从经济学视角重解“李约瑟之谜”

Review on Needham Paradox in Terms of Economics

人口-资源禀赋的差异是中国和西欧在18世纪后文明分岔,即"李约瑟之谜"产生的原因。人口-资源禀赋的差异促进农业和手工业结合,阻碍市场扩大,限制技术创新。在这样的稳态的小农经济下,即使产生了一定程度的商品化生产和商品经济,但由于其运行规律和资本主义完全相悖,不可能导致工业革命的发生,这正是中国技术创新由领先变为落后的主要原因。当前,中国依然面临资源短缺的威胁,节约资源消耗、实现资源合理利用对于中国实行可持续发展依然具有现实意义。

This paper studies the Needham Paradox in the economic way.It shows that the differences between the endowment of population-resources of China and that of Western Europe are the key factor that drives the civilization diversification between these two regions after 18th century.The differences of the endowment of population-resources encourage the combination of agriculture and handicraft,blocked the expansion of market and restricted technical innovation.In the stable small-scale peasant economy,some commercial production and commodity economy could not lead to industrial revolution because its operating laws were contradictory with capitalism,which is the main reason why China changed from the leading position to backward in technical innovation.Now China is faced with the shortage of resources.Saving resources and utilizing resources effectively has a practical guiding significance to China.