量化历史研究与新知识革命——以财富差距与消费差距的历史研究为例

Quantitative History and New Knowledge Revolution:An Overview of Quantitative Studies on the History of Human Inequality

量化方法在20世纪50、60年代就进入历史研究。但由于缺乏计算机和数据库工具,这种应用一直有限。过去40年里,电脑能力、数据库化、互联网化都突飞猛进,这些变迁带来最近十几年在历史与社会科学领域的知识革命,许多原来无法做的长历史研究今天可以做。量化历史研究不只是用数据说话,也不只是统计检验以前历史学家提出的假说,而是也带来新认知。关于人类不平等的历史研究就是一例。最近十几年里,考古学家、历史学家、经济学家和政治学家关于人类不平等的量化历史研究很多,从中看到,人类从原始社会到半农业、农业、工业、再到现代社会,财富差距一直在上升,尤其是每次技术变革和社会组织方式创新都带来财富不平等的扩大,但是,由身高方差系数所反映的人类消费差距并没有伴随着财富差距的扩大而拉大,消费差距在过去2000多年的历史中并没显著上升。这些研究告诉我们,只要消费差距没有显著恶化,财富差距、收入差距并不可怕。

Quantitative methods were introduced to history research in the late 1950＇ s and the1960＇ s, but due to the limit of computing power and the lack of historical databases, their use failed to expand into the wider historian community. The computer revolution since the early 1980＇ s has changed all of that. As a result, many long-term historical databases covering different countries and continents in various fields have become available at low costs, leading to a boom in quantitative history research and resulting in a historical knowledge revolution over the past decade or so. This article uses the research on the history of human inequality since antiquity as an example to illustrate how quantitative methods have changed histography. The reviewed studies show that from primitive society to agricultural, industrial, and then modern societies, wealth inequality has significantly increased in each step of the way, but consumption inequality has stayed in a narrow range since the horticultural stage of human development.