aspect is a thorny problem at best. Cao Shuji‘s painstaking statistical efforts for a quantitative reconstruction of urban demography in Qing times revealed a confusing result: there were more city dwellers in 1776 than in 1893 (2001:723-

830; 829). This is hard to believe indeed.30

A further problem of historical demography is the extent of massive overseas emigration, beginning in the 1840s (Cao/Wu/Ge 19976:521ff). There are only very crude estimates available. The figures for overseas Chinese in the year 1920 range between 8.8 and 13 million. The ban on emigration, justified by the concern over state security, and tacitly ignored since the 1850s, was not lifted until 1893. Not all of the immigration countries deliver sufficient historic figures to reconstruct indirectly the demography of emigration in late imperial China before the late 19th century. But we know that emigration lowered the population pressure in the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian in the 19th century and led to relative economic prosperity in their places of origin thanks to the constant remittances from abroad (Ho 1959:167-168). The greatest number of contract workers, an estimated 1.28 million people, left late imperial China between 1851 and 1875 (Cao/Wu/Ge 1997:529).

Fixing of Figures

Until 1898 the baojia leaders were expected, nominally once a year, to collect the population figures and to deliver them to the district administration (yamen), where they were gathered and shaped into reports for transmission to the next administrative level, the subprefecture or prefecture. At the same time the data were recorded in the Local Gazetteers. Additions had to take place on every level of authority, obviously leading to arithmetical mistakes and replication errors with corresponding effects of summation. Due to the indifference of the yamen employees the data was treated with gross carelessness already at the lowest level. With only a small movement of the brush, the pen-pusher (xuli) could evoke tremendous

29 The figures found in Gazetteers of small market towns of the Lower-Yangzi region refer almost exclusively to households and not to individuals. 30 Chao Kang, in his chapter on “Urban Population” (1986:43-63) seems unimpressed by the shadiness of his sources. He agrees with rather megalomaniac estimates of contemporaries and makes use of them to verify other obscure figures. His reference to “the crude nature of the pre-Ch‘ing estimates” (ibid.:61) seems to be no more than lip service, which is advanced to solidify his estimates on city populations in Qing times. 216 numerical changes. He could expect no reward nor did he have to fear punishment in case of errors.31

Neither is there any indication of the examination of data as to their plausibility. Errors in writing and copying were simply perpetuated (Skinner 1986:10-11).For instance, we don‘t know of a single incident where the population report was returned from the prefecture to the district level because it seemed dubious. All these sources of error account for the immense number of obviously contradictory relations of households to population numbers as well as of the ratio of male to female population.32

Transmission of Figures

The conveyance of district reports through all further levels of territorial administration (subprefectures, prefectures, provinces) to the department responsible in the central administration, offered countless opportunities for manipulation of data. The governors of the provinces were the last authority before the figures were passed on to Peking. It was their responsibility to disclose exaggerated numbers and punish the delinquents. We may assume that even then local officials recommended themselves to their superiors by submitting manipulated figures. There was little chance of detecting false data. On no level of administration were the numbers subjected to critical questions. The Da-Qing yitongzhi (General Description of the Empire of the Great Qing) from the year 1820 shows that the figures on the level of the prefectures don‘t correspond to the sum of the figures from the districts. Often data for certain districts are missing. Some prefectures probably list only a little more than half of their population. According to Cao Shuji, all the numbers for districts and prefectures that are higher than those of the census of 1953 are definitely false (2001:11). Historians working with aggregates of the Qing shilu (Veritable Records of the Qing) and other synoptic source material are given no information about the reasons for errors

31 Chao Xiaohong pointed to further sources of error for the data of population statistics in the historical material taken from a Local Gazetteer of the province of Shaanxi from the year 1934. The confusion of figures concerning population counts, households and years, the arbitrary rounding-off of numbers in both directions, confusion of digits, wrong additions, false interpretation of the source material and false contextualization of data (2000:80-86). 32 For the sake of brevity, here is just one example for each. The Zhaohua district (Sichuan) claimed a total count of 69,258 households with 70,736 members in the year 1887. The Guan district accounted for 494,898 households with 971,158 members in the same year, whereas only 119,190 or 525,230, respectively, were noted for the year 1982 (Skinner 1986:11-12). On the relationship between male and female figures see note 24. Carelessness in the addition of numbers was ever-present. The Gazetteer of the Daning district (Sichuan) lists 37,712 men and 35,106 women for the year 1796 and a total sum of 68,223 - the correct number would be 72,823 (Daning Xianzhi 1885, j.3, shihuo-hukou). The Tongxiang district (Zhejiang) showed exactly the same

217 discerned.33 Consequently the sums in question would first have to be disaggregated, which calls for an analysis of local material over a longer period of time. Here it is indispensable to keep in mind the instability of the boundaries of administrative units (Zhang Youyi 1997:8) – an exceedingly laborious task that is not always taken seriously, especially for the time before 1911.

Phases I, II, and IV

For Phase III (1780-1851), a tendency toward inflated figures and growth rates is assumed

(Ho 1959:36-46; Durand 1960:244).34 Nonetheless, this phase is generally considered to be the most reliable of the four. Anyone dealing with population numbers in Phase I (1644- 1740), is faced with the problem of having to convert censuses of households and taxable adult males (tax units=ding) into general population sizes. This is done on the basis of an assumed average household size that is then multiplied.35

Phase II is characterized by a particularly obvious incompleteness of population figures (Jiang Tao 1990:30-31; Ho 1959:46; Li Shiping 1988:182). The “statistics” are dominated by understated numbers. This is a phase of transition from the count of tax units to nominally real, extensive population counts.

number of taxable men or fiscal entities for the years 1672 and 1703, namely 49,282 (Tongxiang xianzhi, Shanghai 1997:197). 33 Beside the already mentioned increase in population of c.40 mill. from 1774 (221 mill.) to 1775 (264.5 mill.), the often cited Qing shilu offers several other “statistical” inconsistencies in development. Between 1777 (270.8 mill.) to 1778 (242.6 mill.) the population decreased by c.27 mill., while it increased by c.33 mill. from 1778 (242.6 mill.) to 1779 (275 mill.). By 1794 the population had reached 313 mill., then decreased again in 1796 by 38 mill. to 275 mill. On the other hand, the population grew again from 1797 to 1798 by close to 20 mill. The 19th century offers further incongruities: Supposedly the population rose by c.17 mill. in the periods from 1817 (331.3 mill.) to 1818 (348.8 mill.) and from 1821 (355.5 mill.) to 1822 (372.4 mill.). A sharp decrease followed from 1848 (426.7 mill.) to 1849 (412.9 mill.). The decline that took place from 1851 (431.8 mill.) to 1852 (379.1 mill.) is due to the Taiping Rebellion, according to the Xianfeng donghualu, and was even greater the following year 1853 (318.2 mill.). In 1869 only 239 mill. Chinese were registered in the central population statistics (cf. Yuan Zuliang 1994:22-32). 34 Skinner assumes the official number of 44.2 mill. for Sichuan to be exaggerated by a whole 16 mill. In 1953 four provinces (Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Hubei) show a drastic drop in population numbers by several million each, compared to the year 1850 (1986:67-74). According to Li Shiping, the inflation of numbers began during the Jiaqing era (1796-1820), which indeed seems likely. The “statistic” population count for the province of Sichuan in 1898 was 84.7 mill., while it was decidedly lower in 1911 at 52.8 mill. and even in 1953 at 65.6 mill. (1988:183). 35 The consolidation of land, corveé and poll taxes was carried on during the first eighty years of Qing rule (Ho 1959: 34) and bore fruit step by step, though in some of the provinces not before the end of the dynasty (Zheng Xuemeng 2000:596; 597, Table), thereby making the original ding (taxable male person over the age of 16 and below 60 years) into a tax unit. Ten or more persons could be under the responsibility of a taxable ding. Therefore the ding is not a suitable unit for demographic purposes (Fang Xing et al. 2000:180). 218 Phase IV (1851-1911) is considered as a demographic vacuum (Ho 1959:97).36 A distinct climate change for the worse and the corresponding natural catastrophes and their consequences as well as the great rebellions (Taiping, Nian, Muslims, Boxers) and the political instability led to a complete collapse of the baojia system and therefore the organizational basis for the census. It could happen that up to ten provinces were completely ignored in the statewide “statistics”. As late as 1898 the census figures for seven provinces were still missing (Jiang Tao 2000:117).37

Extraordinary caution is called for: “statistical” decline must not uncritically be regarded as an indicator of population decrease, as one would be tempted to do under certain circumstances (famines, rebellions etc.). Thus western estimations for the “unusual losses” of the years between 1850 and 1913 amount to 32.65 mill. (Schran 1978:641). The figures from the provinces are highly unreliable for Phase IV as they are incomplete, based on more or less arbitrary estimations or occasionally increasing algorithmically. The immense inter-provincial population movements seem to have gone largely undocumented. A look at Table 2 shows how far estimations of experienced historians can diverge regarding population figures. The source material from Phase IV is particularly unsuitable for the extracting of population figures of significant value.38

Republican China

Beginning in 1859, Western statistics39 , especially from Germany, after 1894 via Japan40, were introduced into China. At first this was just in Western dominated maritime customs stations and later on, after the year 1907, step by step in Chinese ministries (Li/Mo 1993:219- 222). At the same time the advantages of the instruments of western scientific statistics were

36 Ho Ping-ti, said to have been a confessed Maoist (Zhou Guanghui), prolongs the phase to 1949. This is in line with the historiography of the PR China, which disavows Republican times (1911-1949) in all aspects. Such methods are quite in accordance with the traditional-dynastic customs in order to present the time after the “liberation” in 1949 to its best advantage. 37 The population registers (minshuce) of the province of Hubei are a perfect example for the doubtfulness of the figures from that period. In 1858 the census was resumed there. For that year a figure of 30.57 mill. was reported or about 3.2 mill. less than before the Taiping Rebellion. Afterwards the population increased at a “constant„”rate by c. 100,000 every year, until it had reached about 34.72 mill. in 1898 und thereby surpasses the census of 1953 by 700,000 (Jiang Tao 2000:117-118). 38 Schran, who could not consult genuine Chinese material, assumes that “a substantial decline in China‘s population from 1850 to 1873 and an accelerated growth from 1933 to 1953 are really quite impossible [...] China‘s population must have been notably larger during the late 19th and early 20th century than is commonly believed”. He suspects that the figures were 10-20 percent higher (1978:646). 39 The first lectures on statistics in Europe were held by Hermann Conring 1660 in Helmstedt (Germany). In the second half of the 18th century the factor of movement became part of statistical considerations (Krüger 1998:59). Although the “statistical era” in Europe, beginning with the institutionalization of statistics, has a short history, it was far ahead of the development in China. 40 In this year the neologism tongjixue (statistics) was introduced from Japan (Li/Mo 1993:227). 219 discussed in China. Because of this innovation process, western population historians are inclined to attribute special qualities to the census of 1908/1911. Ho Ping-ti could prove that during this status nascendi phase of statistics, the facilities for collecting figures were not yet established sufficiently. The intention was to replace the baojia system by a statewide network of police stations, but the realization of this ambitious venture dragged on. Where there was a lack of “local defense units” (baoweituan), local bullies and gentry members had to be persuaded to cooperate. In other words, there were many localities without any institutional base for collecting data of any statistical value (1959:73-79). A look at the provincial figures of the years 1916/1917 shows, for instance, cases of absolute parity of both sexes as well as a hypertrophic (up to 64-fold) preponderance of males (Jiang Tao 1993:91). Considerable efforts had been made by the state to establish a centrally controlled system of statistics, but up to the end of Republican times (1949) with little success. The introduction of the “Laws of Statistics” (tongjifa) in the year 1932 and the “Statutes of Population Census” (hukou pucha tiaoli) nine years later did not lead to any decisive improvements. The census modalities remained highly inconsistent (Li/Mo 1993:244; 300-301).

The complete failure of a national census between 1927 and 1934 led to the nominal reinstitution of the baojia system in the whole country, but in fact it seems to have been introduced only in some provinces along the Middle and Lower course of the Yangzi (Ho 1959:85). The irregularly collected figures are of highly varying quality. Nevertheless official bureaus were busy “constructing” aggregates. The lack of data in provincial reports and their faultiness provoked manipulations on the highest level of statistics. Estimations of statewide population figures, made by the various relevant statistical institutions, differ considerably, in one extreme case (1930) by more than 150 mill. (see Table 3).

Cressey characterized the Republican statistics as follows: ”Statistics of all kinds are exasperatingly unreliable in China. No precise census enumeration has ever been taken, and many of the published figures are based on such generalizations as the average consumption of salt41 or other products, upon the circulation of mail matter, or upon estimates as to the number and size of families” (1934:18). No one familiar with these problems will want to contradict him in the case of higher aggregated population figures, representing summation

41 In Jiang Tao‘s opinion this method of estimation is not totally inefficient, provided it is used in a supplementary way and that there is a clear idea of the average amount consumed per capita. In early Republican times ten pounds (= 5 kg) were assumed to be a reliable figure per capita per annum. The result was an estimated population size of 260 mill. By considering the tax-free salt for fishery and industry the figure amounted to 531.2 mill. (1993:96-99). Both of these figures are not at all corresponding to the officially held population figures (cf. Table 3). 220 effects of errors and manipulations. On the other hand, results above average may have been achieved on the local level under favorable conditions. Comprehensive knowledge of the survey modalities is indispensable for evaluation. Buck‘s survey (1930), which was based on fieldwork in the years from 1927 to 1933, is regarded as one of the most reliable western sources for statistics on agriculture and demography in Republican times, but this optimistic attitude toward the material and samples presented is not fully acceptable. First of all, the samples are not representative for the whole of China and not even for the localities in which they were gathered, as a closer look proves (see below). The statistic crux of the period from 1911 to 1949 was the military issues, which included the Warlord era, the invasion of the Japanese and the war against them (1937-1941) as well as the civil war from 1945 to 1949. There was no way to achieve an effective centralization of the system of statistics and a standardization of the surveys. Nevertheless, in the field of agriculture statistical efforts sometimes bore edible fruit on local and even regional levels. This material is available in local archives and, of course, in the National Archive No. II (Ye/Esherick 1996; Makino 2002).

Microdemography The main task of historical microdemography is to analyze the generative components of marriage, fertility and mortality in order to gain insights into the processes of population developments.42 Population registers, genealogies, and, on a very limited scale, epitaphs are the main Chinese sources of any use for this field of research.43 Genealogies, which were mainly produced for ritual purposes, did not even follow their own individual rules of composition (fanli) and left huge gaps (Harrall 1987:55,57).44 The female members of lineages/clans are only partially considerd at best. Often we look for them in vain. The same is true in the case of children, especially females. Males were generally enlisted from the age

42 An excellent synopsis of the western (American) level of research on microdemographic topics in late imperial China has recently been submitted by Martina Eglauer (2001). 43 The Chinese sources are hardly comparable with the European ones regarding their topics and their quality of information. In Europe, beginning in the 17th century, there were at least locally and regionally, official demands on continuity in recording, comprehensiveness in description as well as internal consistency. Chinese microdemography lacks material like church books and church registers with fairly accurate dates of christenings, marriages and funerals. We should not forget that European political arithmeticians developed the science of statistics from the 17th century onward, while officials in late imperial China, in spite of the long tradition of collecting population and cultivation area data, never made any special attempt to reflect on statistics in a way comparable to the West. 44 Johanna Meskill hit the nail squarely on the head when she wrote, “For the demographer, the genealogy may hold more frustration than fulfillment. Many standard demographic questions cannot be answered from genealogies” (1970:148). This includes, for instance, the family size, infant mortality, affined relations, marriage strategies and adoptions (ibid.:148-150). From an historic-anthropological point of view we have to agree that genealogies “make the reality look more uniform and conventional than it ever was” (ibid.:159). 221 of twenty on. Prior to this age, they were listed only when they were already married and fathers. Gao Songyi examined the unequal consideration of the sexes in approximately seventy genealogies and discovered ratios of male to female, ranging from a moderate, apparently realistic 104:100 up to 222:100, with an average ratio of 168:100 (1987:123,136). Even males had not been registered in their entirety in genealogies (ibid.:129). Children who died before the age of eight to ten do not appear in these sources. Unmarried childless males who died before the age of twenty were not mentioned with an exact date of death (ibid.:126).

The average life expectancy of women was below that of men, due in part to health disadvantages during the reproductive age (ibid.). Maybe the asymmetrical distribution of resources in households was also of some importance. On the other hand, women resist enduring nutritional crises more successfully than men, but malnourished women were endangered during childbirth (Dirk 1980:24). According to Wong, the life expectancy of the Chinese in the 18th and 19th centuries was about the same as in Europe (1997:26). In the case of Daoyi, a settlement in the province of Liaoning, data (see below) suggest an average life expectancy during the years of 1773 to 1853 of little over 30 for both men and women45 . After the age of ten the life expectancy climbed enormously, namely to 43.3 years for men and 35.8 years for women (Lee/Cameron/Anthony 1995:173-175). The household registers of the Eight Banners are described as “the most extensive and detailed records of a Chinese peasant population” (Lee/Cameron 1997:225), but the prevailing weaknesses of the sources are considerable and raise questions about the credibility of the author‘s conclusions.46 Moreover, to generalize from a small deficit sample gathered beyond the Great Wall in Northeast China would be methodically more than dubious. It is to be expected that the multifaceted Chinese environment with a climatic range from aridity to tropical humidity, offers highly varying life expectancies for its inhabitants.

From the foregoing remarks on the gaps of information in the sources, the reader may infer that a search for data to establish birth rates could not lead to much success. However, Lee/Campbell (1997:90-101), Li Zhongqing (1994:3) and, following them, Pomeranz

45 According to Wrigley/Schofield, the English country population, without considering infant mortality, had an average life expectancy of 35 to 39 years, which increased to about 40 years by 1871 (1981:230; 708-713). Between 1740 and 1800 Germans lived 35 to 38 years on average (Pfister 1994:43), but people in the countryside became older than those in the cities, the “ville tombeaux” (Le Roy Ladurie). 46 The examined registers were used by the military and civilian administrations. Nevertheless, data on birth, migration and death are missing. About a quarter of the sample had been lost (Lee/Cameron/Anthony 1995:164- 166; Lee/Campbell 1997:225-233; Cao Shuji 2001:854). Apropos - Chinese emperors, as we know, were especially well-fed and medically well-tended, but sometimes living in an hazardous political environment, reached an average age of only 45 (cf. Yuan Zulian 1994:101). However, scholar officials as Yuan discovered in the official dynastic histories, lived to a ripe old age of 70.4 in Ming times (1368-1644) and 71.3 during the last dynasty (ibid.:124). 222 (2000:41; 2002:428), maintain a birth rate in China lower than that of Europe between 1550 and 1850. According to Wong, the Chinese birth rate was about two thirds of the European (1997:23). But in view of the sources, namely the registers from Daoyi and in addition data drawn from the genealogy of the emperor’s kinship group, two very small local samples, this statement is more or less a sweeping one, which is based on the principle of the “fallacy of the lonely fact”.

It is further assumed that Chinese families in late imperial times practiced family planning. In this context Lee/Campbell, still squeezing out their Daoyi sample, ventured on the difficult task of finding clues as to the average fertility. The result presented is amazing indeed. The fertility in late imperial times was about two thirds of that of early modern Europe, because family planning with “early stopping, late starting, and wide spacing” was practiced (1997:92). It is to be suspected that the authors fell victim to the slogans of the birth control campaigns that began in 1973 and transplanted them to the period under review.

Li Bozhong tried to prove that a variety of birth control measures (abortion, contraception, sterilization and different pressing techniques) had already been applied between 1620 and 1850 in the key economic area of the Lower-Yangzi region in order to maintain the family‘s prosperity (1994a:41-52). However, at least three major reservations remain: (1) Li could not differentiate between cities and the countryside. (2) The primary source material consists exclusively of novels which are evaluated without any textual criticism. (3) No historiographic evidence has been brought forward regarding the popularity of the cited practices among the population. Furthermore, it would be of some interest to know if all the peasant families below the level of prosperity also practiced family planning as described.

Considering the marital fertility in late imperial China, there are some arguments, partially based on traditional norms (1-4), which do not seem to be invalidated:

(1) The family system (patrilineal system) “tolerated overpopulation” (Chao Kang 1986:9). This concerns mainly South and Southeast China, where this system dominated.

(2) The dictate of an earliest possible marriage (Zhou Zuoshan 1997:62; Taeuber 1970:78; Eastman 1988:24ff; Jun/Ma 1998:88; Buck 1937:377) as well as the marriage of all offspring, even if they were still economically dependent on their parents, was universally approved in China (Eastman ibid.).47

47 Buck found out during his survey (1929-1933) that 81 % of the women marrying for the first time were under the age of 20 and 13 % under the age of 15 (1937:381). 223 (3) After wedding, childbearing should happen as early as possible.48

(4) There was a traditional obligation to produce many offspring (fanzi), especially male (Chen Guyuan 1998:5ff). Sons had the duty to care for the continuation of the male ancestor worship and for the welfare of their parents when they grew old. After death, a man gains immortality through his sons and grandsons (Chen/Mu 1998:85). The prosperity of a family and its social prestige is manifest in the number of its sons.49 Numerous traditional good wishes and sayings reflect the omnipresence of this mentally deeply rooted social norm.50

(5) The sale of wife and daughters (often to brothels or well-to-do households) belonged to the instruments of survival of the male part of the family during life-threatening crises, above all famines. This custom contributed negatively to the ratio of the sexes in disaster areas.

(6) All the many nutritional crises and famines (see below) must have had some impact on the fertility of the women concerned.

(7) Data on infant and child mortality doesn‘t exist before Republican times (1911-1949). At that time the rate was between 15 and 16 percent while in some localities it was up to 20% (Buck 1937:389). We may ask ourselves if there is any reason not to believe that these rates were at least as high in earlier times. Far beyond the key economic areas the mortality rate must have been distinctly higher and therefore the birthrate, too.

(8) A much discussed question refers to infaticide (ninü), popular in rural China up to this day. The drowning of female infants has mostly been considered in the context of familial poverty (a.o. Fei Hsiao-t‘ung 1939:34; Osgood 1963:362). R. Bin Wong calls this custom a kind of Malthusian “positive check”, which is manifested in “long birth intervals and skewed

48 In a field research carried out in the 1990s in Yuecun (Zhejiang), one of the results confirms this historic attitude: “There is speculation about whether or not a woman who has been married for several months has yet conceived child. If she has not become pregnant within a year of the wedding, rumors about her fertility run through the village, putting her under extreme pressure” (Chen/Mu 1998:87). The authors’ conclusion is, “The influence of socio-economic development is partial and limited in relation to the multi-level childbearing needs of the farmers, and mainly reduces the need to have children for survival or social reasons”(ibid.:89). This observation coincides with fieldwork from the years 1918 to 1930, in which no contraceptive measures at all came to light, not even during family planning campaigns (Cao Shuji 2001:875). 49 Buck discovered that the “fertility of married women observed in China was very much greater than observed in any Western countries considered” (1937:384). The difference of marital fertility was relatively insignificant between the smallest and largest peasant households (5.11 to 5.87 children; ibid.:386). 50 For example: “Many sons and many grandsons!„ (duo zi duo sun); “Many sons, good luck” (duo zi duo fu); “Multiplying offspring!” (zisun fanyan); “He who has sons will not be poor” (you zi wei wei qiong); “Brothers are like hands and feet” (xiongdi ru shu zu) and “Rear sons for old age” (yang er fang lao). 224 sex ratios” (1997:24).51 Pauperized peasant families practiced infanticide in order to grasp another chance for rearing a further son. In any case, this was the parents’ usual explanation.

