The development of the family-based handicraft industry in the Yangzi delta provided supplementary income and employment opportunities to auxiliary family members. But it did not replace subsistence farming as the pri...The development of the family-based handicraft industry in the Yangzi delta provided supplementary income and employment opportunities to auxiliary family members. But it did not replace subsistence farming as the primary method in which peasants made their living, and more importantly, it did not allow China to close the gap in the great divergence with the West. So why didn＇t the cotton-based handicraft industry catapult the Yangzi delta region into the modem era of industrialization？ Why did the handicraft industry merely serve as a supplementary rather than an alternative means of livelihood？ To understand the reasons why the handicraft industry did not transform China into an industrial and urban nation, it is important to examine the constraints in which population growth and land intensification had imposed on the peasants of the delta. These factors combined with the favorable geographical environment and commercial opportunities for trade in other regions, forced peasants to adopt the family-based handicraft industry as a supplementary source of income for survival. While the impact-response model may have suggested that it was the inability of the handicraft spinners and weavers to compete against British machines and the subsequent drop in cotton prices, a China-centered approach advocated by Paul Cohen would suggest domestic factors such as rapid population growth due to changes in taxation policies and the diminishing rate of return in labor, and the insufficient production office and grain may have been the real reasons that prevented the handicraft industry from developing into an alternative for farming.展开更多
文摘The development of the family-based handicraft industry in the Yangzi delta provided supplementary income and employment opportunities to auxiliary family members. But it did not replace subsistence farming as the primary method in which peasants made their living, and more importantly, it did not allow China to close the gap in the great divergence with the West. So why didn＇t the cotton-based handicraft industry catapult the Yangzi delta region into the modem era of industrialization？ Why did the handicraft industry merely serve as a supplementary rather than an alternative means of livelihood？ To understand the reasons why the handicraft industry did not transform China into an industrial and urban nation, it is important to examine the constraints in which population growth and land intensification had imposed on the peasants of the delta. These factors combined with the favorable geographical environment and commercial opportunities for trade in other regions, forced peasants to adopt the family-based handicraft industry as a supplementary source of income for survival. While the impact-response model may have suggested that it was the inability of the handicraft spinners and weavers to compete against British machines and the subsequent drop in cotton prices, a China-centered approach advocated by Paul Cohen would suggest domestic factors such as rapid population growth due to changes in taxation policies and the diminishing rate of return in labor, and the insufficient production office and grain may have been the real reasons that prevented the handicraft industry from developing into an alternative for farming.
