世界经济史中的近世江南:比较与综合观察——回应黄宗智先生

Late Imperial Jiangnan in World Economic History: Comparative and Integrative ——A Discussion with Professor Philip Huang

本文对江南农业和纺织业的劳动生产率及劳动者收入提出了新的估计 ,并与同时期的英格兰进行了比较 ,充分证明了《大分流》一书提出的观点。本文也加强了《大分流》中关于长江三角洲妇女在手工业生产和家庭经济中的作用的论点 ,表明可以从三个不同的起点进行分析并得出同样的答案 ,证明了黄宗智 1 990年著作中对这些现象的解释依据了一系列概念错误和统计错误 ;当统计方面的问题得到纠正后 ,黄的证据实际上支持了本文的结论。因而 ,对于近世中国最发达地区的经济能力的水平和趋势 ,本文给出了比以前更大的确定性 ,扩展了对 1 6— 1 8世纪欧亚大陆一些最重要的经济现象的理解 ,如手工业的发展、劳动的密集度、对劳动及消费的新的“现代”观念的发展 ,以及在农业竭力供养水平空前的人口、而很多区域可耕地接近极限时 ,农业强化带来的成就和问题。本文综合了最新的研究成果 ,论述范围远远超过《大分流》一书 ,包括对现代早期欧洲工作模式及时间利用方面的变化的研究和对德川时期日本的研究 ,这使我们得以把近世江南放在一个符合全球历史的背景中 ,而不是衡量它在多大程度上背离了根本不同的当代世界的标准。

This article corrects a number of errors in a critique of The Great Divergence published by Philip Huang in a previous issue of this journal, while also moving beyond that book. It develops new estimates of labor productivity and worker incomes in Jiangnans agricultural and textile sectors, and compares them with England at the same time; the results fully confirm the arguments made (based on other evidence) in the book. It also reinforces the books arguments about the role of women in craft production and the household economy in the Delta, showing that it is possible to work from three different starting points and converge on the same answers, and that Huangs interpretation of these phenomena in his 1990 book is based on a series of conceptual and statistical errors; once the math is corrected, Huangs evidence actually supports Pomeranzs conclusions. As a result, the article gives us much greater certainty than we have ever had before about levels and trends in economic performance in the most advanced region of late imperial China, and extends our understanding of some of the most important economic phenomena in Eurasia during the 16 th —18 th centuries: the growth of handicraft industry, the intensification of labor and development of new “modern” attitudes toward work and consumption, and the achievements and problems of intensive agriculture as it struggled to support unprecedented levels of population and approached, in many areas, the limits of available land. It also incorporates, to a greater extent than The Great Divergence did, recent research on work patterns and changes in the use of time in early modern Europe, and in Tokugawa Japan. This enables us to place late imperial Jiangnan in a context appropriate to its era in global history, rather than measuring it against the standards of a radically different contemporary world. Migration of Shizu to Cities and the Social Changes: from the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty$$$$ Han Sheng Politics of the shizu (the aristocratic clans of medieval Chinas Southern and Northern dynasties)are central to studies of this era. The collapse of their hegemony gave rise to a sea change in the state and economic systems during the mid Tang and the Song dynasties. In the Wei Jin period and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, shizu , due to their control of the countryside and their overwhelming social and cultural power, were the strongest political powers. By the Tang dynasty, the state had grown strong enough to bring the national culture under its control. Cities thrived into political, economic and cultural centers and drew in shizu members from the countryside. With the weakening and obsolescence of shizu hegemony over both rural and urban areas, a social transformation took place bearing the most far reaching significance since the replacement of feudalism by imperial administrations.