But poverty was surely not the only reason to indulge in this custom.52 According to Li/Wang‘s estimate, about ten percent of the female offspring of the emperor‘s clan had been drowned (2000:70). Other well-off lineages could have practiced infanticide, too. We don‘t know enough to say anything more concrete about this social phenomenon. Further research into sources, first of all the Local Gazetteers, is indispensable (cf. Ho 1959:58ff). While writing about infanticide we must not forget the institution of foundling hospitals (yuyingtang), which were popular since the middle of the 17th century in the prosperous regions of South and Southeast China during late imperial times (Fuma Susumu 1986; Liang Qizi 1997; Lum 1985). They were run with contributions from private philanthropists and ideologically supported by moral handbooks (shanshu) as well as “Ledgers of Merit and Demerit” (gongguoge), condemning the “evil custom” of infanticide and motivating its readers by offering plus points for their moral account in the celestial world (Brokaw 1991). The official attitude towards infanticide was very clear - from a moral point of view it was strictly disapproved (a.o.T‘ien 1988:25ff). Some scholar officials regarded this custom as a cause for the decline of the Chinese empire.53 Taken all in all, the present level of research is far from permitting any quantitative statement on the phenomenon of infanticide in late imperial times.

(9) It can be assumed that the cult of women‘s chastity (Eglauer 2001:55ff), particularly promoted during Qing times and locally widespread (T’ien 1988; Zurndorfer 1993:99) had a certain unintentional demographic influence. This cult, the official honoring of a lifelong widowhood, was based on the Confucianist orthodoxy and its concept of marital fidelity. In Qing times, the forced remarriage of a widow by her parents or parents-in-law was strictly forbidden by law. There were special charitable institutions for widows to keep them safe from worldly temptations and molestations (Pao Tao 1991). At the same time the female suicide at the death of a spouse or fiancé, likewise very popular, was periodically condemned by the ruling elites (T‘ien 1988:126ff).

51 Li/Wang are bold in their conclusion, drawn from the Daoyi sample in Liaoning, in stating that infanticide had been widely practiced in China and fail to provide enough evidence (2000:101). Ho Ding-ti also commits the error of regarding the disproportion of the sexes as an indication of the existence of infanticide (1959:59-60). 52 The practice of infanticide offered, besides its family planning role and the opportunity for sex-selection, a health advantage to the women - it was less dangerous than abortion and it gave the opportunity for eugenic control (Cohen 1989:199). 53 See, for example, Gui Zhongfu‘s tractate Jie ninü wen (Warning against the Drowning of female infants) in Chinese Repository. Vol. XVII, 1848, pp.11-16. 225 In view of the above mentioned arguments, admittedly of varying weight, it seems to be rather daring to assume the practice of a statewide rational birth control in China before the rigid campaigns of the 1970s.

The sources of Chinese microdemography, at least before Republican times (1911-1949) and the first modern gathering of local data, in fact offer valuable material for structural, functional and developmental history of clans and lineages as well as for the study of local migration and emigration, prosopography and biographics, but they are highly deficient in information on genuine microdemographic topics, the generative factors of the population and their history. Even in the case of favored local samples, only rough estimates are possible.

Population Development and Natural Disasters Historical population development in China is dominated by three concepts: (1) The concept of acceleration and, periodically, explosion of population growth between 1700 and 1850, that led to overpopulation in the end (Eastman 1988:5; Elvin 1973:304; Ray Huang 1997:224; Rowe 2002:475; Lu/Teng 2000:781; Spence 1995:124). (2) The concept of moderate and constant population growth with a yearly growth rate of far beneath one percent for the period in question (a.o. Li/Wang 2000; Li Bozhong 1998:19-20; Hsü 1995:65). (3) The concept of a restrained and varied population development as a result of the influence of catastrophes (Malthusian “positive checks”; see Ho 1959.271ff; Cao Shuji 2001:831ff; Goody 1996:190- 191; moderately Malthusian arguments by R. Bin Wong 1997:22-26).

All three models are mainly based on demographic and agro-economic figures (size of cultivated area, soil utilization, agrarian productivity, etc.) and in some cases an assemblage of corroborating qualitative source material. Natural disasters and famines play a peripheral role at best for population historians, with the exception of Ho (1959), and the evaluation of their demographic relevance varies. The estimations themselves appear to be highly arbitrary, as there seems to be little willingness to acknowledge the level of research in the discipline of “disaster studies” (zaihaixue) within environmental history. So far, the level of research is held predominantly by the Chinese.54 They can rely on a body of sources that is probably unique in the world. Next to prominent archival representation, there are special handbooks for the combat of disasters (jiuhuang; huangzheng), diaries with entries concerning the weather, stele inscriptions, and chapters in Local Gazetteers, texts from nearly all kinds of

54 There are several Western studies that offer insights into this discipline also to non-sinologues among the historians, such as Mallory (1926); Yao Shan-yu 1941, 1944; Ho 1959; Wang/Zhao 1991; Hinsch 1988; Will 1980; Fang Jin-qi 1992; Amelung 2000; Kolb 1996b. 226 written sources. In the meantime, some parts of the extensive archive material have been published.

The temporal continuity of the records is no guarantee for their qualitative continuity as periods of sparse data are followed by periods rich in documentation. However, there is a clear trend toward an increase in disaster reports since the 14th century (see below).

Natural disasters were considered to be a disturbance in the harmony between the universe and the earth and a heavenly response to earthly misbehavior (above all by the local administrations). Therefore the local magistrates and prefects preferred to wait and see if there was any real need to report to their superiors. This could lead to a delay in granting relief measures. Quite often local officials felt obliged to conceal a catastrophe from the higher authorities (nizai; huizai) or at least to play down its impact although nominally heavy sanctions awaited them for not reporting in time. On the other hand, some were motivated to exaggerate the effects of a disaster (duobao; zhongbao) in order to make a personal profit from the additional government relief, as for example the reduction or suspension of taxes. We find an increase of false reports especially during the first half of the 17th century. Thanks to the conviction of the emperors and the elites that natural disasters represent heavenly signs of displeasure with the earthly state of affairs, China possesses a singular chronological documentation thereof. In view of the imposing number of disasters, the moral behavior obviously left something to be desired. Right up to the 1950s the peasant population in more remote regions still regarded disasters (locust plagues) as heavenly punishment, which was not to be fought but endured (Kolb 1996a:110-111).

Two dimensions have to be taken into account when the importance of disasters in the historical discourse is estimated, namely (1) temporality: phase of impact, isolation, rescue and remedy, and (2) spatiality: magnitude, zones of total impact, marginal impact, and filtration (cf. Alexander 1993:21-26). We find information on both dimensions and their constituents in the primary sources, whose abundance allows for extensive comparative analysis as well as reciprocal complement. The archival reports contain the etiology of events, their appearance, extent, effects, and often also the relief measures. Here and there we find a correlation between different disasters, for instance droughts and locust plagues or earthquakes and tsunamis.

Space played a more important role than time in the development from nutritional crises to famines that often followed natural disasters. This was because the greater the space the more difficult the solution of the transport problems (Will 1980:40), especially when dependent on

227 land transport or in the case of a total collapse of transport on inland waterways during longer periods of drought (see above n.12).

First let us take a closer look at the frequency of natural disasters. The discourse of catastrophes in the history of China is dominated by floods and droughts (atmospheric and hydrological disasters), which, also during Qing times (1644-1911), make up about seventy to eighty percent of all reports (Zhang/Song 1998:93-94, Table 2-12; Li Xiangjun 1995:15). For many decades, historians deferred to Deng Yunte‘s classical study (1937) on the history of disaster relief, which includes statistics assembled from the official twenty-four dynastic histories. There is no question that the events they describe represented a very special challenge for the central government. For Qing times these sources list a total of 192 floods and 201 droughts (cf. Table 4). But these figures don‘t give us an adequate idea of the prevailing frequency of disasters.55 Zhu Kezhen (cf. Zhang/Song 1998:88-89) arrived at considerably higher numbers by occasionally including Local Gazetteers and listed 669 floods and 328 droughts (cf. Table5). Chen Gaoli‘s further (but in no way complete!) analysis of Local Gazetteers (1986) provided more elaborate results for the period from 1644 to 1913, listing 1625 floods and 1901 droughts (cf. Table 6). So far, Li Xiangjun offers the most complete corpus, which includes archive material56 of natural disaster reports during Qing times. He determines a total of 16,384 floods and 9185 droughts for the period from 1611 to 1839, which were very unevenly distributed throughout the provinces. It is interesting to note that the provinces of the economic key region of the Lower Yangzi area are prominently represented (cf. Table 7 and 8). According to Chen Qiaoyi‘s research, 1062 floods and 553 droughts, all dated, occurred in the province of Zhejiang (today‘s boundaries) alone, whose

Northern half belongs to this region (1991).57

We cannot hope for an adequate survey of the natural disasters for the period from c.1850 to 1911, due to enormous losses in archive material (period of great rebellions). We may assume

55 Had Deng consulted the “Veritable Records” (shilu),which concentrate only on disasters of supra-regional importance, just as the source of his preference does, he would have found 1159 floods and 613 droughts for the period from 1644 to 1820 alone (cf. JJSZL, pp.693-706). 56 Only through the study of archive material, which is so far not a frequent custom, can we get an approximate idea of the size and impact of the disasters in particular and in their sum. For the flood years (1736-1911) of Qing times we have 3130 entries for the drainage area of the Yellow River alone, 4653 entries for the Huaihe and 3805 for the Yangzi River (DASL I, II, III). 57 So far, a comprehensive analysis of the environmental degradation, natural disasters, and demography of the history of the Lower Yangzi region, so often described by economic historians, is still missing. A first, if timid, step was taken recently in a Chinese dissertation by Feng Xianliang with the title Ming-Qing Jiangnan diqu de huangjingbiandong yu shehuikongzhi (Environmental Change and Social Control in the Jiangnan Region during Ming and Qing times), published in Shanghai in 2002. However, the author argues strongly in favor of harmonization, control, and development and deals with the historic disasters only on the basis of two prefectures in Northern Zhejiang (Huzhou and Jiaxing). Cf. pp.167-234 228 a decisive rise in natural disasters and a distinctive increase in epidemics58, above all the plague, because China‘s macroclimate underwent a decline in temperature between 1840 and 1890. This was a phase with cold, moreover humid winters, especially in Southern China (Hinsch 1988:155; Zhu Kezhen 1972:28; He Yaheng 1999:203, 206; Zhang Jianguang 1998:517-523). This period saw 19 floods of extraordinary dimensions, among them the one- thousand-year flood of the Huanghe River in 1843, flooding about 2.1 mill. square kilometers (Luo/Yue 1996:1-7;149-152). In addition, the course of the river was displaced to its Northern bed from the mouth at the Yellow Sea south of the Shandong peninsula to the mouth at the Bo Sea. Amelung rightly speaks of a “significant event in modern Chinese history” (2000:7). Undoubtedly the greatest lethal catastrophe of the second half of the 19th century in China was of social provenance – the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864). We can only speculate on the basis of the available sources, on the extent of depopulation as a result of its impact.59

For Republican times (1911-1949) a total of 7408 floods and 5935 droughts of greater or smaller dimensions are documented (Xia Mingfang 2000:34), whereby the provinces of the Middle and the Lower reaches of the Yangzi continued to take a slight lead over the drainage are of the Yellow River (cf. Table 9). The first comprehensive reports on regions infested with locusts in the gregarious stage of their development date from this period with up to 11 provinces or 265 districts affected (Kolb 1996b:51-52). The massive appearance of this insect pest, ranking in third place after floods and droughts in historical sources, caused enormous harvest losses and consequently famines, often accompanied by epidemics.60

An increase in the frequency of the appearance of floods and droughts in the sources during the last dynasty is very apparent (Xia Mingfang 2000:30, 31; Chao Kang 1986:208). The reasons are obvious: inclemency of climate, increased settling in high-risk areas and accelerated environmental degradation are among the most important. Undoubtedly the rising population density in high-risk areas affected the intensity of famines in those regions. There

58 The 193 epidemics (-243 till 1911) that McNeill mentions (1976:211) can only be regarded as the tip of the iceberg and don‘t even include all of the mega-epidemics in Chinese history. They alone add up to at least 379 (Song Zhenghai 1992). According to the Qingshigao (Veritable Records), supra-regional epidemics were reported every 2.3 years for the first half of the Qing dynasty (1644-1840) and every 1.4 years for the second half (1840-1911; Zhang Jianguang 1998:421,515). These numbers would, of course, increase considerably with an examination of the entire source material. For Republican times alone (1911-1949) 767 epidemics are on record (Xia Mingfang 2000:34). 59 Contemporary Western observers estimated the number of casualties of the Taiping Rebellion at 20 to 30 million. Ho considers this estimate too low (1959:246-247). Cao Shuji, based on the figures in Local Gazetteers, calculated 73.3 mill. deaths as a result of the war and the ensuing epidemics (2001:867). 60 Zao Ji lists a total of 1330 locust plagues for the period from the 12th century till the end of the 19th century, 128 of them for the 19th century (1986:15). In the province of Hebei alone, 144 locust invasions took place between 1644 and 1911 and thirty-one during Republican times (Xia Mingfang 2000:371ff). On average, more than ninety districts were affected by the fourteen greatest of these plagues (ibid.:37). 229 are intrinsic inaccuracies in historic disaster chronologies. Lesser events became all the more relevant, as the means of communicating information improved. For the period from 1644 to 1911 this factor cannot be considered statistically decisive. Instead, the state of the transport system probably led to steadily worsening conditions in the transfer of information. A new quality in the reporting of disasters was not achieved until Republican times.

There are Chinese Local Gazetteers which furnish a chronological outline of the extent of historical disasters, usually with a list of the districts concerned. In regard to the hierarchical grouping of events according to the degree of their impact, there is no agreement: the number of administrative units as well as the amount of the population involved (deaths) are under discussion (cf. Zhang/Song 1998:94ff). Beside quantitatively relevant data there are an impressive number of qualifications in the elements of description. Among them are many stereotype syntagms (ibid.:96-98). This leaves the historian a lot of room for interpretation.

Our main interest here is focused on the demographic effects of disasters in late imperial times. The resulting casualties are thought to be the simplest and most reliable criterion for the dimensions of a catastrophe. We know from studies in the empirical social sciences how difficult it is for participants or spectators to judge the size of crowds. Victims generally tend to exaggerate the effects of a catastrophe (Alexander 1995:571). The data from Chinese sources, archives included, alternate between three forms of quantification: (1) precision that must be considered fictional in view of the conditions of gathering figures (e.g. 11,875; 43,500), (2) figures that represent a very crude estimate of magnitude or indicate a large crowd (100 000, 200 000 etc.) or (3) very inaccurate figures through the use of multipliers (ji “some, several”, shu “several”). Furthermore, we find figures that play a special role in mysticism (3, 8, 9, 36, 72, 300, 3000, 10 000 etc.). Percentages, mentioned in the sources, as for instance 70-80 percent (shi zhi qi ba), are not to be taken literally either, as they only suggest a large crowd. In trying to elicit a number of victims, we usually have to be content with qualitative syntagms, as for instance “there were very many dead” (si zhi hen chong) or “the dead lay in a thick mass” (siwang xiang zhong). Therefore, even a halfway realistic estimate of the number of casualties from disasters in any given year of late imperial times is absolutely impossible on account of the deficits of the source material.

The qualitative information on famine years, however, is of much greater value, as it reveals the dimensions of human suffering. Famines have their “own internal chronology” (Arnold 1988:26). They generated in China as elsewhere, agonal behavior, pillage, gang formations and uprisings once the stage of alarm had given way to that of resistance. Internal migration

230 usually set in at a relatively early point in the chronology. Moreover, the search for something edible led to massive damage of the vegetation as all trees within reach were generally barked and possibly stripped of their leaves and buds. Wide areas were left bare of their vegetation cover and even all roots were dug up. Special chapters in the handbooks on agriculture (nongshu) and botanical vademeca (survival guides) served to further the nearly total exploitation of the edible plant kingdom.61 As mentioned above, further means of survival were the sale of family members, women and daughters, as well as hunger cannibalism, if conditions were bad enough.62

As in the case of natural disasters it is equally impossible to set up statistics of casualties on account of famines, but we have an approximate idea of the frequency of their appearance. Floods, droughts and locust plagues are documented as the prominent causes. Deng Yunte discovered 405 famines in the twenty four dynastic histories, ninety of which occurred between 1644 and 1911 (1937:55-56). Yuan Lin pointed out that in the province of Gansu, in the Northwest of China, no less than 140 extreme nutritional crises took place between 1644 and 1949 (1994). In the Southern province of Guangdong, partly an economically favored region, 126 years of regional famines occurred during this period (GDZRZH 1961:196-208). Mallory‘s total figure of 1828 famines in Chinese history (1926:1; Nanking University) can only refer to the worst of them.63

Without sufficient numbers of victims it is difficult to judge the influence of natural disasters and famines on the demographic development. However, we can draw up a synopsis of those great historic disasters for which we have figures. Even if we have only an approximate idea of their dimensions, we have reason to assume that the resulting losses of life make up a good part of the total mortality rate (Table 10).64 It is difficult to find a single year in China‘s

61 Zhou Dingwang‘s and Zhou Xianwang‘s handbook with the title Jiuhuang bencao (Famine Herbs), which was written toward the end of the 14th century and describing 414 plants was widespread. Xu Guangqi incorporated it in his Nongzheng quanshu (1639), one of the most important agrarian handbooks of pre-modern China. 62 The countless references to cannibalism (ren xiang shi = “the people ate one another”) have to be taken seriously in view of a historiographically proven cannibalistic complex (cf. Höllmann 1998; Kolb 1996b). Zheng Yi‘s book Hongsi jinianpai (Red Monument; Taibei 1993; abbreviated engl. version: Scarlet memories, Boulder/Col. 1996) is revealing in this respect for the second half of the 20th century. Key Ray Chang‘s Cannibalism in China (New Hampshire 1990) is interesting in its description of anthropophagous diversity but totally inadequate in its study of sources and therefore to a large extent insufficient in its grasp of the “historical reality” of the phenomenon of cannibalism in China. 51 years of massive famine cannibalism are documented for the time from 1840 to 1949 alone, sometimes occurring in several provinces at the same time. Among other things, the prices for human meat and numbers of cannibalized people are listed (Xia Mingfang 2000:404-412). 63 There were 89 famine crises in France in the period from the 11th to the 18th centuries, probably only the supra-regional ones were recorded. Braudel assumes that hundreds of additional small, local crises took place (1967:55). Florence experienced a total of 111 years of famine during the 316 years until 1767, possibly as the result of the interruption of corn deliveries from Sicily (ibid.). 64 Mallory‘s China - Land of Famine (1926) is unsurpassed to this day as a standard work on the etiology and the spread of hunger in China during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Retrospectively he concludes that “the 231 history where famine did not prevail in at least one region. This includes the economically favored regions.

Li/Cao consider epidemics to be an important mortality factor. A look at the situation in Yunnan, where plague epidemics occurred repeatedly (1776-1820; 1856-1872; 1900), seems to confirm this view. On the basis of deaths from the plague in twenty-two Local Gazetteers, the authors arrive at mortality rates of up to 39.9% (2001:204-205). Even if these figures are imprecise for the reasons mentioned, they nevertheless serve as an indication of the demographic relevance.

We cannot verify if indeed 118.4 mill. can be declared victims of the disasters of all kinds for the time between 1851 and 1908, as Cao Shuji claims, among them 95.5 mill. resulting directly or indirectly from the impact of rebellions (2001:867). Other rough estimates are equally possible. By including the figures of the Tables we calculated a total of 153.1 mill. victims.

It will come as no surprise that China has produced an impressive historic welfare policy with elaborate strategies for survival, subsistence and collective security. The duty to practice social welfare was part of the patrimonial ruler’s and his officials’ conception of themselves. This ideological obligation originated in the rational conviction that only a socially tranquil population, living under economically acceptable conditions, would be able to pay taxes and perform labor services. In the agrarian state of China with its predominantly physiocratic economic policy, the welfare of the peasant population was therefore of primary importance. Far more than 90% of the 222 887 armed uprisings documented for the time between 210 BCE to 1900 CE originated in the countryside and of that number at least 1440 were greater peasant rebellions (Deng Geng 2000:7). Of 339 documented etiologies, 337 refer to natural calamities as decisive triggers (Fang Jinji 1995). The instruments of combating famine were at the peak of their integration, structuring and bureaucratization during the last dynasty. No wonder the reconstruction of famine relief in western Sinology focused on the 18th century (Will 1980) and the imposing granary system (Will/Wong 1991). But even during this century the state was unable to keep the famine at bay (Will 1980:232).There is still a considerable deficit in knowledge of the efficiency of the relief systems, since all the studies concerned are heavily based on normative source material of administrative provenance and are thus unsuited for a convincing approach to historical reality. The various systems consisted of

normal death rate may be said to contain a constant famine factor. Depleted vitality following years of want also tends to increase the death rate” (p.1). 232 several components: the exorcism of evil (chunie), report of the district magistrate to the superior authority in due time (baozai), thorough examination and evaluation of the impact (kanzai), tax relief or tax remission (juanfu), poverty-ranking of the peasants (shenhu) and handing out of relief certificates (zhenpiao), distribution of relief goods (fazhen), ambulant immediate relief by distributing cereal gruel or porridge (zhenzhou) or relief by distributing public work (gongzhen), grant of loans (jiehuo), promotion of commerce (tongshang), collecting of vagrants (jiliuwang), general “harmonization” of the social tensions (anji) through social welfare institutions (zhenji; fuxu), moral exhortations (jieyue) and finally a resettlement policy (diaosu; cf.Li Xiangjun 1995:23-41; Will 1980). In prosperous regions, even small market towns disposed of a distinguished spectrum of social welfare institutions that were predominantly maintained by private contributions and approved by the state. Each relief measure offered a lot of opportunities for fraud by the mostly unpaid volunteers. This can also be verified in the case of the granary system (Will/Wong 1991). At no time was it possible to establish a successful control system. The stocks were often misappropriated.

Furthermore I should mention the neglect of the granary buildings65 as well as the deliberately low levels of stock quota. One of the favorite tactics of the time, which is still popular today, was the temporary refill, before the inspections, with grain from neighbouring reserves (ibid.). We should not forget that about 20 000 officials kept the state and local administration of the

Qing running66 (Fairbank 1978:12). The personnel were far too poorly educated for any permanent monitoring of the granary system and other constituents of social welfare.

