Original author | [English] Gregory Clark
excerpt | Xu Yuedong
In fact, the British industrial revolution is not as sudden as it seems on the surface. While the population has increased significantly, the trade prospects with raw material producers such as the United States are also very good, making Britain's slightly higher economic growth rate around 1800 seem like a huge economic change overnight. In fact, strictly speaking, Britain in 1850 did not lead too many other competitors such as the United States and the Netherlands.
The accelerated development of productivity comes from the supply side. Some incentives have been around for generations, but people respond very differently. Because the former industrial UK had a stable private ownership system, those incentives naturally became the driving force. The characteristics of the population are constantly changing through Darwin's natural choices. Britain was able to become a pioneer because its long, peaceful history dates back at least 1200 AD and even earlier. Middle-class culture has been spread to every corner of society through biological mechanisms.
"Farewell to Alms", [English] Gregory Clark, translated by Hong Shimin, Ideal Country | Guangxi Normal University Press July 2020 edition
But the above observations still raise several questions: Why would the same conditions not allow the industrial revolution to happen at the same time, even earlier in Japan, the Yangtze River Delta or Bangladesh? What's special about Europe? Why did the industrial revolution happen in the small UK with a population of only 6 million in 1760, instead of Japan, where 31 million people live in a complex market economy, or China, where 270 million people? , Edo ,
(now Tokyo) with a population of one million in the 18th century was one of the largest cities in the world at that time.
In recent years, famous works such as Pomeranz
(Pomeranz)
(The Great Divergence)
have made this challenge even more difficult. Pomulan pointed out that most of the densely populated areas of China (such as the Yangtze River Delta) are similar to Northwest Europe in the 1800s, such as "the degree of commercialization, the degree of marketization of commodities, land and labor, market economic growth, and changes in household fertility and labor allocation that are more adaptable to economic growth." He further argued that these market development and specialization models themselves are not the way to "industrial breakthrough". The two economic structures are still steadily trapped in the "dead end of the original industry" and there will be growth, but growth can only expand the population and cannot improve the standard of living.
Penmulan therefore insists that the industrial revolution is not a continuation of a continuous development process
(this is the view of this book)
, but an accident that suddenly deviates from the stagnant balance of the pre- industrial era . He believes that the source of this accident in Europe lies in two geographical coincidences - coal and colonies. For Pomuran, the key to preventing rapid growth of the world's economic core lies in the ecological aspect. Before 1800 AD, all societies had to produce resources - food, energy, and raw materials on a fixed area of land, based on renewable principles. "Advanced Organic Technology" in Europe and Asia developed to its natural limit in 1800. To significantly increase the output of energy-intensive materials (such as iron)
- which is the characteristic of the industrial revolution - there is only one possibility: discover new sources of energy or raw materials outside the system.
Europe can take this step because there are coal mines nearby the population town. In addition, it has vast and empty American land for use, temporarily lifting ecological restrictions with food and raw materials throughout the continent. These geographical advantages—not differences in innovation potential—are the reasons for Europe’s success and Asia’s failure.
Pomurland believes that China and Japan are almost indistinguishable from the UK in terms of land, labor and capital markets in 1800. Xue Hua
(Carol Shiue)
and Keller
(Wofgang Keller)
recently conducted research on the cereal market from 1770 to 1794, and the results confirmed that the integration of the European cereal market is only slightly better than that of China. Figure 13.1 shows the relationship between grain prices and distances in the UK and the Yangtze River Delta from 1770 to 1794. The UK is well integrated, and the prices of grains in any two locations are more correlated, which means that the grains are moving more freely in the local market in the UK. But the gap is very limited.For example, in two places 50 miles apart, the price correlation in the UK
(maximum 1) is 0.88, and in China it is 0.77. In both markets, grains can be traded quite far away.
But Pomuran is also trapped in the bondage of Adam Smith, which was commented on in the previous article. He believes that unless there are other external factors interfering, the two conditions of market and incentive mechanism alone are enough to drive rapid economic growth. According to his inference, if the UK grows, China, which has a similar market size and a clear definition of property rights, is still in place, then the problem must be due to several external constraints, such as geographical conditions. But when discussing the Industrial Revolution, I have already emphasized that the Industrial Revolution is not the product of Adam Smith’s so-called perfection of the market, but the result of people’s different responses to long-standing market incentives.
