Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T11:28:02.509Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Economic Philosophy and Political Economy

from Part I - Before 1000

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2022

By
Richard von Glahn
Edited by
Debin Ma  and
Richard von Glahn
Debin Ma
Affiliation:
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
Richard von Glahn
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Get access

Summary

The genesis of Chinese political economy can be traced to the Warring States era (453–221 bce), which was marked on one hand by rapid economic progress (the spread of iron metallurgy, advances in agricultural productivity, the invention of coinage, and the emergence of a private merchant class) and on the other hand by the rise of autocratic states (accompanied by the centralization of political power and mass mobilization for war). The economic principles and policies that later shaped the formation of the first unified empires – what I will designate the militarist–physiocratic state – were enunciated by leading ministers of the most successful autocratic states, such as Li Kui in Wei and Shang Yang in Qin, and set down in works such as The Book of Lord Shang and Han Fei Zi.

Keywords

political economyfiscal statemercantilismphysiocracyfarming habitusequal-field systemwell-field systemmerchantstaxationprovidential state
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Economic History of China , pp. 166 - 202
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Chin, Tamara, Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic Imagination (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Asia Center, 2014).Google Scholar
Graham, A.C., “The ‘Nung-chia’ 農家 or ‘School of the Tillers’ and the Origins of Peasant Utopianism in China,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 42.1 (1979), 66–100.Google Scholar
Jichuang, Hu, A Concise History of Chinese Economic Thought (Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1988).Google Scholar
Jichuang, Hu 胡寄窗, Zhongguo jingji sixiang shi 中國經濟思想史, 3 vols. (Shanghai, Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1962–1988).Google Scholar
Osamu, Kanaya 金谷治, Kanshi no kenkyū 管子の研究 (Tokyo, Iwanami shoten, 1987).Google Scholar
Lévi, Jean (trans), La dispute sur le sel et le fer (Paris, Belles Lettres, 2010).Google Scholar
Lewis, Mark, Writing and Authority in Early China (Albany, SUNY Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Zhixian, Li 李志贤 (Lee Chee Hiang), Yang Yan jiqi liangshuifa yanjiu 杨炎及其两税法研究 (Beijing, Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2002).Google Scholar
Lin, Cheng, Peach, Terry, and Fang, Wang (eds.), The History of Ancient Chinese Economic Thought (London, Routledge, 2014).Google Scholar
Lin, Cheng, Peach, Terry, and Fang, Wang (eds.), The Political Economy of the Han Dynasty and Its Legacy (London, Routledge, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tatsuo, Masubuchi 増淵龍夫, Chūgoku kodai no shakai to kokka 中國古代の社會と國家 (Tokyo, Kōbundō, 1960).Google Scholar
Nylan, Michael, “Assets Accumulating: Sima Qian’s Perspectives on Moneymaking, Virtue, and History,” in van Ess, Hans, Lomová, Olga, and Schaab-Hanke, Dorothee (eds.), Views from Within, Views from Beyond: Approaches to the Shiji as an Early Work of Historiography (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015), pp. 131–68.Google Scholar
Pines, Yuri, The Book of Lord Shang (New York, Columbia University Press, 2016).Google Scholar
Sabattini, Elisa, and Schwermann, Christian (eds.), Between Command and Market: Economic Thought and Practice in Early China (Leiden, Brill, 2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterckx, Roel, “Ideologies of the Peasant and the Merchant in Warring States China,” in Pines, Yuri, Goldin, Paul R., and Kerr, Martin (eds.), Ideology of Power and Power of Ideology in Early China (Leiden, Brill, 2015), pp. 211–48.Google Scholar
Swann, Nancy Lee, Food and Money in Ancient China: The Earliest Economic History of China to a.d. 25 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1950).Google Scholar
von Glahn, Richard, “Modalities of the Fiscal State in Imperial China,” Journal of Chinese History 4.1 (2020): 1–29.Google Scholar
Song, Wu 吴松 et al., Zhongguo nongshang guanxi sixiang shigang 中国农商关系思想史纲 (Kunming, Yunnan daxue chubanshe, 2000).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×