The construction and the management of the granaries were entirely dependent on the quality of the local government and therefore subject to continuous historical change. Here too, a corpus of selected examples is not suited to generalization. We are still waiting for an exhaustive local study evaluating granary efficiency in late imperial China. We know from archival material that the Qing state alone was able to intervene a total of 11 314 times on the occasion of food crises in the period from 1644 to 1839, more than a hundred times in a single province in one year’s time (Li Xianjun 1995:215-238). Altogether the funds for famine relief are said to have amounted to about 450 million silver-tael in the period under review (ibid.:63). That is about 13 times the tax yield of the prosperous year 1756. There were

65 For instance, in 1754, 28 of the 48 buildings of the “North-Granaries” (beicang) near Tianjin, the greatest complex of tax grain in Northern China, were in such bad condition, that storage was no longer possible. In 1801 the entire complex was more or less in ruins. In 1808 it was provisionally restored with a donation of 8000 silver-tael. One year later rain again soaked in and caused heavy losses (Will/Wong 1991:133). What may the condition of other, far less important, granaries have been? 66 Today the ratio is different - one cadre for every twenty-five people (cf. Becker 2000:302). 233 enough successful relief operations in every part of the land to demonstrate their substantial contribution to the mitigation of food crises.

However, a close look into the Local Gazetteer of any administrative unit shows that, in a substantial number of cases, no relief action at all was started by the state. How should we otherwise account for the frequency of documented famine and death? The value of information gathered by analyzing extrapolated cases of famine relief in action is only of limited use for the research on the efficiency of the famine relief system as a whole.

The collapse of the local and regional markets was one of the origins of famine and is documented in the relevant sources by the listing of rapidly rising prices (see for instance:GDZRZH 1961:197-208). Therefore, the promotion or reorganization of commerce in the impact region belonged to the standard measures in combating famine. Furthermore, transport was of utmost importance. We mentioned the partly deplorable situation of the Chinese transport system and the high costs of transportation in late imperial times, especially in the case of land traffic. Even regions with favorable hydro-geological conditions lost all their advantages of transport in times of enduring drought. In any case, many rivers and canals were only temporarily navigable in the course of a normal year. Poor communication was the main reason for the nine to thirteen million dead during the famine of 1876-1879. In Northern China of the 1920s, according to Mallory, “(r)elief cannot be brought [...] to a district beyond fifty to one hundred miles from the source of supply if the grain is carried. In localities where the roads are serviceable for wheelbarrows this distance can be increased two and one-half times” (1926:29; 34). For this reason, “(r)esidents in one province may be dying from starvation while adjoining provinces on either side are having excellent crops” (ibid.:35). Without any doubt this observation also fully applies to the situation in late imperial times.

After some insight into the various kinds of historical data nobody will seriously doubt the fact that natural disasters, famines, often accompanied by epidemics, influenced deeply the course of the entire Chinese history. The omnipresence of these extreme events took a constant toll on human life, thereby lowering the constant growth-rate. Anyone attempting to extrapolate the death tolls from the general figures of the demographic development is unfortunately confronted with the fact that most of the original population registers have been lost and many of them are incomplete or simply heavily manipulated so that “statistic” losses and losses of life are not clearly discernible. Migrations, a constant concomitant of famine, are altogether out of reach of quantification. Yet we encounter “statistical” population figures on

234 the provincial level of census indicating puzzling drops and recuperations (cf. Table 12) – a point of departure for bold guesswork.

The question still remains if mega-disasters with hundreds of thousands, not to say millions, of deaths can be regarded as demographic regulators. In Chao Kang‘s opinion, death tolls directly or indirectly related to warfare could sharply reduce the population, but even the Taiping Rebellion “caused merely a tiny ripple in the rising tide of Chinese population – a ripple, moreover, completely incapable of functioning as a Malthusian positive check” (1986:31, 32). Since population figures are highly untrustworthy, it proves difficult to substantiate this statement. Maybe it is nonetheless of some interest that all available figures on provinces concerned, especially on a local level, indicate heavy “statistical” losses (cf. Table 12). Chao’s argument rests on the fast recuperation rate of a massive population. A population of 400 million could have fully recovered from a loss of 25 million in about seven years with a growth rate of only one percent (ibid.:32; cf. Table 13). Probably the “normal” mortality rate during Qing times never allowed the annual growth rate to reach one percent. Based on the deficient and, as we know, untrustworthy population figures, Li/Wang, advocates of an exceptional population growth in the 18th century, state an average growth- rate of 0.5% for the period from 1700 to 1950 (2000:86), which is, of course, not at all impressive. By recurring to provincial figures from the 18th century (1767, 1771, 1776, 1780) Lu/Teng worked out annual growth rates of -3.7 to 17.3%, half of which are settled below 0.7% (2000:833-834, table 40).

Figures on Cultivated Land in Qing and Republican China In the search for arguments supporting the hypothesis of rapid population growth in Qing times, population figures are hardly helpful. We have to screen the sources thoroughly. There is an abundance of material of which imperial decrees, memorials from all echelons of central and local administration as well as considerations of concerned scholars are only the most prominent documents. It is especially worthwhile to consult the Local Gazetteers as they provide most valuable data on the over-utilization of agro-ecological areas on account of population growth (cf. Luo/Shu 1995:47ff; 59ff; Gao Songyi 1984:107ff). A lot of data, at least on local and regional levels, points to a considerable transgression of the threshold value of human carrying capacity, not only in agro-economically favored parts of the country, but even in marginal and ecologically sensitive regions (LSZRDL 1982; Perdue 1987; Osborne 1991). Mark Elvin speculates on a turning point around 1850 (1989:754) when the Chinese population reportedly totaled about 430 million, whereas according to Vermeer it is

235 “generally accepted” that China (with supposedly 300 million) was already overpopulated around 1800 (1998.268). Cao Shuji distinguishes, beginning with the 18th century, between emigration and immigration regions and calls the former overpopulated (2001:865).67

The regional and local overexploitation of the agro-environments caused a rapidly growing rate of degradation from the 18th century onward, increasing the impact magnitude of the atmospheric and hydrological hazards, famines and epidemics, which, as already mentioned above, absorbed year-by-year an oscillating number of percentage points of the population growth rates. The statement that “[C]hinese death rates were probably lower than European ones between 1550 and 1850” (Pomeranz 2002:428) is very bold indeed in view of the facts mentioned above.

Of course, efforts have been made to gain some quantitative insight into the problem of overpopulation in pre-modern time by reconstructing the ratio of agrarian land to population as well as agrarian land to agricultural productivity. We know that the per capita acreage shrank continuously from a roughly estimated 5.7 mu in the second half of the 16th century to 4 mu in 1772, 2.80 mu in 1812 and finally 2.76 mu in 1949 (Wu Cunhao 1996:1114).68

A growing pressure of population on cultivable land is the self-suggesting conclusion drawn from these figures. However, we should beware of any generalization for the whole of China because this pressure has to be evaluated locally and regionally (cf. Tables 15 and 16).

Cultivated Area (1644-1911) Of course, the enquiry into the reliability of the figures in the sources is again of foremost importance. The figures cited in the relevant studies are usually either taken from one single source or several sources, but merged into single figures by using an individually conditioned probability factor. All these figures do not immediately mirror all the imponderables adhering to them. First of all we perceive a surprising relative “statistical” stability of the cultivated land area, which is in contradiction to the enormous reclamations of land documented in the sources (cf. Table 17). As He Bingdi has shown, this stability corresponds to the stability of

67 In the early 1950s the optimal population size for China was at first considered to be 500 million (by Ma Yinchu). Fang Rukang raised this to 700 million and finally one ended up at 950 million, a number surpassed at the latest by 1978. However one may define the concept of “human carrying capacity” – Cohen (1996) supplies eight prominent definitions and no less than 58 modifications – the concept has something to do with a maximum population size that can be supported under sustainable conditions by an environment and its critical resources over a long time. There can be no question that the Chinese people today live farther beyond the limits of the human carrying capacity of their country as a whole than ever before in history. The vulnerability of the environment has never been greater.

236 the local figures (1995:77ff). This is not surprising because after 1657 no further statewide surveys with the official zhang-measure (= c.3.20m) were carried out. One of the most probable explanations for this phenomenon is the concealment of land reclamations (yinni or yindi) in order to evade taxation. The Landsat/Medea photos from 1997 confirm the vividness of this tradition. They show an increase of approximately 60 percent of agricultural land, including gardens and fish ponds (Smil 1999:427). The greatest discrepancies were found in hilly and mountainous country, not the high-yielding regions, but even there, “substantial underreporting” was discovered (ibid.). In view of an average loss of about 500 000 ha of agricultural land per year, which is “production capacity for at least 4 million people” (ibid.:426), this statistical increase was most welcome. During late imperial times, yindi was one of the many tactics of tax minimizing. The prospects were especially favorable in the wake of social unrest and after a longer period of fallow, when re-cultivation and surveys took place (Zhang Yan 1997:152). Of course, we can only guess at the extent of the areas concealed from the authorities, but sporadic local surveys showed impressive figures in the difference between the original entry in the land registers and the results of the re-survey, indicating that probably more than half of the land was yindi.69

A certain amount of the agricultural land was exempt from taxes and therefore from registration. This includes, for instance, land of low fertility in Henan, Sichuan, and Central Shandong during the Daoguang period (1821-1850), barely accessible terrain in Guizhou and Yunnan, sandy soil in Guangzhou as well as mountainous wasteland in the prefectures (fu) of Gao, Lei and Lian and steep terrain along rivers and the seashore in Liaoning (ibid.). The surroundings of temples etc., school land, charity land, as well as temporarily or permanently reclaimed land (ibid.) were also tax exempt. It goes without saying, that taxes could also be avoided by fraudulent declarations of land (Umwidmungen; cf. Hsiao 1967:106).

The surveys of agricultural land posed many problems and were conducted in a highly irregular fashion. Many varying shapes of fields had to be considered. As there were not nearly enough survey crews70, they proceeded by way of estimates that consequently led to a considerable quota of errors. The best results were achieved when imperial survey troops moved in, which was predominantly the case in economically favored regions with a high tax

68 Liang Fangzhong‘s figures deviate more or less. For the year 1724 he used ding (fiscal units) to calculate per capita acreage (25 284 818 ding to 683 791 427 mu); consequently the ratio is very high: 27.04 mu/ding (1980:393). The further figures for 1753 are 6.89, for 1766 at 3.53 and 1812 at 2.19. 69 In four dao (circuits) in the province of Sichuan, deviations from the entries in the “fish-scale registers” (land- measurement register), varying between 49 and 88 percent, became apparent (Zhang Yan 1997:152-153). 70 These survey crews were made up of an overseer, surveyor, cartographer, roper, book keeper and a scribe (Yang Yongjian in QJSWB j.31:682-683). 237 performance. The expenditure of time for a survey was considerable. It took far more than a year to cover one district. The costs had to be met by the local population. The old registers were to serve as guidelines, but often they no longer existed (Zhang Yan 1997:155-156). Because of the costs and the administrative expenditure, the landowners were frequently called upon to take the surveys into their own hands. The official survey crews had orders to conduct selective inspections. The authorities in charge were given a summary report. According to Lu Shiyi (1611-1672), the corrupt Yamen employees and local bullies as well as a high degree of deception among the landowners, were responsible for the difficulties in the surveys of agricultural land (QJSWB j.31:767-768)71 . For financial reasons, many local administrations had no registers at all (Zhang Yan 1997:159).72

The official area unit mu (240 square-paces = bu or gong = c.614.4 square meters) was by no means standardized or even in practical use everywhere. In North and Northeast China, for instance, the jiong was widespread, applied like a “Morgen” (area which can be worked by one man in one day), but which could also cover locally varying amounts of mu (Fang Xing et al. 2000:236-237). Where the basic measure chi (five chi = one bu) was concerned, there was considerable local diversity even within the administrations, not to speak of popular culture (Qiu Guangming et al. 2001:421ff; 434-435). Among the many regionally or locally typical terms for fields and field measurements, there were also those that were determined by productivity or the sowing rate.

Not only the units of measure but also the measuring tools and weights were in a state of chaos. Even at the grassroots, the village level, variety and confusion prevailed. One “foot” shows different lengths and correspondingly generated different field sizes (ibid.:237). The great attempt to unify measures and weights in 1704 was in vain and so were all the other efforts up to the early 1950s. During the first half of the 20th century, field surveys unveiled an astonishing diversity. For instance, in 22 villages and their surroundings near the city of Wuxi in the province of Jiangsu there were altogether 173 different mu-sizes and standards discovered (Zhang Yan 1997:171-172).

Finally we have to mention the so-called “fiscal mu”, which was locally based on soil assessment to establish a certain kind of fiscal justice: “Down to the twentieth century there were usually two kinds of land registers, one containing the returns for actual mou and one the

71 The texts of the QJSWB were intended to aid officials in coping with administrative problems during the early 19th century. 72 Yao Wenran and his assistants (d. 1678) drew up a “fish-scale register” of more than twenty thousand pages at a cost of over two thousand silver-tael (cf. QJSWB j.31:769). The cost was the highest possible annual salary and budget of a district magistrate. 238 returns of fiscal mou”(Ho 1959:111). The rates of conversion were varied locally (cf. He Bingdi 1997:92-99). Not all the sources mention these rates which could be manipulated in many ways (Zhang Yan 1997:150).

Zhang Yan put it in a nutshell: “The figures regarding cultivated areas in Qing times are complicated and unrealistic” (1997:151). It is almost unnecessary to point to the fact that not even further micro-studies could ever enable an historian to reconstruct serious figures for the provincial or even statewide agricultural productivity in late imperial China. The source material is extremely incomplete, unclear in details and frequently contradictory. It cannot seriously be included in the calculations of the nutritional situation of the population. The same is of course true of considerations on the “human carrying capacity”.

Cultivated Area (1911-1949) The main question is, if statistics during Republican times made enough progress to produce figures regarding agricultural land, which can be used for quantitative analyses of the general socio-economic conditions. The answer cannot turn out to our satisfaction. As we have shown for the (population) census, the coordination of the different statistical institutions was lacking and the results of all the surveys are incomplete and inexact (Li/Mo 1993:246-247; Brandt 1997:307, Faure 1989:48-52; Liu Yanwei 1999:205).

Around 1946, the state‘s statistical system consisted of c.1900 permanent organs on all levels of administration, among them one in every ministry, and c.5000 employees (Li/Mo 1993:329). The credibility of agrarian statistics produced between 1912 and 1921 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Ministry of Commerce (from 1913 on united: nongshangbu) is considered to be problematic (Makino 2002:3). For the province of Jiangsu, local survey material from the year 1921 can be drawn on for comparison (ibid,; Faure 1993:51).

Three more extensive surveys (dense surveys) were carried out by the statistical unit of the Ministry of Justice (lifabu), one in the district of Jiangning in Jiangsu (1931), another statewide relying on the postal system and a third together with the “Directorate of the Bureau of Statistics” (zujichu tongjiju) in 25 of 28 provinces and 1781 of 1935 districts (Li/Mo 1993:248-249). Makino studied the material and his results are disappointing: “these statistics suffer from the problem of cultivated area and under-reporting of production value by farmers to avoid taxation” (2002:3). The figures for cultivated areas “are even lower than the traditional ones on taxed land” (Ho 1959:125).

239 The results of Buck‘s survey from 1929 to 1933 in 22 provinces and 308 districts are generally regarded as relatively reliable. The selection of the 16 786 peasant households for interviews was up to his collaborators, students of the Nanking University, who were the offspring of well-to-do families with the usual bias towards the rural population. Consequently it came to “serious sampling errors” (Makino). The figures on agricultural land had been drawn from “Monthly Reports on Statistics” (Tongji yuebao) of the “Directorate of Statistics” of the Nanking government. Buck consulted the population figures of eight provinces and the average figure of mu per head in eight selected regions for supplementation and correction of his data (He Bingdi 1997:135). His aggregates are considerably understated, as a comparison with the “Manual of the Extensive Report on Cultivated Area” (tudi chengbao gangyao) of 1934 and the data of air surveys (beginning in 1932) show. The figures of the “Manual...” are partly based on a self-reporting system, which had been introduced for experimental reasons in some districts at that time. The deviations show an average of 124.7% to 160.4% and in extreme cases, like that of the Tianmen district in Hubei, up to 583.8% (ibid.:133.135; Ho 1959:Tables on pp.128,131,133).

According to Makino, the “Crop Reports” of the “National Agricultural Research Bureau” of the period under review from 1931 to 1938, which were published between 1933 and 1939, have to be regarded as the most useful agricultural statistics on a local level (2002:3). However, a closer look indicates that district figures were incomplete and rounded off by estimations; the same is true for provincial figures (Li/Mo 1993:249).

The inconsistency of the figures on provincial cultivated land speaks for itself: there are abrupt leaps of more than 100 mill. mu (= c.6.7 mill. ha) in a period of twenty years and phases of suspicious stability (Table 18). Cressey recognized the statistical dilemma of his time: “All statistics in China need to be scrutinized with considerable care. Some are fairly reliable,73 but too often they have been compiled without first-hand evidence, and with little regard to accuracy and comprehensiveness” (1934:90).

Furthermore, we should not forget that more than 1000 different sizes of the basic measure chi (feet) are documented for Republican times (Qiu Guangming et al. 2001:440ff) and in reality this number could well be quite a bit higher. What has been true for the measuring of lengths and areas can also be said about measures of weight and capacity. Neither late imperial nor Republican administrations succeeded in unification and standardization. During the first half of the 20th century, more than 500 capacity measures were reported, and there

240 were considerable differences in measures of nominally the same size (Qiu Guangming et al. 2001:440). This fact had, of course, some influence on the reports on agrarian productivity.

Concluding Remarks The samples of figures on population and cultivated land area, which are available to historians dealing with late imperial China, are more or less unsuited for drawing up serious historic statistics. The data had only nominally been gathered throughout all the districts of the entire country and there were no overall surveys in that time. The consequences of inertia in the “survey teams” and bureaus of the officials as well as the many possibilities for manipulation of data on every level of administration caused the intrinsic inaccuracy of the figures. As late as Republican times, when modern statistics were gradually established on a nationwide level, not a single overall survey could be carried out because of the political and military inner conflicts and the struggle against the Japanese aggression. Even the most refined historical-statistical methods will always result in quite a considerable amount of guesswork. The varying figures and aggregates of the sources are reflected in a high degree of arbitrariness in the literature on historical-quantitative topics of the period under review.

It might be quite useful to cast a look at the situation of statistics in today‘s China, in part because traditional practices are still alive. Since the early 1950s statistics, per definitionem, served the Communist Party propaganda. The Great Leap Forward and the famine from 1959 to 1962 (30 to 50 million deaths) marks the zenith of statistical madness. But even after the Mao Era statistics gave rise to constant irritation. There are at least two kinds of figures: the unpublished ones for internal use only and the published ones (cf. Shehui lanpishu “Blue Book of the Society”; annually compiled). Inspections on the quality of statistical surveys and their figures, carried out since the year 1985, officially unveiled more than 50 000 offences in 1989 and more than 75 000 in 1997 in one year‘s time (Cai Yongshun 2000:783). The actual number must be considerably higher. Cadres on all five levels of state administration are “over-reporting their achievements”, “underreporting their failures” and “making up statistics”. To keep the fertility rate low, birth and child mortality rates were manipulated (Merli 1998:784-785). It is furthermore a well-known fact that provinces notoriously over- report their GDP (Holz 2002:41). The untrustworthy aggregates presented are of little use for serious statistics. According to Cai Yongshun, statistics have become “so egregious that people do not even believe the statistics published in government-based newspapers”

73 Cressey points here to the figures of the “Statistical Bureau” of the central government, whose reliability seems very doubtful to Makino (2002:3). 241 (ibid.:787). The local statistical bureaus at the grassroots-level are “too weak to demand accurate reporting, and perhaps not qualified to make adjustments to the reported data themselves” (Holz 2002:55). Fully in accordance with tradition, the bureau staff are frequently contented with estimations (ibid.:41). Nevertheless, social scientists usually make indiscriminate use of these “soft” data to present “hard” facts. The last census, accompanied by propaganda noise, resulted in a total aggregate of 1.26 billion people (including Taiwan), which has been corrected in the meantime by the Academy of Social Science in Bejing to about 1.52 billion. people (c.f. Chengming 2001.9, p.24). Mysteriously, this correction has still not been widely taken notice of.

In the ongoing debate about China‘s role in world history since early modern times and the cardinal question, why China failed to modernize like the West, also figures and quantifications beyond the topics we just discussed, are sometimes brought forward as corroborating proof. They should not be taken too seriously before a careful evaluation of their validity.74

Furthermore, the debate shows at least partially what Braembussche calls “a significant limitation of comparative history in general”, namely “that it is usually based on secondary sources, and there is a tendency simply to accept the interpretations given in the sources. Thus comparative history is the interpretation of interpretation” (1989:22). In this way tertiary literature comes into being. Historians who cannot verify statements by research in the primary sources lack the insight into the historiographic poverty of some of the crucial arguments in question. They simply have to accept them as they are presented by Sino- historians.

The arguments of western-based historians who see no major differences in many aspects of the economy, technology and infrastructure between Europe and China in 1800 or are even

74 Is it really true that China disposed of “13 percent forest cover and a sustainable fuel supply per year about 20% above probable minimum needs” around 1800 (Pomeranz 2002:435)? Doubts about the validity of this statement are surely not unjustified. The level of research, especially in the fields of archaeobotany and historical phytogeography, is totally insufficient in order to draw quantitative conclusions on a nationwide level. This is probably why Nicholas K. Menzies (1994; 1996), the leading western scholar in this field, as well as most of his Chinese colleagues, do not mention any figures regarding the forest cover percentage. The overwhelming majority of sources on Chinese forest history during late imperial times (up to the middle of the 19th century) lack any seriously quantifiable data. Furthermore, even quotes from Western literature should not be uncritically accepted. We read, for instance, based on Clark (1991) that “British agricultural yields changed very little between 1750 and 1850” (Pomeranz 2002:433). However, Clark proved a rise of yields from 18.9 to 25.8 bushels/acre for the period from 1650/1733 to 1850 (p.465-457). Kent G. Deng, supposedly following Buck, wrote: “In China, according to Buck, as much as 25 percent of agricultural growth during the 1930s was attributable to streamlining the traditional technology” (2000:15). But what Buck really wrote was: “Perhaps a 25 percent increase in total production by more intensive methods and by modern techniques would be a conservative estimate of the possible increase economically, in China‘s agricultural production with the known methods of agricultural production” (1937:203). 242 inclined to ascribe a certain superiority to China (for example, the water transport system) “rested”, as Fischer would say, “upon a totally insufficient body of data which misrepresents the composition of the object in question” (1970:104-105). To generalize the conditions from two or three economically favored regions (Lower-Yangzi region, areas in Guangdong and Fujian, and sometimes Hunan) is historiographically incorrect. The differences between the environmental, economic and social conditions in the various provinces, prefectures and even districts, were immense and they remain so, as is generally known, up to this day. We may derive comfort from the fact that even for France and other European countries with fairly good documentation, agricultural dimensions on a nationwide level are not seriously describable before about 1860 (Vilar 1973:185). Correspondingly, the generalization from very few local samples on microdemographic topics as, for instance, mortality, life expectancy or fertility rates, is not recommended.