In these aspects, if we observe the chain effects caused by the emergence of active middle-class societies—especially the level of education and interest rates—the UK did lead Asia in 1800.
Recent studies on the Qing Dynasty
(1644-1911)
and the Tokugawa era
(1603-1868)
both highlight the stagnant and rigid society that both are not recognized by traditional thinking. In particular, despite being isolated from European development before 1800 AD - distance and government policies are the reasons - they seem to have changed the same way as Northwest Europe. Between 1600 and 1800, the education level in China and Japan was significantly improved. Sooner or later these countries will have their own industrial revolutions. Cotton was not introduced to Japan until the late Middle Ages, and it was not planted before the Tokugawa era. But by the end of the 17th century, although Japan was still an isolated island on the sea at that time, the domestic cotton textile industry had already emerged with Osaka as the center. Although it is still a manual industry, it has been able to obtain sufficient hydraulic power, allowing Japan to encounter unexpected innovations in the industrial revolution Britain.
However, although these societies are also on the road to the industrial revolution, they are moving slower than Britain, and by the end of the country-locking policy at the end of the 19th century, they are not as far away as Britain.
1800 What was the situation of the middle class in Asia in 2018?
1800 In terms of social characteristics, Japan was the closest Asian economy to the United Kingdom. Although Japan may develop its own industrial revolution in isolation, when it entered the Tokugawa era in 1603, the situation in Japanese society was more similar to medieval Britain than in 1760. For example, the interest rate was still relatively high at that time. In the mid-17th century, the loan interest rate collected by Japanese daimyo
(the highest official of each territory)
was 12%-15%, even guaranteed loans. The banking system developed and formed in the late 17th century set the average interest rate for loans with physical guarantees such as houses to be 15%, but borrowers with better credit may be able to get lower interest rates.
Tokugawa In the early days of the Shogunate era, the Japanese seemed to have a relatively low literacy level. At that time, only monks were literate, and written records were only used to record important matters such as land holding. As for arithmetic ability, from the records of the Portuguese Jesuit priest Lu Ruohan
(Joao Rodrigues, or translated by Juao Rodrigues)
1577 to 1610, we know that the arithmetic ability of Japanese society is similar to that of the medieval or Roman world. When talking about the absence of plagues and other diseases in Japan and even ordinary people live long, Lu Ruohan wrote to the message provider that swears: "In the past, there was a man in the northern region who lived to be 700 years old. We met a reliable Christian and saw him, and many other non-Christians also knew him... And in our time, there was a brave man living in Dilu Town in Feiqian Country. He was 130 years old and was still playing chess." But by the Tokugawa era, just like the situation in the UK, literacy began to spread steadily through social classes. By 1700, the number of printed books in each edition had reached 10,000 books, and even profitable libraries appeared to meet the needs of the public. In the 19th century, the frequency of setting "Terakoya"
(terakoya, a place for teaching children's reading, writing and mathematics in rural areas)
is getting higher and higher. Before 1804, there were 558 such schools; 3,050 were established between 1804 and 1843, and 6,691 more were added from 1844 to 1867.Terakoya made outstanding contributions. By the time of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the literacy rate for Japanese men was estimated to be 40% to 50%, while for women, between 13% and 17%. However, this ratio is still much worse than the literacy rate in Northwest Europe on the eve of the Industrial Revolution.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, India, China and North Korea also retained more of the medieval Europe or the ancient world than Britain on the eve of the Industrial Revolution.
Recently, scholars have been quarreling with the relative living standards between India and Britain around 1800. This does not tell us who has a higher level of technological development and who has more growth potential in the UK and India - it is obvious to the Malthus economy discussed in the first part of this book. However, India's wage report before 1856 AD was insufficient to answer the question of which of the higher development level of Indian and British society at that time.
In the UK, we have information on actual salary since 1209, and there is even more sufficient information after 1275. In the 18th century, hundreds of towns and towns in the UK had wage information. Church members, town legal persons, county officials responsible for maintaining bridges or guarding prisons, London Kilt, royal family, Westminster Abbey and other large religious institutions, charities, Oxford and Cambridge universities, and prominent private households will all apply for wages. Therefore, we can not only calculate wages, but also calculate wages, weekly working hours, and wages in different places. After 1800 years, we can even calculate daily working hours.
In comparison, India, whose population was at least 10 times that of Britain in 1800, had an incredible record of wages, prices and population before the 19th century.