There is a distinct tendency in the debate to ignore certain environmental parameters, such as the historical disaster research. Kent G. Deng is right in pointing out that “to ignore disasters [...] in dealing with China‘s economic past can thus be very misleading” (2000:7). Not even the western level of research on environmental history (above all Perdue 1987; Osborne 1991, Marks 1998, and Elvin/Liu ed. 1998) has been adequately considered yet.

Furthermore, there is a certain reluctance to accept the historiographic truism that historical arguments cannot be based on normative sources alone. The information in these sources can be far removed from “historical reality”. For instance, a decreed program cannot be simply transplanted into the historical narrative without proving the time it took for it to become established and the geographical extent of its realization. The description of agricultural techniques in historical handbooks (nongshu) says nothing about their dissemination in the country, which has to be proved by corroborating evidence in further sources (Local Gazetteers, “Brush Notes” (biji), memoranda etc.). Statements about the uniformity of measures and weights, calendars, census practices etc. etc. are idealistic and incongruent with historical knowledge about China. The more or less chaotic situation regarding weights and measures is an exorbitant challenge for any historian arguing with figures and aggregates.

There is still an immense need in the West for historical local and regional studies on China beyond the economically favored regions in order to get a more balanced view on the topics debated. Another desideratum is comprehensive research on Chinese overland transport in general as well as river transport in the hydro-geographically second-rank provinces during Ming and Qing times. The whole historical complex of mining, transportation and

243 consumption of coal calls for further studies. All these issues are of great importance for a historical comparison of China with industrializing Europe.

Nevertheless, macro-comparison theories regarding China‘s history, in spite of their occasionally sweeping statements, are of some heuristic value as long as they are not totally based on arguments, which are insufficiently supported by primary source evidence. Their role in showing the way for further research is most welcomed by local and regional historians.

Tables

1. Major inventions in the history of Chinese agriculture (According to their first appearance in the sources)

land use +fertilizer irrigation tools cultivation sericulture

Zhou 12+2 9 13 6 13 Qin/Han 8+8 14 12 16 9 Sanguo 1 2 1 1 Jin1+5715 Nanbei 1+3 2 2 14 7 Sui/Tang 1+1 6 11 2 2 Wudai 1 3 Song8+58456 Yuan 7+2 2 22 5 11 Ming 7+10 3 3 12 10 Qing8+44789

Zhou: c.-1030 to -221; Qin/Han:-221 to 220; Sanguo: 220-280; Jin: 265-420; Nanbei: 420- 581; Sui/Tang:581-907; Wudai: 907-979; Song (906-1127/1279; Yuan: 1271-1368; Ming: 1368-1644; Qing: 1644-1911

Source: Min Zongdian 1989

244 2. Population data (Late Imperial China) year population (mil.)

1391 71.6 (4); 69.9 (2) [ > 65 (1)] 1393 93.0 (3); 70.5 (2)

1403 101.0 (3) 1404 59.7 (2) 1491 81.0 (2)

1502 50.9 (9) 1562 96.7 (2); 63.6 (9) 1566 166.3 (3) 1571 62.5 (9)

1600 160 (8); 1602 98.7 (2); 56.3 (9) 1644 152.5 (4) 1646 88.4 (2) 1650 125 (8) 1661 90.6 (3); 91.1 (2); 76.5 (6) 1679 126.0 (4) 1681 99.3 (3); 93.9 (2)

1701 122.3 (3); 100.6 (2) 1731 167.0 (3); 129.7 (2); 1741 183.67 (10); 185.3 (3); 159.6 (2); 143.4 (1) 1774 221.0 (2) 1775 264.5 1776 311.5 (4); 274.4 (2); 268.2 (1,7,10); 267.3 (3) 1788 294.85 (10) 1800 295.2 (1, 3, 10); 299.9 (2); 1834 401.00 (9, 10) 1840 412.8 (1); 418.8 (2) 1850 429.9 (1, 5) 1851 436.1 (4); 432.89 (10) 1868 384.0 (2); 257.9 (5) 1869 239.0 (9) 1874 358.9 (3); 396.4 (2) 1880 364.5 (4) 1890 380.6 (2)

1901 426.4 (3) 1910 436.0 (4); 408.1 (6); 367.8 (5) 1911 442.9 (3); 408.1 (9); 405.4 (2) 1936 496.7 (3) 1940 450.0 (2)

245 1949 545.4 (3); 541.7 (4) 1960 706,83 (2) 1962 684.4 (2) 1964 739.0 (4); 717.2 (2) 1969 821.0 (2) 1980 1004.8 (2) 1990 1160.0 (4) 2000 1265.83 (official census) 2001 > 1520.0 (Cheng Ming 2001.9)

Sources: (1) Ho Ping-ti 1959 [Official Population Data (1741-1851) - Appendix I] (2) Zhao Wenlin/Xie Shujun 1988 (3) Lu Yu/Teng Zezhi 2000 (4) Cao Shuji 2001 (5) Liu Yanwei 1999.3:205-210 (6) Wang Yumin 1992:178-191 (7) Jiang Tao 1990:26-51 (8) Perkins, Dwight H. 1969 (9) Yuan Zuliang 1994 (10) Jiang Tao 1993

246 3. Selected population figures (1911-1949)

1912 355 729 605 Home Office (National Census) 405 810 967 Chen Changheng in Yearbook of Chinese Economy 1934 419 640 279 Yearbook of the Home Office 1919 468 487 473 Lu/Teng 2000:1003 1917 439 405 00 Zhao/Xie 1988:543 1928 474 787 386 Provincial Statistics (Yearbook of the Home Office) 441 849 148 Chen Changheng (ibid.) 451 842 000 Customs Report (Yearbook of Chinese Economy) 482 808 000 Report of Postal Authorities (cf. Wang Shida 1931) 495 381 199 Lu/Teng 2000:1016 1929 419 957 000 Statistical Bureau od the GMD-Government 485 508 838 Report of the Post Office 1930 342 000 000 W. F. Willcox (cf. Wang Shida 1931) 444 000 000 Knowledge of the World Yearbook 456 200 000 Estimation by Chen Changheng 502 300 000 Newest Atlas of China 1931 438 930 000 Shewnbao Yearbook 1933 452 800 000 Statistics Monthly 1931.10 474 787 386 Home Office 474 800 000 Home Office 1933 444 486 537 Synopsis of Chinese Population Statsitics 470 960 109 First Officicial Figures of the Home Office 473 530 000 Shenbao Yearbook 1935 1936 496 823 711 Lu/Teng 2000:1038 469 618 000 Zhao/Xie 1988:543 1937 440 007 927 Deng Xinwei 1984 466 780 000 Practical Peoples Yearbook 1941 438 400 000 Zhao/Xie 1988:543 1940 471 000 000 Bureau of Statistics (cf. Deng Xinwei 1984) 1945 516 458 301 Lu/Teng 2000:1038 1946 455 592 065 Home Office (Department of Statistics): baojia-Records 1949 475 000 000 General Situation During the Third Civil War (1983) 543 070 000 Yearbook of Chinese Popuilation (1985) 548 770 020 Bureau of Chinese Statistics: Ten Glorious Years (1959)

Source: Qiang Tao 1993:87-91; Lu/Teng 2000; Zhao/Xie 1988;

247 4. Figures for natural disasters 1

1. Droughts Early:416; Song:183; Yuan:86; Ming:174; Qing:201; Republic:14 1074

2. Floods Early: 361; Song:193; Yuan:92; Ming:196; Qing:192; Republic:24 1058

3. Locust infestations Early:135; Song:90; Yuan:61; Ming:94; Qing:93; Republic:9 482

4. Hailstorms Early:133; Song:101; Yuan:69; Ming:112; Qing:131; Republic:4 550

5. Damages caused by storms Early:183; Song:93; Yuan:42; Ming:97; Qing:97; Republic:6 518

6. Earthquakes Early:228; Song:77; Yuan:56; Ming:165; Qing:169; Republic:10 705

7. Frost Early:135; Song:18; Yuan:28; Ming:16; Qing:74; Republic:2 203

8. Epidemics Early:65; Song:32; Yuan:20; Ming:64; Qing:74; Republic:6 261

9. Famines Early:76; Song:87; Yuan:59; Ming:93: Qing:90; Republic:2 407 ______Total 5258

Source: Deng Yunte 1937: 1-61; 55-56

248 5. Figures for natural disasters 2

Floods(- 206 bis 1911) Most affected provinces:

Western Han 6 Henan 161 Eastern Han 52 Zhili 144 Jin/Six Dynasties 52 Jiangsu 126 Tang 89 Shandong 106 Wudai and Anhui 103 Northern Song 125 Zhejiang 97 Southern Song 132 Yuan 112 Ming 112 Qing 669 ______Total 1349 (Deng Yunte 1058)

Droughts (-206 bis 1911) Most affected provinces

Western Han 29 Henan 144 Eastern Han 63 Zhili 142 Jin/Six Dynasties 155 Zhejiang 118 Tang 200 Jiangsu 101 Wudai and Shanxi 100 Northern Song 227 Shaanxi 92 Southern Song 210 Huibei 90 Yuan 153 Shandong 84 Ming 304 Anhui 82 Qing 328 ______Total 1669 (Deng Yunte 1074)

Source: Zhu Kezhen cit. in Zhang/Song 1998:88-90

249 6. Figures for natural disasters 3

floods droughts others total

Qin and Western Han -246 bis 24 32 39 66 137

Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms 25 - 264 58 73 132 263

Jin 265-419 73 99 90 262

Southern and Northern Dynasties 420-588 83 109 32 224

Sui/Tang 589-906 212 162 102 476

Wudai 907-959 42 32 6 80

Song 960-1279 465 372 411 1248

Yuan 1279-1367 373 283 204 860

Ming 1368-1643 496 434 294 1224

Qing 1644-1843 699 885 631 2215 1844-1913 926 1016 766 2708 ______Total 3459 3504 2734 9697

Source: Chen Gaoli 1986

250 7. Figures for natural disasters 4a (1644-1839)

Era Floods Average of Droughts Average of prefectures/ prefectures/ districts districts

Shunzhi 1644-1661 935 52 486 27 Kangxi 1662-1722 2658 44 2766 45 Yongzheng 1723-1735 793 61 272 21 Qianlong 1736-1795 6027 100 3303 55 Jiaqing 1796-1820 2605 104 1412 57 Daoguang 1821-1850 3366 177 946 50

Source: Li Xiangjun 1995:19

251 8. Provincial figures for natural disasters 4b (1644-1839)

Province/Area Floods Provinz/Area Droughts

Jiangsu 2995 Zhili 1725 Zhili 2994 Shandong 1358 Shandong 2385 Gansu 984 Anhui 2007 Zhejiang 730 Hubei 1258 Jiangxi 648 Henan 1103 Shaanxi 585 Zhejiang 795 Hubei 576 Gansu 588 Henan 575 Jiangxi 555 Jiangsu 566 Shanxi 302 Anhui 537 Hunan 287 Shanxi 319 Guangdong 264 Hunan 250 Shaanxi 235 Guangdong 96 Dongbei 229 Fujian 90 Fujian 145 Dongbei 61 Yunnan 87 Guangxi 56 Sichuan 83 Sichuan 14 Guangxi 45 Guizhou 8 Guizhou 27 Yunnan 7 ______total 16 384 total 9185

Source: Li Xiangjun 1995:214

Zhili = roughly Hebei Dongbei = Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang

252 9. Natural disasters, Republican China (1911-1949)

Yellow River draining area Flood Drought Insects

Hebei 752 350 338 Shandong 462 341 125 Henan 681 858 226 Shanxi 355 444 68 Shaanxi 346 569 162 Gansu 81 311 22

Draining area of middle/lower reaches of the Yangzi-River Jiangsu 272 142 167 Zhejiang 394 129 63 Anhui 430 350 168 Jiangxi 464 229 119 Hubei 454 442 101 Hunan 772 417 121

Southwest China Sichuan 502 834 6 Guizhou 112 154 1 Yunnan 131 51 1

South China Guangxi 249 174 - Guangdong 459 36 21 Fujian 176 60 1

Northeast China Jilin,Liaoning, Heilongjiang 316 44 - ______total 7408 5935 1719

Source: Xia Mingfang 2000:34, Table 1-3; 37

253 10. Great disasters in Chinese history (1644-1949)

Year Disaster and Region Death Toll

1696 Taifun/tsunami in Shanghai 100 000 1786 Earthquake in Sichuan/Huding 100 000 1810 Famine in China 9 mil. [um] 1811 (dito) 20 mil. 1846 (dito) 280 000 1849 (dito) 15 mil. 1857 (dito) 5 - 8 mil. 1862 Taifun/tsunami in Guangdong 100 000 1876-78/79 Drought in Shandong, Henan und Hebei 13 mil. 1877 Drought in Shanxi 2.5 mil. 1879 extreme cold in Xinjiang 100 000 1884-1886 Epidemic disease in Yunnan (Kunming) 100 000 1887 Flood in Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu 930 000 1888 Famine in China 3.5 mil. 1904 Drought in Sichuan/Chongqing 100 000 1911 Flood in Jiangsu and Anhui 750 000 - 800 000 1912 Flood in Zhejiang (Qingtian and Yunhe) 220 000 1913 Flood in Zhejiang (Qingtian and Yongjia) 150 000 1915 Flood in Guangdong 100 000 1919 Epidemic disease (Pandemia) 300 000 1920 Drought in Shandong, Henan and Shanxi 500 000 1920 Earthquake in Ningxia (Haiyuan) 240 000-300 000 1923 Flood in 12 Provinces 300 000 1923-25 East-Yunnan/ cold and fmine 300 000 Drought and famine in Sichuan 100 000 - 1.15 mil. 1929-32 Drought and famine in Sichuan/Gansu/Shaanxi u.a. 17.7 mil. 1931 Floods in Hubei, Hunan, Anhui 140 000 1931-36 Variety of disasters 6.98 mil. 1932 Flood in Jilin and Heilongjiang 600 000 1935 Flood in Hubei and Hunan 140 000 1942-43 Drought in Henan 500 000 - 3 mil. 1943 Drought in Guangdong (Taishan) 3 mil. 1946 Famine in Hunan 3 mil.

Sources: Zhang/Song 1998:180-181; Gao Wenxue 1999:513-520; Xia Mingfang 2000:395- 403

254 11. Frequency of natural disasters in China Source: Li Xiangjun. Qingdai huangzheng yanjiu. Beijing 1995:113-214 contains 28 938 entries for catastrophes in the period from 1644 to 1839 and 11 314 cases of tax remissions on account of major disasters.

Epidemics

Source 1: Chen Gaoyong 1940 cit. in W.H. McNeill. Plagues and Peoples. Harmondsworth 1976

183 epidemics from -243 to 1911

Source 2: Song Zhenghai. Zhongguo gudai zhongdaziran zaihai han yichang nianbiao zongyi. Guangzhou 1992

379 serious epidemics (dayi) from -674 to 1911 371 dito from - 1th century to 1911

Source 3: Zhang Jianguang. Sanqiannian yi qing. Nanchang 1998

Ming (1368-1644 = 276 years): 118 years of epidemics Qing (1644-1911 = 267 years): 134 years of epidemics

Earthquakes

Source 1: Hoang, Pierre. Catalogue des Tremblements de Terre Signale en Chine. Shanghai 1910

3322 earthquakes occured from -1831 to 1896

Source 2: Gu Gongxu et al. Zhongguo dizhen mulu. Beijing 1983

(c. 15 000 citations of c.8-9000 earthquakes)

3187 strong earthquakes (M > 5) from -1831 to 1969

Floods

Source 1: Qingdai Huangheliuyu honglao danganshiliao. Beijing 1993 (Archive material: Huanghe drainage area)

Huanghe: 3130 entries to floods including water level indication for the period 1736 to 1911 (176 years); flood-frequency for the provinces: 2 - 66 years

Source 2: Qingdai Huaiheliuyu honglao danganshiliao. Beijing 1988

255 (Archive material: Huaihe drainage area)

Huaihe: 4653 entries for the period 1736-1911 (170 years); frequency for the provinces: 1-121 years; 121 years of floods in the district of Fengyang

Source 3: Qingdai Changjiangliuyu xinanguoji heliu honglao danganshiliao. Beijing 1991 (Archive material: Changjiang drainage area including the upper course)

Yangzi: 3803 entries for 172 years (1736-1911); frequency for provinces 1-105 years

Source 4: Sichuan liangqiannian hongzai shiliao huibian. Beijing 1993

4150 entries for Sichuan province from -185 to 1949 (Changjiang, Changjiang tributaries/upper course,Yalongjiang, Minjiang, Tuojiang, Jialing, Wujiang); 1806: beginning of water level indications

Source 5: Chao Kang. Man And Land in Chinese History - An Economic Analysis. Stanford/Cal. 1986:208

“[...] frequency of major floods in the whole country increased by 2.5 occurrences every twenty years“ in the past 500 years - a “statistical evidence of worsening ecological conditions.“ (incomplete evidence!)

Source 6: Chen Qiaoyi. Zhejiang zaiyi jianzhi. Hangzhou 1981

742 years with floods between -494 and 1911 in the province of Zhejiang. Death toll e.g. 1091: more than 500 000 in Hangzhou and 300 00 in Suzhou

Droughts

Source: Zhongguo jinwubainian han-lao fenbutuzhi. Beijing 1981

2504 major droughts in the whole country (1470-1909) - Yuan Lin. Xibei zaihuang shi. Lanzhou 1994 (Northwestern-China: Province of Shaanxi)

351 years of drought (1368-1911); Ming: 162 (= 2 every 3 years) ; Qing: 189

Famines

Source 1: Mallory, Walter H. China Land of Famine. New York 1926:1; Wang/Zhao. “Droughts and Floods in China, 1440-1979“. In: Climate and History:Studies in Past Climates and their impact on Man. Wigley/Ingram/Farmer (eds.). Cambridge 1991:271-288

1828 famines in the whole country (period under review: -108 to 1911)

Source 2: Yuan Lin. Xibei zaihuangshi. Lanzhou 1994 256 (Northwestern-China : Province of Shaanxi)

378 years of famine from 1271 to 1949 (Yuan: 97; Ming: 141; Qing/Republic: 140)

Locust infestations

Source 1: Chen Jiaxiang. “Outbreaks of Locusts recorded in Chinese Literature“. In: Zhejiang kunchong niankan 5. Yearbook 1935:188-241

796 infestations in the period from -707 to 1936 (619 from 960 to 1936 ( cf. Guo Fu et al. Zhongguo feihuang shengwuxue. JiÕnan 1991:3);

Source 2: Zhongguo nongye baikequanshu - Kunchongjuan. Beijing 1980:74

> 800 infestations from the -8th century to 1949

Source 3: Zao Ji. “Lidai you guan huangzai jidai zhi fenxi“. In: Dongyafeihuang yanjiu wenxianhuibian. Cangzhou 1986:15

1330 infestations (Period under review: - 2th century to the end of the 19th century); provincial ranking: Hebei (299), Henan (264), Shandong (254), Jiangsu (226), Anhui (159), Zhejiang (112), others (16)

257 12. Demographic figures for the provinces Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan (1851-1953, in 1000 persons)

Jiangsu Zhejiang Anhui Fujian

1851 44.719 30.270 37.386 16.210 1852 44.494* 30.176* 37.650* 20.211* 1865 28.423 14.972 19.839 11.630 23.550* 9.810* 15.900* 19.347 1898 26.580* 16.860* 15.210* 27.052* 1910 32.355 18.490 25.197 10.457 1911 31.645* 21.075* 16.229* 12.500 1953 47.497 22.825 30.588 13.144

Jiangxi Hunan Hubei

1851 24.286 21.809 22.187 1852 24.517* 20.677* 33.347* 1865 12.656 20.850 17.581 24.489* 20.996* 31.809* 1898 24.617* 21.174* 34.716* 1910 14.961 23.070/26.320 22.077 1911 24.147* 21.147* 34.716 1953 16.613 33.226 27.453

Source: Cao Shuji 2001: 467, 489, 505, 508, 535, 552, 540; data (with the exception of 1953) totally drawn from local gazetteers; alternative figures with asterix: Zhao/Xie 1988:598-601

13. “Statistical” population growth in selected provinces 1851-1880, in 1000 persons

Sichuan Guizhou Hunan Guangdong Zhili

1851 29.465 8.974 21.809 23.859 27.055 1880 36.461 10.254 22.512 26.447 31.587

Jilin* Heilongjiang* Liaoning* Shandong Xinjiang

1851 1.238 0.370 2.582 35.585 1.363 1880 2.569 0.775 4.090 38.978 1.392 [1910 5.477 1.663 10.696] [1953 18.545 11.897 18.545]

Source: Cao Shuji 2001:691-701; 703-704; * immgration provinces

258 14. Algorithms of recuperation

George L.Cowgill 1974

Population growth Duplication of population in years (thousandth/year)

1 700 2 350 3 240 10 (= 1%) 70

Joel E. Cohen 1995:27 relative change per Estimated doubling time year (percent)

0.1 693 0.5 138.6 1 69.3 1.5 46.2 2 34.7 2.5 27.7 3 23.1 4 17.3

259 15. Agricultural land and population in Chinese provinces

Cultivated area (mu) Population Per capita acreage (mu) Sichuan 1753 45 941 667 1 368 496 33.57 1766 46 007 126 2 958 271 15.55 1784 46 191 339 7 789 782 5.92 1812 46 547 134 21 435 678 2.17 Hubei 1753 56 691 349 4 568 860 12.41 1766 56 844 390 8 399 652 6.77 1784 56 224 561 14 134 442 3.97 1812 60 518 556 27 370 098 1.69 Jiangsu 1753 68 908 445 12 628 987 5.46 1766 65 981 720 23 779 812 2.77 1784 64 921 762 28 967 235 2.24 1812 72 089 486 37 843 501 1.90 Fujian 1753 12 872 087 4 710 339 2.72 1812 14 517 472 14 779 158 0.98 Henan 1753 72 282 036 7 114 346 10.16 1812 72 114 592 23 037 171 3.13 Shandong 1753 97 105 407 12 769 872 7.60 1812 98 634 511 28 958 764 3.41

Source: Liang Fangzhong1980:394,396,398,400

Hanzhou (Sichuan; Hanzhou zhi 1812, j.6b, hukouzhi) 1735 506 427 23 050 21.97 1791 508 7531 79 217 6.42 1811 508 753 89 592 5.68 Jingyan (Sichuan; Jingyan zhi 1900, j.5) 1735 190 492 12 257 15.54 1795 dito 52 787 3.64 JQ (1796 dito 65 024 2.92 -1820)

Source: Gao Songyi 1984:124

260 16. Per capita acreage in Chinese provinces (in mu)

Provinces and territories 1946 1916-17 1812

Suiyuan 12.51 3.5 Rehe (Jehol) 10.03 3.5

Chahaer 9.97 3.5 Heilongjiang 9.80 6.9 Jilin n.d. 6.9 4.85 Liaoning n.d. 6.9 22.61 Xinjiang 9.01 4.0 Shanxi 7.38 3.5 3.95 Ningxia 6.74 3.5 Qinghai 6.52 n.d. Gansu 6.52 3.6 1.62 Shaanxi 5.87 3.0 3.01

Anhui 4.82 5.0 1.21 Hebei 4.53 3.5 2.65 Taiwan 4.38 n.d. Sichuan 3.98 2.5 2.17 Henan 3.76 4.2 3.13 Guizhou 3.75 0.7 0.52 Yunnan 3.66 2.3 1.67 Jiangsu 3.40 2.1 1.90 Hubei 3.39 5.4 2.21 Shandong 3.04 3.3 3.41 Zhejiang 2.97 2.1 1.77 Fujian 2.93 Jiangxi 2.70 3.5 2.05 Hunan 2.64 3.3 1.69 Guangxi 2.36 6.4 1.23 Guangdong 2.11 2.5 1.67 Xikang 2.04 n.d. Xizang n.d. n.d. average per capita 5.32 3.4 2.19 [Enoe Etsuzo c. in Wu Hui 1985:199 - 1915:3.13 1840:3.24]

Sources: 1946: Zhongguo jindai nongye shengchan ji maoyi tongji ziliao. Shanghai 1983:10; 1916-17: Chinese Economic Journal March 1928:181-213 (cf. Cressey 1934:95, Table VI) 1812: Liang Fangzhong 1980:400

261 17. Cultivated land area Ming/Qing (Liang Fangzhong 1980)

Year area (mu) area (ha)

1393 850 762 368 52 516 195 1491 622 805 881 38 444 807 1502 422 805 889 26 009 128 1542 436 082 500 26 918 672 1578 701 397 628 43 296 149

1661 549 357 640 33 910 985 17.Jh. (1. Decade) 620 122 958 38 279 194 1724 683 791 427 42 209 346 1753 708 114 288 43 710 758 1766 741 449 550 45 768 490 1784 718 331 436 44 341 446 1812 792 624 423 48 890 396 1820 779 321 984 48 106 295 746 612 711 46 087 204 1887 849 946 244 52 465 817 ------1916 1 384 973 701 (:15) 92 329 180 (Cressey 1934:90) ------1949 97 881 (000) (official statistics) 111 830 (000) (W.Crook 1988) 1978 99 389 500 (ZGTJNL 1996:368) 1980 139.3 (LANDSAT) 1995 94 970 9(00) (ZGTJNL 1996:6) 1996 124 169 000 (ZGNYNL 1999:547: cultivable land) 1997 133 - 147 mil. ha (LANDSAT/MEDEA)

262 18. Official statistics of cultivated land in Republican China (in 1000 mu)

PROVINCE [1887] 1914 1934 1949

Hebei 86 652 87 989 95 364 122 589 Liaoning 28 496 47 403 66 348 62 733 Jilin 1 498 44 080 61 040 68 694 Heilongjiang 82 32 092 46 538 85 114 Rehe (Jehol) 14 617 16 177 21 023

Jiangsu 75 128 79 131 84 519 89 997 Zhejiang 46 778 29 108 37 795 28 477 Anhui 41 114 27 346 49 337 73 128

Shanxi 56 609 46 525 55 836 62 421 Shandong 125 941 *204 832 102 030 124 454 Henan 71 685 *368 794 104 168 110 091

Shaanxi 30 593 29 228 30 883 65 773 Gansu 16 775 21 767 21 676 60 782 Xinjiang 11 480 10 768 12 624 19 469 Ningxia 1 848 Qinghai 676

Jiangxi 24 551 16 977 18 108 12 427 Hubei 59 220 *119 760 56 251 59 605 Hunan 34 731 32 447 42 054 46 652

Sichuan 46 417 *115 144 88 763 97 958 Guangxi 8 993 41 523 *76 899 36 230 Guizhou 2 765 21 206 27 511 Yunnan 9 319 10 600 25 009 33 915 Xikang 6 633

Fujian 13 452 20 003 21 473 21 754 Taiwan Guangdong 34 731 27 143 39 140 45 029

Chahaer (Inner Mongolia) 9 013 15 526 Suiyuan 17 185 55 948

Sources: cf. Liu Yanwei 1999:207-208, Table 3; official deficiancy of data for 1934 in case of Xinjiang (10 districts), Yunnan (4 districts), Heilongjiang (1 district), and Guizhou (1 district).

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275 Martina Eglauer Family and Household in Late Imperial China

There are several aspects that need to be taken into consideration regarding the research program known as Europe’s special course.1 While there can be no single cause to explain Europe’s special course, we can first try to isolate one topic and analyze the common features and differences between various cultural traditions in order to search for an explanation. One casual aspect which may be involved in the transformation process from agrarian civilization to industrial society deals with the family and household structures in Europe and China. Whether or not family and household are of crucial importance for this transformation process can be discussed by comparing and contrasting the two different cultures: European and Chinese.

On the basis of existing quantitative results of statistical data of late Imperial China, the following article aims to realize a qualitative interpretation of the given data. The quantitative data of household registers, local gazetteers and genealogical records is taken mainly from the studies of Lee, Campbell and Wang, Elvin, Liu, Harrell, Wolf and Wakefield. The data will be analyzed to determine if the Chinese family and household system differs from or corresponds to the European pattern.2 First, we are able to characterize a "Chinese" and a "European" system by outlining the different and common features. Should it be possible to describe two family and household systems of striking divergences, we could further ask how much these patterns contribute to the aforementioned transformation process from an agrarian society to an industrialized one.

The introduction of the various aspects of the Chinese family begins by briefly outlining the commonly postulated features of the "Northwest European family system".3 According to some sociological studies of Hajnal, Mitterauer, Cerman, Wall and Goody4 the Northwest European family system can be characterized as follows: late age at marriage; high percentage of unmarried; low birth rate due to late marriage; neolocality, which requires economic independence; cognatic and bilateral structures; high position of women; and circulation of servants. These features build an interrelating and interdepending complex.

1 See Sieferle 2001, 7. 2 Lee/Wang 1999; Lee/Campbell/Wang 1993, 1994, 1995; Elvin 1999; Liu 1978, 1981, 1985, 1995; Harrell 1985, 1987, 1995; Wolf 1980, 1984, 1985; Wakefield 1998. 3 The Scandinavian countries (including Iceland, but excluding Finland), the British Isles, the Low Countries, the German speaking area, and northern France count as Northwest Europe. Hajnal 1982, 449. 4 Hajnal 1965, 1982; Mitterauer 1990; Cerman 1997; Wall 1997; and Goody 1986. In contrast to the Northwest European family system there is, according to the study of Hajnal, the "joint household system," which is utilized to characterize household formation of patrilinear organized societies, which is dominated by extended, grand or joint families and not by the nuclear family. This joint household system comprises two or more related married couples and can be described as follows: early age at marriage; universal marriage; high birth rates, which imply that marriage is unaffected by economic conditions; (viri)patrilocality; patrilinear descent including ancestor worship and importance of male descendants; low position of women; and no circulation of servants. These features also build an interdependent and interrelating system. The following table contrasts these two household formation systems in a simplified way:

Table 1: Comparison of two different household formation systems5

Northwest European Family System Joint Household System nuclear family extended/joint/stem family late marriage early marriage high percentage of unmarried universal marriage neolocality patrilocality low birth rate high birth rate bilateral kinship, cognatic structure patrilinear descent (ancestor worship) relative high position of women relative low position of women monogamy concubinage/polygyny remarriage remarriage not possible exogamy endogamy, undividable inheritance circulation of servants no circulation of servants wage-labor subsistence farming

Two questions need to be raised before starting the comparative approach followed here: (1) to what extent does the "Chinese family" correlate with the so-called "joint household system"; and (2) are these presumed differences, if they can be confirmed, responsible for the transformation process from the agrarian to the industrial civilization? The intention of this study6 is therefore to summarize and analyze the existing data in this field in order to explain

5 This table has been compiled by the author according to Oesterdiekhoff 2000, 21−35 and 59. 6 See Eglauer 2001. 277 the "real" constellation of family and household system, age of marriage, percentages of unmarried and birth rates in China rather than to explore the normative ideal, even if these Confucian concepts are still present as guidelines for the human behavior.

Before we turn to discussing household and family size, marriage age, and birth rate in China it is necessary to talk about the available (text) sources and terminology. What is a "family" or a "household" in Chinese context? Do the Chinese terms correspond to our "Western" understanding of "family"?

Chinese terms on family and household

In the following the "Chinese family" refers to the majority of Han-Chinese, which today account for ninety-two percent of the total Chinese population. For these people "marriage" and "family" are corresponding to social reality, even though for the minorities different customs are valid. For the Han-Chinese marriage is the most meaningful event in their life.

To classify the different family systems and relative relations anthropological and sociological researchers operate with diverse concepts. In the following, the definitions of Harrell7 as well as Watson and Ebrey8 are used in the context of this discourse.

The nuclear or conjugal family consists of the parents and their unmarried children. The concept of a nuclear family implies that the married couple has set up a new (independent) household. Every household including other persons except parents and unmarried children is defined as extended family.9 This extension can be vertical with more than two generations living in the family, or horizontal with married brothers including their wives and children living together. Stem family refers to an extension only in vertical direction, which than includes grandparents, parents with their children, and so forth. However, there is never more than one married couple in one generation. An extension in both the vertical and horizontal directions is called joint family, meaning that there can be several married couples in one generation. In the Chinese case there are often several married brothers with their children living together in one household. If the parents of these brothers are still alive and sharing one household with them, we call it grand family. When the brothers however live together without their parents, they live in a frèrèche. The following figure represents the discussed definitions in a simplified way:

7 Harrell 1995b, 217−220. 8 Ebrey/Watson 1986, 4−6.

278 Figure 1: Definitions of "family"10

nuclear family

stem family family vertical

extended grand family family horizontal

joint family frèrèche

Besides these family concepts in the Chinese context the terms "clan" and "lineage" will also be discussed. Both terms refer to the patrilinear descent group, but in contrast to the "lineages", the "clans" can no longer prove the continuing line without interruption. The clan members describe themselves in terms of a common ancestor, but the genealogical proof is missing. Watson describes how the lineages can demonstrate their common ancestry and moreover refer to a corporate identity: "A lineage is a corporate group which celebrates ritual unity and is based on demonstrated descent from a common ancestor."11

The Chinese terminology does not correspond to these descriptive terms, because not only is it following different categories, but is also of a lack of consistent and compelling use. Since the Han dynasty the Chinese governmental household registers have used the term hu to refer to the Chinese household as a basic economic unit. In contrast to these political or economic correlations, in theoretical discussions Chinese scholars have not been talking about hu, but about jia, which implies the sense of the family as the smallest unit of the Chinese society. The Chinese word jia means "family" as well as "household" and refers to a group of people − the family − which forms an economic entity. The family members are living, consuming and producing as one single unit. Thus, the Chinese family corresponds to the concept described by Laslett as "co resident domestic group".12

9 Harrell 1995b, 218−219. 10 This figure has been composed by the author. 11 Watson 1982, 594; original italics. 12 Hammel/Laslett 1974, 76. 279 Besides hu and jia the Chinese scholars have also been using the terms zu and zong. Both terms can be translated into "lineage" as well as "clan" because their usage is not consistent. Zu relates to a concrete group of people, while zong can also refer to the abstract principle of common ancestry. In the context of rituals the term zong was used, whereas concrete relations concerning ancestry or relations between relatives were discussed as zu.13

Chinese sources for demographic research: household registers and genealogies

The earliest demographic records date from the Han period, around the year 2 A.D.14 Even though China has a long tradition of demography, this data has to be dealt with carefully as it is not only incomplete but can also be interpreted by different approaches. Apart from these household registers genealogies have been compiled by Chinese lineages since the Song dynasty.15 Like the household registers, the genealogical records were not compiled for demographic purposes. Because of deficits such as unreliable or incomplete personal details, missing dates, etc., this data has to be interpreted.

The household registers have been examined from the Han to the Tang dynasty by Bielenstein and from the Tang to the Qing dynasty by Durand. Both of them assume that these household records do not include just the tax-paying population, but also women, children, and old people. At the same time non-Han-people, or specific groups as monks, nuns, women, small children, and old or sick people are often not registered in these household records. Moreover, the Chinese officials sometimes have voluntarily manipulated the records in order to commit tax evasion.16 Ho assumes, contrary to Durand, that the household registers’ data of the Qing period does not refer to single persons, but to "tax-paying units".17 He bases his thesis on the fact that during Imperial China demography was aimed at the registration of the tax-paying- units. In 1740, Emperor Qianlong (1736−1795) decided to register every person in order to guarantee that in times of emergency or need there would be enough food available for everybody: "From now on the provincial officials should, in the eleventh month of each year, send in detailed reports as to the changes in the members of households and mouths and the amounts of grain stored in the government granaries within their respective jurisdiction."18 But this decreed registration has been proved to be difficult because of the number of people

13 Ebrey/Watson 1986, 8; Watson 1982, 592. 14 Bielenstein 1947, 125 and 1987, 7; Wilkinson 1998, 232; Durand 1960, 209; Zhao/Xie 1988, 25 and 592;Liang 1993, 4; Ge 1991, 32ff. 15 Ebrey 1986, 16−61. 16 Bielenstein 1947, 128−131 and 1987, 8 and 11; Durand 1960, 212−214. 17 Ho 1959, 35. 18 Ho 1959, 37. 280 who had no fixed abode, and because of many officials’ lack of interest in demography. The most reliable data dates from 1776, just before the outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion.19

Lee relies on the household registration records of the Qing imperial banner system. Lee, Campbell and Wang analyzed the household registration data of Daoyi, a village north of Shenyang in Liaoning Province from 1774 to 1873 in an attempt to examine the age of marriage and fertility. In these records, however, women and children are also under registered. This data has been updated every three years. Even if this village is situated in Manchuria, Lee, Campbell and Wang assume that the majority of the people are of Han- Chinese origin. According to them the data of Liaoning represents the Chinese conditions,20 even though the results refer to a rural, non-prospering area, which is inhabited by Han and non-Han people.

Genealogical records reveal more information about family structures than the household registers, which offer some indications about the size of the family. Genealogies were not compiled for demographic reasons but rather for ritual ones in order to record the births and deaths of ancestors to whom lineage members owed worship obligations. During the Song period families in the middle and lower Yangzi region began to organize themselves as lineages. Therefore we primarily have genealogical records of this region, whereas genealogies of Northern China appear for the first time only during the Qing dynasty.21

The main question seems to be to what extent genealogies can represent Chinese society. According to Liu it is by no means only the upper class that is represented by the genealogies, because the influential and powerful lineages also included poor or politically unimportant people. Therefore the genealogies reflect the heterogeneous and complex Chinese society and not exclusively the upper class.22 However, Telford assumes that genealogies do not reflect the Chinese society in the whole, because only a relatively small number of people are organized in lineages.23 As Lee and Wang suggest, genealogies seem to reflect more the upper class than the lower class of society because richer lineages had a greater means to support the recording of their genealogies.24 Ebrey concludes that depending on region and goal the genealogies in some cases represent more the upper class while in other cases; people of all

19 Ho 1959, 37−38 and 97. 20 Lee/Campbell 1997, 6−7, notes 10, 11 and 16. 21 Telford 1986, 137−138. 22 Liu 1978, 851; 1981, 121 and 123; 1985, 18; see also Telford 1986, 134. 23 Telford 1992a, 20. 24 Lee/Wang 1999, 187, note 8; Wang 1988, 65. 281 social classes are represented.25 When analyzing the genealogical records it is important to take into consideration that according to their aim or historical and social meaning the data differs in amount and type. A special kind of genealogical source is the Qing imperial lineage, which Lee, Campbell, and Wang26 analyzed. In contrast to other "ordinary" genealogies all female descendants and all children, even when they died shortly after birth, are registered. Not only can birth rate and infant mortality be examined, but also the proportional relations of the sexes can be more precisely determined. Unfortunately, these imperial lineages were updated only every ten years. Moreover the women’s dates of death were no longer registered after the middle of the 18th century; thereafter only the male mortality can be definitely determined.27

According to the patriarchal ritual rules the genealogical data is incomplete. In general, genealogical records register birth and death dates of the male descendants who are older than fifteen years of age. Most genealogies exclude children who die young (usually before the age of about eighteen).28 Women who marry into the lineage were sometimes, but not always, recorded. Correspondingly the data of daughters who married out and became members of others lineages was rarely recorded and even if it was notated, it was not noted in detail. Concubines were in general only registered when they gave birth to a son.29

Under these pre-conditions data which are important for determining family patterns such as marrying age, birth rate, infant mortality or relation of the sexes can only be deduced indirectly. All assumptions about age of marriage, birth and death rates of the population in late Imperial China are based on reconstructed data on the basis of male descendants, who have attained adulthood.30

Family and household size

According to the demographic studies31 concerning the household register, the average household during the Han up to the Qing period numbers five to six persons. Ho explains the difference between Hubei with 6.74 persons per household and Sichuan with only 3.97

25 Ebrey 1990, 213. 26 Lee/Campbell/Wang 1993; 1994; 1995. 27 Lee/Campbell/Wang 1993, 362−365, 367−369. 28 The age of a male descendant being considered as an adult varies from 15 to 20 years of age depending on the different records. Harrell 1987, 55. 29 Liu 1985, 13, 16, 28, 45; Liu 1978, 851. 30 Harrell 1985, 84, 109; Liu 1985, 23; Harrell 1987, 57, 76−77. 31 Bielenstein 1947, 129−130; 1987, 7; Zhao/Xie 1988, 25, 87, 152ff., 234ff., 340ff., 377ff.; Liang 1993, 4−11. 282 persons per household by referring to the tradition of uniting households in Hubei on the one hand and the phenomenon of migration in Sichuan on the other.32

Table 2: Households and population of fourteen provinces in 181233

Province Households Mouths Average number of mouths per household Hebei (Chili) 3 956 950 19 355 679 4.89 Shandong 4 982 191 19 178 919 5.86 Henan 4 732 097 23 598 089 4.99 Shanxi 2 394 903 14 597 428 6.10 Gansu 2 909 528 15 377 785 5.28 Zhejiang 5 066 553 27 411 310 5.41 Jiangxi 4 378 354 23 652 029 5.40 Hubei 4 314 837 29 063 179 6.74 Hunan 3 234 517 18 523 735 5.73 Sichuan 7 058 777 28 048 795 3.97 Fujian 3 152 879 16 759 563 5.32 Guangxi 1 279 020 7 429 120 5.81 Yunnan 1 010 225 5 933 920 5.87 Guizhou 1 118 884 5 348 677 4.78 Total 49 589 715 264 278 228 5.33

Cartier suggests that the average of about 5.5 persons per household as an economic unit represents a ("nuclear") family consisting of parents with their children.34 Even since the organization of lineages in Yangzi area and South China have been established, the family or household remained an independent economic unit.35

These results raise the question of whether the often declared Chinese five-generation-family is only a myth. Referring to field researches of the 20th century Hsu assumes a close relation of economic conditions and family size. Richer families succeed in holding the family together and avoiding household division. Poorer families however divided their households earlier and more regularly. The fact that the average number of persons per household being 5.5 does not alone totally undermine the "myth of the Chinese family size"; there have been families with several generations living together, but the ordinary farmer lived in small families.36 There are other studies which assume on the basis of field research data of the 20th

32 Ho 1959, 41, 55. 33 See Ho 1959, 55. 34 Cartier 1997, 250, 260−261, 263−264. 35 Cartier 1997, 278. 36 Hsu 1943, 555, 560−562. 283 century and household register data of the 18th and 19th century, that stem families or grand families have been widespread in China.37 Thus, how can the low average family size be explained?

Wolf, who relies primarily on the situation in Taiwan, describes the life in a grand family, stem family or joint family as a transitional stage in one’s life. A person, for instance, might be living in an extended family during its childhood and its old age, whereas during its middle age after dividing the household it might be living in a nuclear family.38 Wolf’s assumption corresponds to Hajnals thesis: the people outside Northern Europe lived in joint households at least during one period in their life.39

In the following figures the life-cycle of men and women in China during the first half of the 20th century will be compared: Figure 2: Proportion of Males in Elementary, Stem, and Grand Families40

37 Sa 1985, 288; Lee/Gjerde 1986, 93; Lee/Campbell 1997, 110; Lee 1984, 38, 39. 38 Wolf 1984, 38−39, 283, 288, 292−293. 39 Hajnal 1982, 451−452. 40 See Wolf 1984, 288. 284 Figure 3: Proportion of Females in Elementary, Stem, and Grand Families41

On the basis of genealogical reconstructions Liu, Harrell and Pullum confirm the phenomenon of the extended family as a transitional stage in one’s life.42 Wakefield’s research on household division documents in Qing China can give an explanation to this phenomenon: early and regular household division. He demonstrates that sixty percent of household divisions occur during the lifetime of the parents, whereas only thirty-four percent are carried out after their death. The following table summarizes the proportion of single, nuclear, stem, joint household and frèrèche in Sui'an County, Zhejiang Province.

41 See Wolf 1984, 292. 42 Liu 1995b, 121−140; Harrel/Pullum 1995, 141−162.

285 Table 3: Family Size and Type in Sui’an County, Zhejiang (1728−1750)43

Family Type Number and Proportion Family Members Average Family of the Families Size single household 7 5% nuclear family 60 43% stem family 30 21% joint family 21 15% frèrèche 22 16% total 140 100% 652 4.7

According to Wakefield, these figures suggest that early and regular household division kept families small. Household division in China meant equal share among sons. In contrast to the ritual succession, where primogeniture was valid, property was divided equally among the brothers since the Han dynasty.44 Household division was widespread, above all among poorer families. Only rich families had the resources to avoid division and realize the ideal of several generations living together under one roof.45

Comparing the average size of a Chinese family of 5.5 persons per household with the household size in England in the 17th and 18th century of 4.75 persons, the difference is not really striking. Only relying on quantitative figures cannot be very revealing as Mitterauer mentions. The average household size can only indicate a tendency, but says nothing about the constellation of a single family or household.46 The following qualitative approach based on the assumed statistical data tries to compare marrying age, proportion of unmarried, and birth rate to show the common and different traits between China and the West.

Marriage

Concerning the age of marriage, the different studies based on genealogical reconstruction and household records state an early marrying age for both women and men in general. The following table summarizes the results of various researches on this field.

43 This table has been composed by the author on the basis of the data given in Wakefield 1998, 50−51. 44 Wakefield 1998, 21−22. 45 Wakefield 1998, 42−43. 46 Mitterauer 1990, 158. 286 Table 4: Average age of marriage of women47

Average age of region period sources (studies) marriage household registers 18.3 Liaoning 1774−1840 (Lee/Campbell 1997, 86 and 88) Qing imperial genealogies 20.7 Beijing 1640−1900 (Lee/Campbell/Wang 1993, 374f.) local gazetteers 17.55 Zunhua, Hebei 1645−1911 (Elvin 1999, 192, 194 and 197) genealogical records 17 Xiaoshan, Zhejiang 1650−1850 (Liu 1985, 23 and 28) 17.6 (Shi-lineage genealogical records Xiaoshan, Zhejiang 1600−1874 19.1 (Wu-lineage) (Harrell/Pullum 1995, 146) local gazetteers 19.24 Jiaxing, Zhejiang 1645−1911 (Elvin 1999, 192, 194 and 197) local gazetteers 16.95 Guiyang, Guizhou 1645−1911 (Elvin 1999, 192, 194 and 197) genealogical records 18 Taiwan 17th−19th century (Liu 1978, 852f. and 860f.)