If the reports of the Dutch, British East India Company and British travelers are excluded, then the actual wage reports that can be obtained between 1200 and 1856 are only the " Akbari"
(Ain-I-Akbari)
This record written by the Mughal king Akba in 1595, Pashasarithi
(Parthasarithi)
used in the Tamil Nadu archives from 1768 and 1800 to 1802, as well as the information left by Marathi in Pune around 1820. The records of medieval Britain in 1209 are much more detailed than those of India in the 18th century. The fact that
lacks document records reflects that the literacy level of Indian society in the 19th century is probably no higher than that in medieval Britain. The census conducted by India as late as 1901 showed that the literacy rate for men at that time was only 9.8%, and the lower for women was 0.6%.
There is another evidence that the technology in southern India did not advance or retreat during the pre-industrial period, which is the construction of the region. Vijaynagar
(Vijaynagar)
, the capital of the Vijaynagar Empire, which dominated the entire southern part of India from 1336 to 1660, was abandoned after being looted in 1563. The ruins are now the site of Hampi village
(Hampi)
, occupying a full 9 square miles, and the villagers are all curled up in a simple residence between the spectacular stone arcades and temples. Although the scale of the remains and its exquisite decorative patterns are impressive, the complexity of its architectural skills is much simpler than that of European architecture in the late Middle Ages. The Roman 40,000 Pantheon, completed in 125 AD, has a dome of 43 meters in diameter, and the Florence Cathedral dome, completed in 1436, has a span of 42 meters. The design and construction technology required by these buildings is beyond the reach of Vijayanagar's architecture.
0 The ruins of Vijayanagal Empire (also translated as "Vijayanagal Empire")
1800, the social complexity of China seemed to be between Japan and India. American agricultural economic expert Bukai
(John Lossing Buck)
1929 to 1933 showed that the literacy rate of Chinese men was about 30%. Since the popularity of school education did not seem to change between 1882 and 1930, this ratio may be similar to the male literacy rate in 1882. This observation made Luo Youzhi
(Evelyn Rawski)
infer that the late Qing Dynasty in China was a "developed and complex society... with distinct modern characteristics in many aspects."However, China's "development" and "complexity" in the 19th century still only reached the level of Britain in the 17th century.
The main channel of mass education in the Qing Dynasty was the rural-level charitable schools. According to Luo Youzhi's research, since the number of such schools almost doubled between 1750 and 1800 and 1850 and 1900, the popularity of education in the late 18th century is likely to be only half of that in the late 19th century, that is, the male literacy rate in 1800 may be as low as 15%. This also means that although China's education level was quite high in the past industrial society, compared with the education level in Northwest Europe when the industrial revolution was on the rise, China still couldn't match it.
Bu Kai found that the average return rate of land across China was about 8.5% from 1921 to 1925, indicating that China at that time was more like early society than Britain or the Netherlands in 1800. Another study that looked at the rate of return on land in South Korea from 1740 to 1900 also found that the rate of return rarely exceeds 10% during this period.
Therefore, the Asian rivals of Britain in 1800, whether Japan, China or India, seemed to be behind in establishing a middle-class society. However, these societies
(or at least Japan and China)
are not as stagnant as Adam Smith or Malthus thought. They also evolved in the same way as Northwest Europe, at least in terms of education popularization, but the level of development is not that high.
Why does Asia lag behind Europe?
The previous article emphasized that the social evolution of Britain has a biological basis and is driven by survivors who are elected in a society with stable institutional and established private property rights. This raises the question: Since the property rights of China and Japan have remained stable since a long time ago, why did the same evolutionary process not happen first in China and Japan and produce the same outcome?
Due to the insufficient population data from China and Japan 1,800 years ago, India's data is almost missing, which makes us have to make speculations. However, we can propose two possible explanations.
The first explanation is: Surprisingly, from 1300 to 1750, the Malthus trap seemed to be much tighter on Britain than on Japan or China. Table 13.1 shows the estimated populations of these three countries around 1300 and 1750 years. After 450 years, the population of Britain has only increased slightly, while Japan and China have increased by 4 times and nearly 3 times respectively. Malthus restricts are tightly tied to the UK, but they are relatively relaxed in Asia. Therefore, the electoral pressure faced by former industrial Britain is indeed quite severe.