The reconstructed marrying age of women lies between seventeen and twenty years old. As the following table shows, the reconstructed average age of marriage of men is more advanced than that of women, but with an average of twenty-one years it is still lower in comparison to the European data as the following table summarizes:

47 This table has been composed by the author on the basis of the mentioned sources.

287 Table 5: Average age of marriage of men48

Average age of region period sources (studies) marriage household registers 20.8 Liaoning 1774−1840 (Lee/Campbell 1997, 86 and 88) Qing imperial genealogies 20.9 Beijing 1700−1900 (Lee/Wang 1999, 72) genealogical records 21.5 Tongcheng, Anhui 1520−1661 (Telford 1992a, 28) genealogical records 21.3 Xiaoshan, Zhejiang 1700−1844 (Liu 1985, 22−25) 20.9 (Shi-lineage) genealogical records Xiaoshan, Zhejiang 1600−1874 22.4 (Wu-lineage) (Harrell/Pullum 1995, 146)

On the basis of this data one can assume that both Chinese women and Chinese men married younger than their European counterparts in general. The hypothesis that in patrilinear organized societies people marry at an early age can be confirmed by this. Another characteristic of the so-called "joint household system" is the universal marriage, which means that everybody, women as well as men, married at least once during her/his lifetime. There were hardly any unmarried people in late Imperial China.

Lee and Wang analyzed on the basis of the Liaoning household registers the average female marriage age and calculated the proportion of women, who never married. Furthermore they compared the data of Liaoning with data of Northern European countries. The following figure of Lee and Wang shows their results. By the age of twenty only ten percent of females have not yet been married. In contrast to European females, almost all Liaoning women have already been married in their mid thirties. In Europe thirty percent of the women have still been unmarried at that same age.

48 This table has been composed by the author on the basis of the mentioned sources. 288 Figure 4: Share of never-married females, by age, selected countries, ca. 180049

Lee and Wang did not mention unmarried women, as for example nuns. It can be supposed, that they are irrelevant from the statistical point of view with the possible exception that they may have been married before becoming nuns. Elvin analyzed the data of the local gazetteers in Guiyang, Zunhua and Jiaxing. As the following figure given by Elvin shows, he comes to the same conclusion as Lee and Wang for Liaoning. Even though there are small differences between the mentioned regions, at the age of twenty-nine, almost all women have been married.

49 Lee/Wang 1999, 66. Lee and Wang used the data given in the following publications: Lee/Campbell 1997 (China); Hofsten/Lundstrom 1976 (Sweden); Statistik Sentralbyra 1980 (Norway); Hinde, 1985 (England); Statens Bureau 1905 (Denmark). 289 Figure 5: Rise of the proportion of ever-married women in Guiyang (Kuei-yang), Zunhua (Tsunhua) und Jiaxing (Chia-hsing)50

These results let us assume that universal marriage was widespread and "normal" for females in China. However, the hypothesis of "universal marriage" refers to females as well as to males. Where the data of men is taken into account, we get a different picture of the marriage behavior of men. Corresponding to the data of females, Lee and Wang reconstructed the age of marriage of men on the basis of the data of the household register’s data in Liaoning. The results of the reconstructed age of marriage of men in Liaoning do not correspond to the data of the females. Actually, the age of marriage of men in Liaoning obviously differs from the

50 Elvin 1999, 194. 290 one of Liaoning females. It corresponds rather to the European data. Between the 17th and the 19th century, ten to twenty percent of Chinese men did not marry. Even thirteen percent of men of the imperial family did not marry. The following figure of Lee and Wang demonstrates that in contrast to Europe (ten percent) more than fifty percent of Chinese males at the age of twenty-two were married. At the same time, the proportion of unmarried men at the age of forty-five was fifteen to twenty percent in China – as high as in Europe.

Figure 6: Share of never-married males, by age, selected countries, ca. 180051

51 Lee/Wang 1999, 69. Lee and Wang used the data given in the following publications: Lee/Campbell 1997 (China); Hofsten/Lundstrom 1976 (Sweden); Statistik Sentralbyra 1980 (Norway); Hinde, 1985 (England); Statens Bureau 1905 (Denmark). 291 Even though we can conclude an early age of marriage for females as well as males, the supposed universal marriage cannot be confirmed for men in China. The following table summarizes the reconstructed proportion of unmarried men in different regions.

Table 6: Proportion of unmarried males in different regions52

unmarried men region period sources (percent)

− Liaoning − household registers 10 15% 1774 1840 (Lee/Wang 1999, 69) 13% Beijing − Qing imperial genealogies 1640 1900 (Lee Wang 1999, 71) 22% Tongcheng, Anhui − genealogical records 1520 1661 (Telford 1995, 79) 0.5% (Shen) genealogical records Xiaoshan, Zhejiang 1650−1850 1.5% (Xu) (Liu 1985, 22) 6.7% Taiwan 18th century genealogical records (Liu 1978, 856)

The striking divergence between more than twenty percent and less than one percent of unmarried men in one lineage can be explained by the difficulty of reconstructing the data. The number of "real" unmarried men is hard to separate from the men who have no descendants, had only daughters and those who died early before they reached the age of marriage. There is neither any unambiguous data concerning the proportion of unmarried men nor does there exist any clear hint to prove universal marriage of men in China. On the one hand Lee and Wang explained this phenomenon through the shortage of females as a result of female infanticide, concubinage and successive polygamy as a consequence of remarriage of men. On the other hand, they assumed that marriage in China, as well as in Europe, was highly dependent on economic conditions. Because marriage is expensive, some families, which have not the necessary material resources, are forced to wait until they can afford to arrange the wedding for their sons. Even though the Chinese just-married-couples did not immediately establish a new household as in Europe, the family had to have the financial resources to pay for the wedding, to feed the married wife and her descendants, and to have the place for the bride and her future children to inhabit.

Thus, it is unquestionable that marriage in China as well as in Europe was dependent on economic and material conditions. Of course, on the background of the ancestor worship,

292 universal marriage for both men and women was the ideal and the aspired life-form. In view of the fact of the shortage of women, men without means hardly ever had a chance to get married. Chinese society did offer various strategies for these men to marry anyway in case the form of patrilocal marriage, the "major marriage"53, in which the bride moves into the family of her husband, could not be realized.

Besides the major marriage, there were the minor marriage and the uxorilocal marriage as possible marriage patterns for families living under poor conditions. In case of the minor marriage, the future bride had already moved into the household of the chosen husband as a child. She was be brought up by her parents-in-law and will first live together with her future husband as a sister. Apart from the financial aspect, this kind of marriage has the advantage that the often very difficult and repressive relationship between mother-in-law and daughter- in-law develops more harmoniously. Furthermore, the relationship between the girl and her future husband proves to be more complicated, when they became wife and husband. The sexual attraction suffers under their sibling-like-relationship.54

In the case of an uxorilocal marriage the husband moves into the family of his future wife after the wedding. This kind of marriage means a social degradation for the man, but it was regarded as a lesser evil than not marrying at all. Men who were orphans and had no family or very poor men chose this kind of marriage. Apart from these economic reasons, families that had no male descendants tried for their daughters to find a husband willing to move into their families. In some cases, political reasons could also have been a motivation for uxorilocal marriages in order to build family alliances.55 In other situations, the need for male labor motivated for the uxorilocal marriage.56 The existence of the uxorilocal marriage in China undermines the hypothesis of a strict patrilinear descent and promotes the position of the wife within the family.

Endogamy − Polygamy − Remarriage

Apart from family size, marrying age and proportion of unmarried in one society, endogamy, polygamy and remarriage are further aspects to characterize marriage and family patterns. In

52 This table has been composed by the author on the basis of the mentioned sources. 53 Wolf categorized three kinds of marriage forms: major marriage, minor marriage and uxorilocal marriage, see Wolf/Huang 1980. 54 Wolf/Huang 1980, 84−86, 89−91. 55 Hymes 1986, 112; Dennerline 1986, 170, 173, 176. 56 Wolf/Huang 1980, 216. 293 contrast to the supposed connection between joint household system and endogamic marriage practice which some sociologists propose (see Table 1), the Chinese case cannot confirm this assumption. Already during the Zhou dynasty, the chosen spouse had to have another family name (xing) as a proof that the marriage partners are not of the same family.57 The Codex of the Tang dynasty explicitly did not allow marriage within the first five mourning grades.58 The Ming and Qing laws followed this Tang rule so that the marriage between cousins with different surnames within the five mourning grades was not allowed. In reality, however, marriage between cousins with different surnames was rather popular despite the fact that it ignored the law. Moreover, the "generation-rule" served to prevent marriage between aunt and nephew or between uncle and niece.59 With the exogamy-rule, and the generation-rule, we have two regulations against an endogamic practice.

In addition to the exogamy-rule, in China a man could marry only one woman at a time. Apart from successive polygamy, which allowed a man to marry another woman after divorce or death of the first wife, bigamy or polygamy were illegal.60 The custom of concubinage had indeed a long tradition in China, but according to the law, a man could marry only one wife. The marital relationships were clearly distinguished from the extramarital.61 The concubine’s status was lower than that of the official wife’s. So the concubine’s move into her master’s home was not combined with expensive marriage ceremonies. Contrary to the official wife, the concubine was only mentioned in the genealogical records after she had given birth to a son. In addition, her lower social status was symbolized by the rule that she had to serve her master’s wife.62

In general, concubinage was a phenomenon of the upper class. Only men of rich families could afford to support both a wife and concubines. Thus, concubines were status symbols for these men. Between 1520 and 1661 in Tongcheng County Telford’s reconstructed percentage of men with several women numbers 7.5 percent.63 There were concubines in eight percent in the Xu-lineage in Wuchang, Hubei Province, but twenty-six percent64 in the Mai-lineage in Xiangshan, Guangdong Province, 3.3 percent in the Shen-lineage in Xiaoshan County,

57 Ch'ü 1961, 91. 58 Johnson 1997, 162. 59 Ch'ü 1961, 94−95; Jones 1994, 128. 60 Ch'ü 1961, 123−124; Ebrey 1991, 7. 61 For the differentiation with regard to definition of monogamy and polygamy see Vajda 1985, 80−81 and 1981/82, 30−31. 62 Ch'ü 1961, 125; Waltner 1996, 72−73. 63 Telford 1992a, 27. 64 Liu 1995a, 105. 294 Zhejiang Province, and 1.5 percent in the Xu-lineage in the same region.65 Lee and Wang noted that within the imperial Qing elite only ten percent of the males had several women. Thus, we can assume that in the whole the percentage of men with concubinage remains less than ten percent. The results of Liaoning demonstrate that only one or two percent of the males of the ordinary rural population had more than one women at the same time.66

Apart from exogamy and monogamy as specific characteristics of the European marriage system, remarriage counts as a third distinguishing feature. The Chinese data could possibly question the first two aspects, exogamy and monogamy, as European phenomena. What about remarriage?

As Liu’s analysis of the lineages, Shen and Xu showed that about thirteen percent of the men did remarry and nine percent of these men even married a third time.67 We can conclude that men, as far as they could afford it, tried to marry again after divorce or the death of the first (or second) wife.

Up until the Song dynasty remarriage of females was quite usual. Starting with the Ming dynasty and especially during the Qing dynasty the cult of chaste widows became popular and widespread.68 The label "chaste widow" referred above all to young women, who became widows before the age of thirty and remained chaste until the age of fifty.69 Female chastity − idealized since the Song dynasty − was confirmed by social and juridical sanctions and led to limitation of remarriage of widows.70 The chastity cult resulted in widows having the wish to live as a virtuous woman. Furthermore, because of the patriarchal structure of Chinese society, the widows often didn’t want to remarry at all. In the case of remarriage they would not only loose the right to bring up their children, but would also loose their own property rights, and their dowry. A chaste life guaranteed them their right of property and the possibility of an independent life within the given social structure.71 Even though forced remarriage on the basis of greed for profit was punished, the parents-in-law or even the own parents of the widow often forced the young woman against her will to remarry. The affected woman could still try to save her virtuous soul by committing suicide.72 However, young

65 Liu 1985, 20. 66 Lee/Wang 1999, 75−76. 67 Liu 1985, 20. 68 Linck 1986, 104; Ebrey 1990, 220; Mann 1987, 38. Concerning remarriage during Han dynasty see Dull 1978, 34. About the development of the cult of chaste widows during the late Ming dynasty see T’ien 1988. 69 Mann 1987, 40. 70 Mann 1987, 37. 71 Sommer 1996, 117; Ch'ü 1961, 104; T'ien 1988, 39; Elvin 1984, 147 note 165. 72 Sommer 2000, 171, 333−335; 1996, 119−120; T'ien 1988, 23−24, 34; Mann 1987, 47; Waltner 1981, 138. 295 widows living in impoverished conditions had to remarry due to financial reasons.73 The analysis of the given sources demonstrates that the negative judgment of female remarriage did not result in the wished behavior − the ideal of the "chaste widow". In comparison with their male counterparts the widows seldom remarried. According to Liu, up to 1.67 percent of women of Shen-lineage married again.74 Lee and Wang assume that about ten percent of widows in Liaoning region remarried.75 Even though remarriage of widows was rather seldom in comparison to remarriage of widowers, but was not impossible. Widowers generally remarried if they could afford it. In contrast to their male counterparts, widows had to remarry if there was nobody to support them (and their children). The normative ideal had to defer again in face of the economic conditions of the persons involved.

Birth rate

In the European context, late marriage was interpreted as a strategy for reducing birth rates.76 In contrast to the assumed connection between early marriage and high birth rate, the Chinese case surprises with relative moderate fertility. The total marital fertility rate (TMFR)77 in Europe, with seven to ten children per women78 lies even higher than in China, where it was about six children.79 Lee and Wang compared the Chinese data with the European figures. The authors took into account their own reconstructed data of the household registers of Liaoning and the imperial genealogical records as well as Liu’s and Telford’s analyses of genealogical records of Jiangnan region and Anhui Province. Because of the missing data of children who died early and the incomplete registration of female descendants in the genealogical records, the birth rate had to be reconstructed on the basis of the number of the surviving sons. Therefore, Harrell talks about "male-based fertility rate".80 The genealogical records do not mention the date of marriage either, so that the starting point of the reproduction period cannot be determined. The birth rate can be reconstructed on the basis of the age of the parents and the birth rate of the surviving sons.81 Lee and Wang add twenty percent for possible underenumeration, taking into account infants who died. The following

73 Waltner 1981, 136. 74 Liu 1985, 20−21. 75 Lee/Wang 1999, 72−73. 76 Oesterdiekhoff 2000, 5, 27, 51. 77 TMFR refers to the average birth rate of a married women between 15 and 49 years of age. 78 Wrigley/Davies/Oeppen/Schofield 1997, 450. 79 Compare the data in Lee/Wang 1999, 85, which summarizes various data in China. 80 Harrell 1987, 57, 75; see also Liu 1995a, 95; 1985, 16; 1981, 119. 81 Liu 1985, 29. 296 figure compares the European and Asian data and demonstrates the striking result that the birth rate in Europe lies even higher than the one in China:

Figure 7: "Natural" age-specific marital fertility, East Asia and Europe, ca. 1600−180082

It is remarkable that this moderate birth rate in China is not only valid for monogamous men, but also for men having concubines. In comparison with monogamous couples, men with several women have proportionally less children. As Dardess demonstrates on the basis of

82 Lee/Wang 1999, 87. Lee and Wang used the data given in the following publications: Lee/Campbell 1997 (Liaoning, China); Flinn 1981 (European populations); Kito 1991 (Japan); Liu Ts’ui-jung 1992 (Jiangnan, China); Telford 1992b (Anhui, China); Wolf 1985 (Taiwan). Lee and Wang give further information to the figure: "The Beijing numbers are monogamous male age-specific fertility rates but should closely approximate female age-specific fertility. The Anhui and Jiangnan figures are derived from counts of sons multiplied by 1.97. In addition we inflated the Anhui, Jiangnan , and Japanese figures by 20 percent for possible underenumeration." 297 data of Taihe in Jiangxi Province, the average birth rate of women decreases with the number of women a man takes into his household. The average number of children of a monogamous man decreases according to Dardess from 4.15 down to 1.17 of a man with four women:

Table 7: Average number of children per woman, Taihe, 14th−17th century83

number of wives/ number of number of average number of concubines per fathers children children per woman man 1 208 864 4.15 2 101 546 2.70 3 21 102 1.62 4 6 28 1.17

Further analyses of genealogical records confirm this tendency. The number of women with whom one man lived did not crucially influence the average number of children living in one household. Women sharing one man had fewer children on average.84 This was valid even for the imperial lineage, as Lee and Wang show. Additionally the Qing imperial lineage had a relative low fertility rate and the number of children per males with concubines was only twenty to thirty percent higher, as the following figure of Lee and Wang demonstrates:

83 This table has been composed by the author on the basis of the data of Dardess 1996, 91. 84 Liu 1995b, 130. 298 Figure 8: Age pattern of fertility among monogamous and polygamous men, Qing imperial lineage, 1700−184085

How can this low fertility rate be explained? Apart from the Malthusian interpretation of positive checks in form of hunger, war, epidemics, or infanticide, Lee and Wang explain this low birth rate, above all, by three kinds of preventive checks or demographic mechanisms: late starting, early stopping, and long birth intervals.86

The reconstructed age at the birth of the first child on the basis of genealogical records show that on average the Chinese couples had their first child at a later date after marriage than their European counterparts. In Europe fourteen to sixteen months after marriage the first child was already born, whereas in China the average interval between marriage and birth of the first child was about thirty-seven months.87 The last figure is based on genealogical records of the imperial lineage, but for rural Liaoning, Lee and Wang account for an even longer interval.88 A relative late starting point in having children has also been confirmed by Liu and Harrell.89

85 Lee/Wang 1999, 77. 86 Lee/Wang 1999, 88. 87 Lee/Campbell/Wang 1995, 389−390; Flinn 1981, 33. 88 Lee/Campbell 1997, 92−93. 89 Liu 1978, 852; 1995b, 121, 133; Harrell 1985, 104. 299 Lee and Wang explain this late start with having children by the ideal of sexual restraint in China. Even though the birth of a son was essential for the continuation of the ancestor line, the most important family relationship was between parents and child, and not between husband and wife. As a consequence the sexual desires had to be subordinated to filial piety. Moreover, the Chinese had the opinion that frequent sexual intercourse was risky for one’s (especially men’s) health.90 Further there have been many taboo instructions, under which circumstances it was not allowed to have sexual intercourse.91

As a second preventive check Lee and Wang mentioned "early stopping" with regards to having children. In comparison to Europe, Chinese women were much younger, when they gave birth to their last child. Women in rural Liaoning were on average 33.5 years old and women of the imperial lineage between 33.8 and 34.1 years, when they gave birth to their last child. Consequently, the reproduction period was reduced to only eleven years in China, whereas in Europe, where the women gave birth to children up to the age of forty,92 it was fifteen years.93

As a third preventive strategy Lee and Wang mentioned "long spacing": long intervals between births. Compared with European birth intervals, which lie between twenty and thirty months, the intervals in the case of the imperial lineage has been quite long with thirty-five up to seventy months. In rural Liaoning, the average interval of 4.1 to 8.4 years between the children’s birth had been definitely longer than in Europe.94 Lee and Wang assumed that Chinese women tried to extend the interval between the births of their children by extended, long-term breastfeeding.95

It is difficult to accurately determine the extent to which people in Imperial China had been acquainted with means of contraception. There are indications that knowledge of contraceptive methods existed,96 but if this knowledge was widespread and popular is hard to say. It is obvious that people tried, above all, to regulate the birth rate for economic reasons. As Harrell’s research of genealogical records of three lineages between 1550 and 1850 shows, there is a direct connection between social status equating to economic resources and birth rate. Men of rich lineage branches married earlier, took younger women for their wives and

90 Lee/Wang 1999, 90−91. 91 Riegel 1999, 137−139; van Gulik 1961, 132, 137−138, 284. 92 Wrigley/Davies/Oeppen/Schofield 1997, 507; Flinn 1981, 29. 93 Lee/Campbell 1997, 93; Lee/Campbell/Wang 1995, 390; Lee/Wang 1999, 89. 94 Lee/Campbell/Wang 1995, 391; Lee/Campbell 1997, 93−94; Flinn 1981,33; Wrigley et al. 1997, 508. 95 Lee/Wang 1999, 91. 96 Himes 1970, 108−111. 300 had concubines more often. Therefore the probability of having more children increased.97 Moreover both Liu and Lee showed that the number of children in times of needs decreased. Female descendants especially had even less chances to survive during bad times.98

Even though there are some skeptical positions against Lee’s and Wang's thesis of preventive checks in China, there is no striking argument against the fact of a moderate birth rate in China.99 Infanticide as a positive check in Malthusian terms was undoubtedly widespread in China for regulating the number of the planned children. With regard to the existential need of male descendants to guarantee an uninterrupted ancestor line, female infants suffered under this kind of postnatal birth control.100 In contrast to the sons who counted as provision for the parent's old age, daughters were regarded as economic burden, because they normally were supposed to leave their natal family and work for and give birth to grandchildren to her parents-in-law. Presumably since Song time, female infanticide was usual. According to T'ien it was widespread in Yangzi-region.101 Furthermore, the juridical inhibition and punishment in the codices indicate that infanticide was a social problem the officials had to take legal action against.102

As in the European case there are no reliable statistics in China which allow one to draw conclusions from this data about infanticide rates.103 Because of the general underreporting of females in registers and genealogical records, the proportion between male and female in society can only be reconstructed or estimated. According to Ho in some regions there were up to fifty percent more men than women.104 On the basis of the given proportion between sons and daughters on the one hand, and the number of children in the families in rural Liaoning on the other hand, Lee concludes female infanticide must have been a usual postnatal practice to regulate sex and number of the children. The proportion of surviving males in comparison to females was unnatural and definitely too high. Lee estimates that twenty to twenty-five percent of female babies died by infanticide.105 In times of need boys also could have become victims of infanticide.106

97 Harrell 1985, 103−108. 98 Liu 1981, 125−135; Lee/Campbell 1997, 96−101. 99 Coale 1985. 100 Lavely/Lee/Wang 1990, 817; Lee/Wang 1999, 84; Ho 1959, 58; Waltner 1995, 2000. 101 T’ien 1988, 26−27. 102 Lee, B. 1981, 164−168; T’ien 1988, 25; Dardess 1996, 81−83. 103 For the European case compare Flinn 1981, 46. 104 Ho 1959, 58−59. 105 Lee/Campbell/Tan 1992, 150ff., 167; Lee/Campbell 1997, 69. 106 Lee/Campbell/Tan 1992, 169, 172. 301 Genealogical records cannot give any hints concerning infant and child mortality, because sons, who died at an early age, and daughters in general are not mentioned. The genealogical records of the imperial lineages are an exceptional case, because they list all born children, regardless of their sex and despite the fact that some of them died soon after birth. It is striking that girls died within their first month three times more often than boys. In fact female infanticide increases during the end of the 18th century, as the economic situation of the imperial lineages deteriorated.107 This data led Lee, Campbell, and Wang to the conclusion that even within the imperial lineage female infanticide was a regular practice to regulate sex and number of children. Female infanticide was not limited to the poor people.108 By referring to a report stated in a chronic of Fujian Province, T’ien confirms the phenomenon that female infanticide was also practiced among wealthy people.109

The most customary method to kill the newborn baby was to throw it in a tub filled with cold water. In Chinese this practice was called "bathing the baby". Indirect methods were even more widespread like neglection, unhygienic care, and early weaning.110 During the late Qing dynasty the government considered supporting the poor to avoid infanticide. Since the beginning of the 18th century, the government established foundling homes in the lower Yangzi region to save the doomed babies.111

Adoption

Only the male members of the family are legitimate for ancestor worship. To secure the uninterrupted male line within a family, Chinese society has developed various strategies. The most serious failure against filial piety was the lack of a son.112 If the couple has been childless for several years or the wife has given birth only to daughters, then the husband could take a concubine into his household. The sons of a concubine had equal rights to the sons of the first wife, because it was the father and not the mother who was, above all, important for determining the status of the descendant. Another strategy to receive a ritual heir was adoption. The biological fatherhood was subordinated to the importance of

107 Lee/Campbell/Wang 1993, 365, 376−378, 381; 1994, 396, 400−403. 108 Lee/Campbell/Wang 1993, 381; 1994, 404−408. 109 T’ien 1988, 30. 110 Harrell 1995a, 7; Lee/Campbell 1997, 59; Wolf/Huang 1980, 139; Leutner 1989, 55. 111 Waltner 1995, 195; Leung 1995, 251, 271. 112 Mengzi 7.26/40/12. 302 continuing the male line. Thus, adoption was an essential strategy of family building in China.113

Adoption was implemented according to specific regulations. The adopted son had to be chosen within and corresponding to the five mourning grades, so the sons of the brothers were favored. The prescribed orders of possible adopted sons must not be circumvented. The common surname was an indispensable condition.114 If the head of the family remained without a male descendant and ritual successor, the family or the widow had the right to determine an heir. Additionally in this case, a brother’s son was the favored adoptive son. If there was no possible adoptive son within the five mourning grades or even within a group of the common surname, the people de facto adopted boys of the family of the female line. In this way, the female line became more significant.115 Therefore adoption itself could undermine the patrilinear system, because the guaranteed ancestor worship was more important than the biological fatherhood. Descent and the origin of the ritual successor were subordinated to the duty of the ancestor worship.116 In contrast to Europe, adoption in China was mainly to secure the continuing ancestor line and not because of charity.

Conclusion

In summary, the average family size in China did not differ from the Northwest European family system. The thesis of the predominant so-called "grand family" in households outside Northwestern Europe has to be understood at least in quantitative regard.

Even though people in China married at an earlier age than in Europe − this fact applies to women as well as men − their birth rate was surprisingly not higher. The Chinese developed pre-natal and post-natal methods of birth control to regulate the number of children according to their economic conditions. An obvious connection can be traced between the number of children and financial resources in the corresponding families. Even men, who took concubines into their households, did not have significantly more children in relation to the number of wives. The more concubines one Chinese man had, the more the number of children per women decreased.

113 Waltner 1990, 24. 114 Bodde 1967, 243; Watson 1975, 296; Mäding 1966, 24, 43−44, 73; Waltner 1984, 454. 115 Waltner 1990, 4, 11−12, 72−73, 94−95, 144−145, 147. 116 Waltner 1996, 76. 303 Regarding the situation of women in China, universal marriage was widespread and valid for the investigated regions and sources. For men, however, the situation proved to be different. Marriage as well as having children was dependent on economic conditions. If a family was not able to pay for the wedding ceremonies and to feed one more mouth, their son had to stay single or marry uxorilocally. Another possibility for impoverished families was the "minor marriage": they took a little girl into their household, who would later become their son’s wife after both were grown up.

Because of the uxorilocal marriage as a strategy for impoverished families to get their sons married or for families with only daughters to continue their ancestor and family line, patrilocality as a further characteristic of joint household systems was not universally valid. In regard to family system models uxorilocal marriage undermines the strict patrilinear and viri- patrilocal pattern.

Contrary to expectations according to the presented explanation models, exogamy as well as monogamy have been a strict rule in Chinese marriage system. In this way the regulations and traditions do not differ from the Northwest European family system. Exogamy in China means that the spouses had to come from families bearing different surnames and should not belong to relatives within the first five mourning grades. Even though holding concubines had a long tradition in China and was tolerated, there was only one legal wife per husband. The legal wife held not just a special legal position, but was also the only one who was allowed to enjoy the traditional wedding ceremonies. Female remarriage does not fit to the joint family system either, but there are indications that it was nevertheless possible in China. Again, economic conditions can be responsible for this practice.

These mentioned characteristics of the Chinese marriage customs lead to the conclusion that the "Chinese family" cannot be related to the joint household system without some reservations. At the same time, the stated results regarding Chinese conditions question the maintained existence of the Northwest European family system. The Chinese family pattern also cannot be related to the described Northwest European system. From the Chinese point of view, the main differences between China and Europe concern the relatively high marrying age, high proportion of unmarried males and females, neolocality, and circulation of servants in Europe. Practiced exogamy, monogamy, low birth rate, remarriage of women, uxorilocal marriage, and household division modify the relation to the suggested joint household system.

This study was based on existing and available data on family and household structures in China and took as a starting point prevailing theories on various family systems, especially

304 the characteristics of the Northwest European family system. Because of the failing unambiguous assignment of the Chinese family to the joint household system, it is difficult to tell whether the social structures, the family and household systems are of crucial importance for the transformation process from agrarian civilization to industrial society.

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310 Peter C. Perdue How Different was China? Or, Bringing the Army Back In: Coercion and Ecology in the Comparative Sociology of Europe and China

The goal of this research project is to clarify why Western Europeans became the first people to create an industrial society. A long tradition of scholarship has attacked this problem, but this project aims to view it from a global and comparative approach, which includes perspectives from outside Europe. I applaud this ambitious effort, and I hope to support their objectives by adding some comments from my standpoint as a historian of late imperial China. I shall summarize briefly some of the recent work on China that addresses these questions, and add a few preliminary thoughts based on my own research on the expansion of imperial China’s frontiers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I write in the spirit of a constructive critique of the materials kindly sent to me by Prof. Sieferle which have been published so far.

It appears that a central focus of the research on Western Europe from the beginning has been the utilization of natural sources of energy, especially coal. Several scholars have also turned their attention to questions of demography and family structure.1 These two themes have become central to research on the social and economic history of imperial China, especially the eighteenth century, and offer rich ground for comparison between the two societies.

My general approach can be summarized baldly in the form of several theses. Each of these needs qualification, of course, but I put them here simply for the sake of simplicity:

1. Recent research on late imperial China has argued that in most measurable aspects of technology, economic productivity and ecological pressure, there were no significant differences between China and Western Europe up to around the year 1800. 2. Likewise, in quantitative demographic data and in family structure, many of China’s social practices, as opposed to her ideals, showed marked similarities to Western Europe. Chinese families did not breed heedlessly, producing a Malthusian situation of population outrunning available resources, but rather limited fertility in response to local economic opportunities. 3. No major cultural distinctions between China and Europe can be detected that had unequivocally differential economic effects. Whether we look at attitudes toward commercial activity, literacy, urbanization, or religious doctrines, for example, we can

1 Rolf Peter Sieferle, Der Europäische Sonderweg:Ursachen und Faktoren (Stuttgart, 2000) 311 find in both societies attitudes and institutions favoring and opposing economic growth and technological change. Until 1800, there is no clear balance in favor of Europe promoting economically meaningful activity. 4. In short, Marx, Malthus, Weber and many other social theorists have been wrong in basing much of their explanations of capitalism on radical distinctions between East and West. The fundamental flaw in these theories is their exclusive focus on internal factors and exaggerated polarities of difference. Better explanations must accept evidence of general comparability and rely more heavily on exogenous intervention and global contexts. 5. A fuller explanation of the European difference after 1800 must incorporate the role of the early modern state. Explanations that ignore politics will not suffice.

Why the European Miracle?

I will illustrate the points above first negatively, then positively. By sketching the evidence for broad similarities between Chinese and European social structures, I argue that most existing arguments based on sharp contrasts of East and West fail. Then, pointing more speculatively to the role of state structures, I argue that the European system of competitive states developing into global empires in the eighteenth century generated positive economic and technological effects compared to the Chinese imperial experience. Until the mid- eighteenth century, China did face a comparably competitive state-building environment and responded in ways similar to European states, but with the end of imperial expansion, the dynamism ebbed out of her system.

On demography, Martina Eglauer has very ably summarized the conclusions of recent research on late imperial China.2 Her argument relies heavily on the quantitative work of James Lee, Cameron Campbell, Wang Feng, and others, which has given us the most reliable information on Chinese family dynamics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.3 Historians and anthropologists like Patricia Ebrey, Arthur Wolf, Kathryn Bernhardt, and others have also provided valuable qualitative information. The main implication of their work is that imperial China does not fit well into a binary contrast between a special “Northwestern European” family pattern and a general “patrilinear” pattern for the rest of the

2 Martina Eglauer, Familie und Haushalt in China der späten Kaiserzeit (Stuttgart, 2001) 3 James Z. Lee and Cameron Campbell, Fate and Fortune in Rural China: Social Organization and Population Behavior in Liaoning, 1774-1873 (Cambridge, 1997);James Z. Lee and Wang Feng, One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities (Cambridge, Mass., 1999) Reviewed by Peter C. Perdue in Journal of Asian Studies 57.3 (Aug.1998), p.854-6; 59.2 (May 2000), p. 410-2. 312 world. Or to the extent that China does fit this pattern, it does not suffice to explain differences in economic growth after the eighteenth century.4

Thus, for example, the contrast between “nuclear family” in Europe and “extended family” in China is misleading, because the vast majority of families in peasant China were nuclear or stem families, whose household size was about 5.5. Early and universal marriage did occur in China, by contrast with late marriage and higher rates of non-married people in Europe, but this difference did not produce large differences in population growth rates, because Chinese families held down fertility within marriage. Total marital fertility in China was six compared to 7.5 to 9 in Europe. Europe and China reached the same goal of demographic regulation by different routes: Europeans by limiting opportunities for marriage, and thus controlling legitimate births, Chinese by limiting opportunities for reproduction within marriage. How Chinese achieved limited fertility within marriage remains a subject of debate: infanticide, limited sexual relations, and herbal abortifacients, etc. may all have played a role.

China’s partible inheritance of land encouraged earlier family formation than European impartible inheritance, because it allowed newly wed couples to set up a household with landed property at a young age, but it still did not produce large extended families, except among the very wealthy. Repeated divisions of the family property made new families poorer than the older generation, and families adjusted their size to economic opportunities. There were certainly significant regional differences, depending on the ability of families to increase their land holdings. Regardless of inheritance customs, the underlying demographic dynamics in both China and Europe were the same. Where there were opportunities to clear new land on the frontiers, for example, new families migrated in search of land and increased their size. Where land was scarce, they held down population growth, and many young men never got to marry at all.

China had a number of special customs that served to loosen up the tight restrictions of her demographic regime. Adoption allowed families without male heirs to bring in a young man to carry on the paternal line, while offering opportunities to poor men to get a wife. The “minor marriage” pattern, or “little daughter-in-law marriage”, along with uxorilocal marriage, also gave more opportunities for marriage to poor families by relieving them of dowry expenses. The net effect was to make nearly universal marriage possible, but not to

4 Eglauer, Table on p.9 313 increase population growth as a whole. Minor marriages had, on average, lower fertility than orthodox ones, either because of sexual aversion, or economic constraints.5

Ever since Malthus, Western analysts have claimed that partible inheritance combined with early and universal marriage would inevitably create a rapid birth rate in China, and that the resulting pressure of population on resources could only be offset by the catastrophic checks of high mortality. David Landes succinctly summarizes this European myth about China: “Early, universal marriage, and lots of children. That takes food, and food in turn takes people. Treadmill. This strategy went back thousands of years.” We now know that all but the first three words of this statement are wrong.6

Thus, we cannot invoke arguments based on aggregate differences between China and Europe in demographic measures or family institutions to explain the industrial breakthrough. Other more localized, specific linkages between family structures and economy may work, but these have yet to be spelled out. This is a negative result, but an important one.

In the light of recent research on China, the Industrial Revolution is not a deep, slow evolution out of centuries of particular conditions unique to early modern Europe. It is a late, rapid, unexpected outcome of a fortuitous combination of circumstances of the late eighteenth century. Critics of this kind of argument often respond by insisting that such a major transformation cannot be just an “accident”. They misunderstand the argument. We are not claiming that Europe’s miracle is inexplicable; only that it cannot be explained either by long- term causes purportedly unique to Europe, or solely by internal characteristics of European societies. In light of what we now know about imperial China, Japan, and India, among other places, acceptable explanations must invoke a global perspective, and allow for a great deal of short-term change.

Energy Sources

Yet the European miracle did occur. What were the important factors? Ken Pomeranz has argued that global ecological contingencies played a determining role. 7 These included the availability of coal supplies in northern England near to water transport, the British access to the vast “ghost acreage” of the New World and the cotton supplies and domestic market of its colony in India. These are all, in some sense, exogenous factors to the British social system.

5 Arthur P. Wolf and Chieh-shan Huang, Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845-1945 (Stanford, 1980) 6 David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some so Poor (New York 1998 ). p.23 7 Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, 2000) Reviewed by Peter C. Perdue in H-World listserve (www.h-net.msu.edu/~world), August 2000 314 Imperial China had analogous, but by no means comparable, ecological features. China had coal, but the largest deposits were located in the northwest, far from the textile industries and canals of the lower Yangtze valley. China also had “colonies,” new territories conquered by imperial expansion, but these, too, were in the interior of the Eurasian continent, without large arable lands or dense populations. The empire actively promoted the settlement of these regions, but they did not provide the raw materials or commodity demands comparable to those of the settlers of the New World. Unlike arguments based on proto-industrialization, demographic structures, or commercial culture, where the differences are not arguably large enough to account for major economic change, here the differences in size of resources and transport costs are very large, so likely to have large effects.

Before Pomeranz, Rolf Peter Sieferle and Anthony Wrigley had also made a systematic case for the importance of energy supplies, particularly coal, in the Industrial Revolution.8 The importance of coal is, in fact, an old argument, invoked ever since the Industrial Revolution began. No one could miss the polluting effects of the “dark Satanic mills” on the shock cities of northern England. Wrigley’s important contribution was to shift the focus of attention away from issues of market organization back to the technological and ecological foundations of industrialization. Wrigley certainly agreed that England had developed institutions that favored highly commercialized economic relations in both rural and urban areas, but heavy reliance on Adam Smith’s models of competitive market exchange obscured the fact that “the world of the classical economists was a bounded world where the growth path traced out by a successful economy might at best be asymptotic; it could never assume the exponential form that became the hallmark of economies that had experienced an industrial revolution.”9

Debates over the nature of English “capitalism” in the neo-classical and Marxist traditions foundered on the vagueness of definitions and the inability to agree on when capitalism began. One group of definitions centered on commercial capitalism, or “Smithian dynamics;” another focused on the use of “mineral stocks rather than from the annual flow of agricultural production” and the tapping of “great stores of energy” instead of the limited supplies above ground. Since China historians have found nearly all the essential elements of European commercial capitalism in late imperial China from the sixteenth century forward, it seems

8 Rolf Peter Sieferle, Der Unterirdische Wald:Energiekrise und Industrielle Revolution (München, 1982); E.A. Wrigley, Continuity, Chance, and Change: The character of the Industrial Revolution in England (Cambridge, 1988) 9 E.A. Wrigley, "The Limits to Growth: Malthus and the Classical Economists," in Population and Resources in Western Intellectual Traditions, ed. Michael S. Teitelbaum and Jay M. Winter (Cambridge, 1989), p.34. Cited in R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (Ithaca, 1997). p.50 315 fruitless to attribute industrialization to the rise of “capitalism” in Europe. As Wrigley puts it, “the English economy was capitalist in both senses of the word, but the connection between the two was initially casual rather than causal.”10

By looking at particular energy sources, however, we can specify more closely the appropriate arenas of comparison between China and Europe. Pomeranz relies heavily on differences in location and character of coal supplies to explain England’s successful breakthrough to industrialism. Because English coal was found near the coast, and because pumping water out of coal mines was a key obstacle to mining, the earliest, very inefficient steam engines only became profitable when located near coal mines. England’s textile industry, at first heavily reliant on water power, could transport coal from nearby when technology improved. More than the rest of Europe, England both faced a growing shortage of timber, and had the ability to transport coal by sea, giving it incentives to rely heavily on coal.11 Textile manufacturers could also import their raw materials and export finished goods in quantity through the nearby ports. In China, by contrast, the best coal deposits were found in the interior, hundreds of miles from the coast, and the greatest obstacle to mining coal was gas, not water. China’s very advanced textile industries, producing silk and cotton for millions of urban and rural consumers, concentrated in the lower Yangtze valley, close to river and canal transport. But textile manufacturers had no opportunity or incentive to bring coal from thousands of miles away to mechanize their production. Hence textile production remained a handicraft activity, done by peasants at home or in small workshops, instead of a concentrated factory production method. Even so, real wages of Chinese textile workers were no lower than those of rural textile workers in England.12

China historians thus find no significant differences in the organization of production between the two societies in the pre-industrial age. Wong argues that “fundamentally similar dynamics of economic expansion via the market took place across Eurasia, and … the development of rural industry was also similar in important ways.”13 European industrialism as we know it in

10 Wrigley, Continuity, Chance, and Change. p.115 11 Sieferle, Der Unterirdische Wald. p.108-114. Cf Landes: “The early steam-engines were grossly inefficient, delivering less than 1 per cent of the work represented by their thermal inputs. This was a far cry from the performance of organic converters: both animals and man can deliver from 10 to 20 per cent of inputs,depending on conditions. But neither man nor beast can eat coal. And since the supply of organic nourishment was and is limited… it is this increment of fuel made available by the steam-engine, however wastefully used, that counted….the early engines were general employed only where coal was extremely cheap – as in collieries; or in mines too deep for other techniques, as in Cornwall; or in those occasional circumstances – the naval drydock at Saint Petersburg for example – where cost was no object….coal at pithead was cheap or even a free good (many boilers burned unsaleable slack).” David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus (1969). p.97, 100, 102 12 Pomeranz, Great Divergence. p.91 13 Wong, China Transformed. p.52 316 the late nineteenth century depended on the combination of three elements: “a market economy driven by Smithian dynamics”, the “institutions of commercial capitalism”, and “processes of technological change centered on an energy revolution.” Each of these three elements were “logically independent” of each other, even though empirically they came together in the late eighteenth century. China possessed the first two elements, but lacked the third. The absence of the energy revolution was a result of geological contingency.14

I find this argument for near similarity between China and Europe in many aspects of social and economic structure convincing. Pomeranz has effectively answered his critics who stress the great differences between advanced regions of China and Europe.15 No one is arguing that the lower Yangzi delta’s agrarian system and England’s were identical; clearly labor to land ratios were higher in China than in England, and fixed capital investment in agriculture was higher in England than in China. But there is no reason to assume that, simply because England was the first industrial country, it had to be only path, the model that others must follow. Only a fixed belief in a stereotyped version of “stages” theory, in which all societies must pass through prescribed patterns in a specified order, can defend the proposition that the traditional agrarian regime prevented the lower Yangzi valley from achieving sustained economic growth.

In short, industrial growth does not have to be an outcome of a centuries-long accumulation of the particular skills found in northwestern Europe; there are numerous paths to economic modernity, and England followed only one of them. Certainly all industrializing societies need vastly increased supplies of energy and raw materials, but they can obtain these from many sources. The much higher costs of transporting coal in China to the coast compared to Europe, and the different technological demands of mining [pumping out water vs. avoiding gas explosions], meant that China in the late eighteenth century would not develop coal and steam-based industry left to its own devices, but did not preclude China from industrializing later on without creating an English-style agrarian system.

State-Sponsored Development

And yet, this argument ignores the important role of state power in mobilizing natural and economic resources. Unless we include consideration of organized political power, we risk

14 Ibid. p.58 15 Philip C.C. Huang, "Development or Involution in Eighteenth-Century Britain and China? A Review of Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy," Journal of Asian Studies 61 (May, 2002) ; Kenneth Pomeranz, "Beyond the East-West Binary: Resituating Development Paths in the Eighteenth-Century World," Journal of Asian Studies 61 (May, 2002) 317 offering excessively reductionist explanations. Even if two countries differ greatly in their energy endowments, it does not necessarily follow that the most favorably endowed one will advance more rapidly. Japan in the late nineteenth century industrialized very rapidly without possessing very large resources in her home islands. (Japan, of course, like England, soon acquired an empire in Taiwan and Korea in order to obtain these resources, including coal, minerals, grain, and Lebensraum.) The actions of states, of voluntary and coerced human activity, decisively affected the economic and technological development of societies, even in the early modern period.

A strictly ecological focus omits a crucial question: why could China not make up for its lack of convenient coal supplies through state action? The ecological thesis of industrialization ultimately relies on a sophisticated form of environmental determinism, since it assumes that the absence of a critical factor doomed the society to a long period of backwardness.