Part of the reason why China's rapid population growth is that it has always been a society that opens up borders and has continuously migrated from the Central Plains to the west and the sparsely populated areas in the south. Therefore, it is estimated that China's arable land area in 1770 had increased from 62 million acres in 1393 to 15.8 billion acres, which is the main reason for population growth. In contrast, the arable land area in Britain in 1750 was almost the same as in 1300, and there was no land to expand. Japan's population has been able to expand so significantly due to the huge increase in rice production.
The second difference between the UK and China and Japan is that the impact of income on the fertility rates of China and Japan seems to be much lighter than that of the UK. The rich in China and Japan do not seem to be as often as the rich in Britain, bringing the attitude and culture of the lower class to the lower class. Unfortunately, the rich people in these two countries we are observing are hereditary aristocrats - Japanese samurai and Chinese Qing court aristocrats. It would be more helpful to study wealthier civilians, but these data are difficult to find.
In Japan, we can understand its reproductive results through the adoption records of the samurai class. To maintain bloodlines, family leaders who have no children before death or retirement will adopt the adoption method. The samurai we studied are local officials with hereditary positions, with salaries ranging from 50 to 15,000 stone meters. Because 10 stone meters are equivalent to the annual salary of a British worker in the 17th century, it can be seen that these warriors are quite wealthy, even by British standards.
But the proportion of adoption in these families is quite high. Taking Japan's total population grew rapidly as an example, the adoption rate at that time was 26.1%, which means that the fertility rate of the samurai class was the same as that of the rich people in Britain in the 18th century.But the adoption rate of Japanese samurai increased to 36.6% in the 18th century, indicating that the net fertility rate of samurai at that time was comparable to that of civilians who only owned 4 acres of land or a farmhouse in Britain. The adoption rate in the 19th century was even as high as 39.3%. Figure 13.2 shows the relationship between the proportion of Japanese samurai who have children under the knees in each century and wealth, compared with the proportion of Britain in 1620 to 1638. The average wealth of warriors can put them in the highest class in Britain. Therefore, after 1700, their fertility rate was much lower than that of wealthy families in Britain.
Because there is a 55% British men with a net replacement rate of 1 and have a son still alive, this means that 1700 years later, when population growth is stagnant, the samurai class, despite its considerable wealth, has a net replacement rate of only slightly higher than that of the general population of Japan. Because most of the adopted people are young children from multiple samurai families, there was no large number of unattended samurai soldiers flocking to the civilian class in the pre-industrial period.
In China, evidence of the fertility rate of the elite class comes from the genealogy of the royal family of the Qing Empire. This group was a member of the royal family who lived in Beijing from 1644 to 1840. Wang Feng
(Wang Feng)
, Li Zhongqing
(James Lee)
and Kakang Wenlin
(Cameron Campbell)
count the age of birth of the eldest son of this group (according to ten years)
, as well as the total number of children born to each married man over 45 years of life (including monogamous and polygamous men). Figure 13.3 is drawn from these data, which roughly presents the "total fertility rate" of all royal men. This proportion has been declining from around 7% in the early 18th century, with an average of only 4.8% between 1750 and 1849. Although this ratio is higher than that of the pre-industrial era of Chinese men, which is only about 4.2%, the gap is limited. The figure also shows that the total fertility rate of British men
(about 4.75%)
before 1790, and the total fertility rate of rich men
(about 8.1%)
learned from the 17th century will sample. The difference between the two is much more obvious.
From the example of the wealthy class in Japan and China, we can find that in certain specific groups, rich people seem to have a reproductive advantage. However, it is also obvious that their advantages are much weaker than the wealthy people in the pre-industrial era. The information we have at hand is not enough to explain why this difference is happening, but the fact is right in front of us: the continuous impact of the downward flow of Britain in the pre-industrial era is just a ripple for China or Japan.
Therefore, "Why is it Britain? Why is it not China, India or Japan?" This question should be answered like this: China and Japan, due to the stable and long-standing settlement agricultural system, also entered a similar track to Northwest Europe between 1600 and 1800. They are not stagnant societies, but their development process is slower than that of Britain. This may be caused by two important factors - between 1300 and 1750, China and Japan grew faster than Britain; but the population structure of the two countries gave rich people less fertile advantages than Britain. Therefore, we can speculate that Britain's advantage comes from the rapid spread of values that are compatible with economic achievements to every corner of society through culture - even genes - between 1200 and 1800.
This article is excerpted from Gregory Clark's "Farewell to Alms" and published with authorization from the publisher.
excerpt | Xu Yuedong
edit | Li Yang
proofreading | Liu Jun