But since humans in general collectively strive to improve their economic situation as much as possible, knowledge of technological advances diffused rapidly across Eurasia. Chinese rulers of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries were well aware of European advances in military technology, and sought to acquire new cannons and guns.. The Jesuits, the world’s first global arms salesmen, were happy to accommodate them. Both the Ming armies and their enemy Manchu armies used firearms extensively, as did the Japanese during the wars of unification of the early seventeenth century. The eighteenth-century emperors dragged heavy cannon thousands of kilometers into the steppe in pursuit of their Mongol enemies. Asians learned of European military technology and quickly adapted it to their purposes.16

The Chinese state also had the capability to move bulk goods over long distances. Most of China’s copper, which was the basic material for its currency, came from the distant southwest province of Yunnan. Officials carefully tracked the shipment of copper from the mines to the mints.17 Sometimes they used military escorts for official shipments; sometimes they entrusted shipments to merchant contractors. Grain provisioning also required large-scale long-distance transport in order to fill the “evernormal granaries” of the empire. These large grain stores, held in each of China’s over 1500 counties, provided supplies to level price fluctuations over the course of the year and to relieve major famines. Again, Qing officials

16 Joanna Waley-Cohen, "China and Western Technology in the Eighteenth Century," American Historical Review 98 (December, 1993) ; Peter C. Perdue, "China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia, 1680-1760" (Cambridge, Mass., forthcoming) 17 See Helen Dunstan, " Safely supping with the devil: the Qing state and its merchant suppliers of copper," Late Imperial China 13 (Dec., 1992); Hans Ulrich Vogel, "Chinese Central Monetary Policy, 1644-1800," Late Imperial China 8 (December, 1987) 318 sometimes shipped grain themselves, under military control, and more often contracted with merchants. There is no reason that the Qing state could not have shipped other bulk goods if it chose to.18

Other states that knew of Western European advances did mobilize their mineral resources in the eighteenth century. Peter the Great of Russia founded the Mining and Manufactories College and the Commerce College in the 1720s to promote private industrial development with government support. His Siberian Bureau established the first major iron industries in the Ural mountains in 1701. These industries, located on top of rich mineral deposits, became the primary nucleus of Russian industrial development under state control. Peter also set up state enterprises which were transferred to private owners or created new companies which received special favors. Anisimov, who criticizes Peter’s industrial policies for preventing the emergence of a private capitalist class, nevertheless agrees that Peter created a “powerful economic base, so essential for a developing nation.” 19

Russia’s agrarian base was much poorer, and its bureaucracy far more rudimentary, than China’s. China had much more commercial capital, and its agriculture was not held back by serfdom. The Russian example indicates that countries without convenient mineral supplies could overcome their disadvantage through energetic state action. Russian industrialization, of course, took a very different path from that of England. It was far more state-directed, coercive, reliant on foreign experts, and directed primarily toward military needs. It was, nevertheless, quite successful, and began quite early.

Thus I would argue that the imperial Chinese state had both the capacity and the experience to transport bulk commodities over long distances, when it chose to do so. State support, either through direct transport or by contracting with merchants, could overcome enormous barriers. The primary commodities on which Qing officials focused were grain, salt, and copper, because these were central to maintaining subsistence for the population and the stability of the currency. Timber could also be transported long distances to build palaces, ships, and forts. Qing officials also invested in the transportation infrastructure, by building new roads and dredging rivers. Water conservancy policies aimed to achieve the classic goal of “two birds with one stone” [yi ju liang de] by protecting farmers from flooding and ensuring merchants smooth passage on waterways. The impact on the landscape of these state supported activities was very large, but the Qing state was neither an “Oriental Despotism”

18 Pierre Étienne Will and R. Bin Wong et al., Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650-1850 (Ann Arbor, 1991) 19 Evgenii V. Anisimov, The Reforms of Peter the Great (Armonk, N.Y., 1993). p.73, 171 quote p.183 319 that repressed all commerce, nor a “laissez-faire” regime taking a hands-off approach to trade. Its officials intervened actively in the trade in some commodities, while leaving others alone. Which commodities the state chose to manage depended heavily on the security interests of the state and its attitude toward provisioning its people.

The general capabilities of the state to direct the flows of goods were probably higher in the eighteenth century than in any previous period. The highly elaborated granary system, the reconstructed Grand Canal, the land settlement policies on the frontiers all showed a definite interventionist spirit. The new communication system from the province to the center, using both routine and secret palace memorials, meant that officials at the center could keep in close touch with provincial officials. They could also send out special inspectors to make sure that central policies were implemented accurately. The Qing reporting system collected vast amounts of data about the workings of the agrarian economy, including detailed reports on prices, rainfall, grain holdings, and famine relief. Qing capabilities to manage the economy were powerful enough that we might even call it a “developmental agrarian state.” It did not direct resources toward industrialization, but it did encourage the fullest possible exploitation of landed resources, including foodstuffs and minerals. William T. Rowe’s new biography of the Qing official Chen Hongmou gives impressive examples of one official’s activist approach to “managing the world” [jingshi].20 In his many posts around the empire, Chen directed his energies toward increasing agrarian output, reducing the damage from famines, repairing and expanding waterworks, and developing mining. He did not however, believe that the state alone should undertake major economic activities; his preference was to allow market forces to induce merchants to transport goods wherever possible. State regulation and cooperation with merchants, however, was directed toward the common goal of improving the people’s welfare while strengthening the resources of the state.

Another example of state activism in the eighteenth-century is seen in the activities of Lan Dingyuan in Taiwan. Like Chen Hongmou, he promoted active state direction of economic development, this time in a colonial environment.21 Lan vigorously promoted the immigration of Han Chinese to the newly conquered island, so as to raise its agricultural output and

20 William T. Rowe, Saving the world: Chen Hongmou and elite consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China (Stanford, 2001) Reviewed by Peter C. Perdue, China Quarterly, 172 (December 2002), 1096-7 21 John Robert Shepherd, Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier, 1600-1800 (Stanford, 1993). p.17, 138-42, 185-90. Reviewed by Peter C. Perdue in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 55.1 (June, 1995) p.261-269. Emma Jinhua Teng, "Travel Writing and Colonial Collecting: Chinese Travel Accounts of Taiwan" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1997). Chapter 5.; Chen Qiukun, "From Aborigines to Landed Proprietors: Taiwan Aboriginal Land Rights, 1690-1850," in Remapping China: Fissures in Historical Terrain, ed. Gail Hershatter et al. (Stanford, 1996),Chen Qiukun, Qingdai Taiwan Tuzhu Diquan: Guanliao, Handian yu Anli sheren di Tudi Bianqian, 1700-1895 (Taibei, 1994) 320 provide grain exports for Fujian province. Taiwan did indeed become a major grain exporting province in the eighteenth century under the combined impact of official encouragement and mercantile contact.

In another great frontier region conquered in the eighteenth century, Xinjiang, Qing officials likewise promoted large scale colonial settlement combined with agricultural and mining development.22 Here, too, they expected extensive immigration of Han Chinese from the interior to raise the productivity of agriculture while binding the region more closely to the center. First military colonists cleared the land and searched for water supplies, while they built roads to link the oases together. Then civilian colonists followed, supported by state grants of tools, seed, cattle, and tax-free land grants. This policy of subsidizing civilian immigration, another example of yi ju liang de, relieved population pressure on poor lands of the interior while ensuring permanent control of the newly developed lands in the west. Merchants came after the military and civilian settlers to provide for their needs, and a money economy developed around the settlers and their towns. These examples show that the Qing officials could carry out significant developmental policies in selected regions of the empire.

Yet despite these powerful capabilities, the Qing state was losing control of many aspects of economic exchange by the end of the eighteenth century. Against many examples of successful projects to relieve famine or settle new lands, we can place equally dramatic evidence of corruption and local oppression. For local officials, the potential for abuse was just as strong as the potential for beneficial action. Each was balanced depending on the degree of superior official supervision and local political incentives. A powerful provincial governor like Chen Hongmou could crack down on local laxness and abuse, but other governors might be less determined, or less capable. Despite extensive controls, the enormous paper flow of the bureaucracy by its very nature obstructed clear lines of communication and control, leaving the way open for abuse. In 1781, for example, a provincial treasurer and his cronies in the northwest province of Gansu took advantage of an innovation in famine relief policy to line their own pockets. After considerable discussion, the state had decided to allow local officials in this poor province to collect contributions in silver by local merchants in exchange for examination degrees. The silver funds could then be used for famine relief. Silver, unlike grain, did not rot in granaries, and it allowed flexible allocation in response to the peasants’ needs. But silver was so fungible that few could resist the temptation to misuse it. The provincial officials involved in this scheme diverted the silver contribution funds into

22 James A Millward, Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity,& Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759-1864 (Stanford, 1998); Perdue, "China Marches West" 321 their own pockets, and took huge amounts of wealth with them when they left the province for other posts. They were only discovered by accident, when the outbreak of a rebellion in Gansu forced the new governor to investigate closely the provincial accounts. In this case, a policy designed to have positive developmental effects by directing mercantile capital to a poor frontier region only ended up recycling the silver back into the hands of greedy southern officials.

I would argue that a key turning point in the effectiveness of the imperial bureaucracy occurred around the middle of the eighteenth century, just as frontier expansion ended. The end to military challenges on the frontier let much dynamism ebb out of the bureaucracy. Its incentive to reform itself declined, and the will to control abuses slackened. There is, therefore, a connection between the completion of frontier expansion in the northwest and China’s numerous troubles with social order in the nineteenth century.

The Qing state was only sporadically, not comprehensively developmental. Many of its projects were designed to ensure the security of poor regions, so that heavy attacks of famine would not touch off revolts, and so that military forces could obtain subsistence from local markets. Northwest China was an especially significant site of state intervention, because the expanding Qing empire needed to send armies through the region, and gain supplies from it, on their way to battle the Mongols farther west. The northwest, though poor, did generate innovation in policies toward the economy. Chen Hongmou devised innovative methods of agricultural production and mobilization for military needs when he served as governor of Shaanxi, as did other provincial governors and governors-general.

The end of this expansion in the mid-eighteenth century, and the end of the frontier wars, meant that both the incentives for innovation and the means of control slackened. Now there was not such a crying need to press agrarian resources out of the poor peasantry, and conversely, local abuse of the peasantry did not threaten to undermine the security of the entire empire. Paradoxically, the great system of price stabilizing granaries expanded to its greatest extent in the late eighteenth century, but the problems of corruption, peculation of official funds, false reporting, and neglect of grain storage expanded along with it. In the nineteenth century, despite some sporadic exceptions, these endemic weaknesses of the granary system would undermine the entire effectiveness of famine relief, allowing severe outbreaks of peasant revolt.

322 Why The End of Frontier Expansion Slowed the Dynamism of the Qing State

Many historians have argued that the competitive European state system established in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries generated the process of state building, military mobilization, and commercial growth that fueled imperial expansion.23 They have also argued that this feature of European state-building distinguishes the political economy of Europe radically from China, which was an “agrarian empire” concerned with provisioning its people, and not in aggrandizing its power against other states. R. Bin Wong, for example, finds greater concern for the welfare of the peasant population in China than in Europe, but little interest in mercantilist policies of increasing state revenue to support military competition.24 In this case, he diverges from his general case for similarities between China and Europe and focuses on a large, long-standing difference.

By contrast, I would argue here too for plausible similarities between China and Europe during the period of Qing frontier expansion. From the early seventeenth to the mid- eighteenth centuries, the Qing empire was also engaged in a competitive state building process as it pushed its borders outward in a series of military campaigns. During this expansionary period, the Qing rulers initiated administrative innovations that built an increasingly centralized and coordinated bureaucracy which used mercantile and agrarian resources actively for economic development to serve its security needs.

As examples of institutional innovation before the nineteenth century focused on economic reform, we can cite the creation of the Grand Council, the central information gathering mechanism of the empire, as a response to the demands for communication during the frontier wars; the comprehensive mapping of the empire contracted to the Jesuits using new geodesic technology from Europe; the debates in the 1730s and 1740s over how to use markets to provide grain for the evernormal granaries; fiscal reforms under the Yongzheng emperor [r. 1722-35] that rationalized local tax collection; the development of a merchant trading system under official guidance in the northwest in the early eighteenth century, which shows some similarities to the European chartered trading companies; collaboration between officials and merchants to promote commercial penetration of the northwest frontier; and active investment in agricultural reclamation, including moving large populations and building an infrastructure

23 William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000 (Chicago 1982 ); Charles Tilly, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, N.J., 1975) 24 Wong, China Transformed ; Wong, R. Bin. "The Search for European Differences and Domination in the Early Modern World: A View from Asia." American Historical Review 107, no. 2 (2002): 447-469. 323 to support agrarian productivity.25 These were all creative changes that improved the ability of the imperial state to manage flows of information, trade, and commodities in response to pressures of harvests, populations, and security threats. In each case, the innovations came from the demand of the frontier regions for security, and the needs of the military commanders for adequate supplies. The contrast between an “agrarian empire” and a “competitive state system” is too overdrawn, and too static, to capture this dynamic.

European industrialization, in England and even more so on the continent, also depended on a dynamic generated by military competition. John Brewer points to the fiscal demands generated by England’s numerous eighteenth-century wars, which led to the establishment of a national debt. Ken Alder describes the important impact of military engineering in France in constructing the basis of a standardized system of mass production.26 We may find it uncomfortable to accept Werner Sombart’s argument that war is inseparable from capitalism, but a good case can be made that these two state undertakings are causally, not just casually, linked.27

Thus in their political economy, as well as in their ecology, China and Europe were following parallel lines for a time in the early modern period. The delimitation of a fixed border with Russia and the elimination of the Zunghar Mongol state in the mid-eighteenth century, however, fundamentally changed the Chinese political economy of state building, while Europeans continued to invest in their wars. David Kaiser, for example, has shown how European rulers continually used interstate wars from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries to achieve their political goals of centralization, homogenization, and simplification.28 Chinese rulers, in their own eyes, had finished their project by 1760.

Ironically, the balance began to shift just as the Qing project reached its zenith, bearing out the prophecy from the Book of Changes: “When the sun is at its peak, it begins to set [ri zhong ze ze].”29 China’s increasing ecological and political difficulties in the early nineteenth century included floods and famine, peasant uprisings on the frontiers, opium smuggling, in

25 On the granary debate, see Helen Dunstan, "The autocratic heritage and China’s political future: a view from the Qing," East Asian History 12 (1996); On frontier trade, Perdue, "China Marches West" ; Wang Xi and Lin Yongkuang, Qingdai Xibei Minzu Maoyishi (Beijing, 1991). On the Grand Council, see Beatrice S. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mid-Ch’ing China, 1723-1820 (Berkeley, 1991); On the Yongzheng tax reforms, see Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate’s Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth- Century Ch’ing China (Berkeley, 1984) 26 Ken Alder, Engineering the Revolution: Arms and Enlightenment in France, 1763-1815 (Princeton, N. J., 1997); John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688-1783 (Cambridge, Mass., 1990 ) 27 Werner Sombart, Krieg und Kapitalismus (New York, 1975 [1913]) 28 David Kaiser, Politics and War: European Conflict from Philip II to Hitler (Cambridge, 1990) 29 Cited in Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York, 1990 ). p.137 324 addition to foreign pressure for trade privileges culminating in the Opium War. The bureaucracy still had its share of energetic officials, who looked back to Chen Hongmou as a model, but they could not reverse the trend of decline. Wei Yuan, the great historian and advocate of military reform, drew his inspiration for resistance to the West from the eighteenth-century frontier wars of expansion, the “savage wars of peace” that had defined the empire’s limits. If only the vigorous spirit of that time could be revived, he felt, China could ward off the foreign threat. Thus even after its conclusion, the period of expansion inspired visions of restoration and recovery of the empire’s former greatness.

A brief survey will indicate the significant impact of frontier expansion on political and economic developments. There were two critical turning points in the relationship of the imperial Chinese state to frontier defense in the early modern period: the “turn away from the sea” in the 1430s-1440s which ended the ocean voyages of the Yongle era, and the decade 1750-1760, when the final defeat of the Zunghar Mongols by the Qing brought Central Eurasia under Qing and Russian control. Over these three centuries, the imperial rulers reoriented their primary targets of expansion away from the south coast toward the interior of the Eurasian continent. In the sixteenth century, the Ming rulers established a defensive barrier in the northwest, known as the Great Wall, but still conducted substantial trade on the south coast, importing large quantities of Latin American silver to fuel their commercial economy.

After the Manchus conquered Beijing in 1644, their armies moved south against the retreating Ming state, then against the Three Feudatory generals of the Southwest from 1674-1681, taking Taiwan and putting down local resistance in 1684. They then expanded to the northwest against the Western Mongol leader Galdan [1690-1697], invaded Kokonor and Tibet from 1720 to 1724, and completed the campaigns that conquered Xinjiang from 1756 to 1760. They had three essential problems to solve -- military, logistical, and diplomatic – which had never been successfully solved by any previous Chinese dynasty. Militarily, they gained Mongol allies who provided them with cavalry forces and large supplies of horses, essential for warfare in the steppe. The Manchus established kinship connections with the Mongols through systematic intermarriage policies in order to win them over, they captured a Yuan dynasty seal from one Mongol Khan, giving them the right to claim legitimate descent from Chinggis Khan’s empire, and they gave food supplies to starving refugee Mongols in return for submission to Qing control.

325 The Qing overcame the logistical barrier by transporting large amounts of grain into Central Eurasia to feed Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol forces for years at a time. This required a huge mobilization, drawing on agrarian surpluses of the poor northwestern provinces, textiles from the lower Yangzi, and transport vehicles, horses, donkeys, mules, and camels from all over North China. At the same time, the evernormal granary system relieved shortages within the empire that might impede this resource extraction project.

On the diplomatic front, the Qing not only won over most of the Mongol Khans, but also negotiated a treaty with the Russians to delimit their border, and prevent the Russians from supporting the Zunghar Mongol Khans, while they also intervened in the politics of the Buddhist establishment in Tibet, Kokonor, and Inner Mongolia, sometimes by force, to gain support from the religious hierarchy.

Meanwhile, the state neglected Southeast Asia, while European colonizers moved in. The large civilian Chinese merchant colonies throughout Southeast Asia had to arrange for their own protection without backing from the Qing state. Often they became the agents of Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial powers: tax collectors and local elites inserted between Europeans and the native populations.30 They helped the penetration of European colonialism, and they did not identify with the Chinese imperial state. They did, however, frequently travel back to the imperial coast to conduct trade, get married, or to retire and be buried there. The “overseas” Chinese were never completely cut off from their ancestral roots, even though the state itself refused to take responsibility for them while they were abroad.

The result was a successful reorientation of the empire away from the coast, completing an imperial project that had failed for centuries. The Qianlong emperor could boast that he had achieved something that none of his predecessors could do: ending the millennial-long threat from the Central Eurasian steppe. When he met Lord Macartney in 1793, and told him that the empire “possess[ed] all things in prolific abundance and lack[ed] no product within his borders,” he was not expressing a deep-seated Chinese sense of xenophobia, but boasting of a very recent achievement. He was also not telling the complete truth. Before the mid- eighteenth century, China had lacked two essential products for her security and economy: horses and silver. Now, with the defeat of the Mongols, horses were no longer a problem, but the empire still needed silver.31

30 Philip A. Kuhn, The homeland : thinking about the history of Chinese overseas. (Canberra, 1997) 31 Robert B. Marks, The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative (Lanham, MD., 2002). p.114; Waley-Cohen, "Western Technology," 326 The docile Mongols and Kazakhs provided huge numbers of mounts from the steppe, while the flourishing south coastal export trade generated the “great sucking sound” that drew in the silver supplies of the world. China was at least equal, if not superior, to Europe, in many measures of economic productivity, popular welfare, and social equality. The emperor was indeed complacent, but he had not deluded himself about the state of the world.

But after 1760, some dynamism seems to have gone out of the system. The flexibility of the empire, its ability to react to external shocks and take advantage of new opportunities, seemed to have declined, so that while Japan could react rapidly to the appearance of Western steamships in her harbor in 1854, Chinese officials could not mount a unified response to the Opium War of 1839-1842. But the source of Chinese weakness, complacency, and rigidity, like the Industrial Revolution itself, was late and recent, not deeply rooted in her traditional culture.

My explanation of the decline of China and the rise of Europe in the nineteenth century is based on contingent timing: the British happened to arrive on the South China coast with their demands to expand the opium trade after the 1780s, just shortly after Qing troops had achieved their great victories in the Northwest and welcomed back the last of the Mongols to “return” to imperial control: the Torghuts, who left Russian service on the lower Volga and arrived on the Qing frontier in 1776. Comparing the British to the Mongols they had just defeated, the Qing could hardly see them as a serious threat. At the same time, domestic tensions within the empire, especially exhaustion of cultivable land in frontier peripheries, causing social unrest that demanded the attention of the state, made it unable to respond quickly to the threat from the coast.

The Qing had learned a lot from its northwest experience, and attempted to apply the policies that succeeded against the Mongols to its domestic and south coastal challenges. But strategies designed for Central Eurasian wars were appropriate neither for the mountainous terrain of the interior nor for warding off the sea nomads of the south. Aside from the timing, the kind of military and diplomatic experience gained on the northwestern frontier generated inappropriate responses for the new challenges on different terrain. It was thus a combination of logically independent elements, casually but not causally connected, that brought down China’s last dynasty. The European Sonderweg, in Peter Sieferle’s words, resulted from a “highly improbable constellation” of factors each of which in isolation would have been insufficient to create a century of domination of the world. Likewise, none of the causes of the Industrial Revolution

327 and European imperial expansion could have taken effect independently of their global repercussions. By examining China’s own Sonderweg during this period, especially the interplay between economic development and frontier expansion, we can throw more light on the evolution of Europe, and of the world in general.

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330 The Authors

Martina Eglauer studied sinology, anthropology and German language in Munich, Aarhus (Denmark) and Chengdu (China). She obtained her Ph.D. in Sinology at the University of Munich where she teaches Chinese culture and history. Her main fields of interest are Chinese philosophy and social history. Her publications include books on the philosophers Zhang Dongsun and Hu Shi and on family and household in late imperial China.

Jürg Helbling (1954) studied anthropology, philosophy and modern history at University of Zurich, where he has obtained his Ph.D. in anthropology (1984) and his postdoctoral degree in 1990. Between 1985 and 1987 he has conducted a field research in the Philippines and published a book on the economy and social structure of the Alangan-Mangyan of Mindoro. His main fields of interest are ecology and economics (resource management, production strategies, political economy, institutional and evolutionary economics), politics (war and peace in tribal societies, civil wars, power and kinship relations), history of theories in anthropology and the social sciences as well as environmental history. He is professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Zurich and lecturer on environmental history at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.

Raimund Th. Kolb is professor of Sinology (History) at the University of Würzburg. His main research interests in Chinese history pertain to agriculture and environment, the lower strata of society and the urban underworlds in Late Imperial and Republican times. Kolb's publications include a study of migratory locust plagues during Ming and Qing times and the agriculture of Early China

Peter C. Perdue is T. T. and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Asian Civilizations and Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He teaches courses on Chinese history and civilization, Chinese social and economic history, the Silk Road, and historical methodology. His publications include: Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500-1850 A.D., (Harvard University Press,1987); "Military Mobilization in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century China, Russia, and Mongolia”, published in Modern Asian Studies in 1996, and "Boundaries, Maps, and Movement: Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian Empires in Early Modern Central Eurasia", International History Review, June, 1998. He has lived in Japan, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China for extended periods of time, and recently spent time in Moscow doing archival research. He has traveled to China, Russia, and Chinese Central Asia several times. His current interests focus on environmental change, ethnicity, and the relationship between long-term economic change and military conquest in the Chinese and Russian empires. His forthcoming manuscript from Harvard University Press, entitled “China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia, 1600 – 1800” combines these perspectives into an integrated account of the Chinese and Russia conquest of Siberia and Central Eurasia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Rolf Peter Sieferle studied history, political science and sociology in Heidelberg and Konstanz. He finished his Ph.D in 1977 and his postdoctoral degree in 1984 and taught at the Universities of Konstanz and Mannheim. Since 2000 he is professor of history at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). His main fields of interest are environmental history, world history and history of ideas and he has published several books on these subjects. Since 1995 he is responsible for the historical research activities of the Breuninger Stiftung, focusing on the project“Europe’s special course”.

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