Chinese-History-in-Economic-Perspective.pdf

Chinese History in Economic Perspective

Page 1 of 203

Preferred Citation: Rawski, Thomas G., and Lillian M. Li, editors Chinese History in Economic Perspective. Berkeley: University of California

Press, c1992 1992. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6489p0n6/

Chinese History in Economic Perspective

Edited By

Thomas G. Rawski and Lillian M. Li

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley · Los Angeles · Oxford

Preferred Citation: Rawski, Thomas G., and Lillian M. Li, editors Chinese History in Economic Perspective. Berkeley: University of California

Press, c1992 1992. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6489p0n6/

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

dan : a measure of weight equal to 100 jin , with local variation.

jin (or catty): a measure of weight, normally equal to 1.3 pounds, with local variation.

mu : a measure of area equal to 0.1647 acre or 0.0666 hectare, with local variation.

shi : a measure of volume for grain (1 shi of milled rice weighed approximately 175–195 pounds); also used interchangeably with dan as a

measure of weight, with local variation. Gansu granaries recorded stocks in jingshi , a measure of volume seven-tenths as large as the cangshi , the

standard granary measure used elsewhere in China. In Wuxi, shi was used to denote a weight of approximately 150 jin .

tael (or liang ): the Chinese ounce, a measure of weight equal to one-sixteenth of a jin ; also one of numerous units of account for uncoined

silver money employed in China before 1932.

yuan (or dollar): refers to silver coinage issued in China from the late nineteenth century and to fiat money of the Republic of China following

the demonetization of silver in 1935.

SOURCES: Han-sheng Chuan and Richard A. Kraus, Mid-Ch'ing Rice Markets and Trade: An Essay in Price History (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 79–

98; Thomas G. Rawski, Economic Growth in Prewar China (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989), p. xv.

― xv ―

PREFACE

This volume is based on papers and discussions from the Workshop and Conference on Economic Methods for Chinese Historical Research sponsored

by the Henry Luce Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Science Foundation and held in Honolulu, Hawaii, in

January 1987 and Oracle, Arizona, in January 1988. In the 1987 workshop, a number of economists who work in economic history were asked to

prepare seminars on broad subjects, such as choice, long-term trends, macroeconomics, international and interregional issues, and economic

institutions, for which the historian-participants had prepared by doing assigned readings. The fact that none of the economists, except Thomas G.

Rawski, were China specialists added an important comparative dimension to the proceedings. The economists were Jon Cohen, University of

Toronto; Peter H. Lindert, University of California, Davis; Donald N. McCloskey, University of Iowa; and Richard Sutch, University of California,

Berkeley. The papers they delivered at this meeting, together with additional material on monetary and labor economics, will be published

separately in a volume entitled Economics and the Historian .

The same group of historians and economists convened at the 1988 conference. This time, however, the historians presented their papers,

which they had written on the basis of guidelines and suggestions from the previous year, and the economists served as the discussants. In addition

to those participants whose papers are included in this volume, I-chun Fan, Bozhong Li, and Guangyuan Zhou also attended the conference. Their

participation and the contributions of the economists are gratefully acknowledged by the editors and authors of this volume.

We would also like to express our gratitude to Julius Rubin, who helped us start the whole project, to two anonymous referees for their

insightful

http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft6489p0n6&chunk.id=0&doc.view=print

11/07/2007

Chinese History in Economic Perspective

Page 2 of 203

― xvi ―

reviews of the entire manuscript, to David Arkush, Philip Kuhn, Susan Naquin, Evelyn S. Rawski, and William T. Rowe for their assistance in revising

the introductory essay, to Shu-jen Yeh for helping to prepare the glossary and the bibliography, and to Eleanor Bennett, Sarah S. Fought, William

Karunaratne, Debbie Kwolek, Patty Huchber, Sharon Wetzel, and Debra Ziolkowski for their invaluable efforts behind the scenes.

― xvii ―

CONTRIBUTORS

Lynda S. Bell is Assistant Professor of History, University of California, Riverside.

Loren Brandt is Associate Professor of Economics, University of Toronto.

Cameron Campbell is with the Graduate Group in Demography, University of Pennsylvania.

Emily Honig is Associate Professor of History, Yale University.

James Lee is Associate Professor of History, California Institute of Technology.

Lillian M. Li is Professor of History, Swarthmore College.

Susan Mann is Professor of History, University of California, Davis.

Peter C. Perdue is Associate Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kenneth Pomeranz is Assistant Professor of History, University of California, Irvine.

Thomas G. Rawski is Professor of Economics and History, University of Pittsburgh.

Barbara Sands is Associate Professor of Economics, University of Arizona.

Guofu Tan is Assistant Professor of Economics, University of British Columbia.

Yeh-chien Wang is Professor of History, Kent State University.

R. Bin Wong is Associate Professor of History, University of California, Irvine.

― 1 ―

INTRODUCTION:

CHINESE HISTORY IN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE

Thomas G. Rawski and Lillian M. Li

Economics and economists tend to bring out strong emotions both in the general public and among (noneconomist) scholars. How often does one

encounter the sentiment, "If economists are so smart, how come they couldn't predict such-and-such [the latest round of inflation, the October '87

stock market crash, etc.]?" Economics has always been a controversial field of study, and economists often exhibit a strong professional affinity for

contentiousness among themselves. Yet, while society might conceivably get along without economists, it would be difficult to imagine a world in

which economics did not play a role, even the mythical world of Robinson Crusoe. Nor can historians avoid the economic aspects of history even

when they would like to do so. Embedded in all their common notions of how history has developed are views, conscious or unconscious, of

economic forces: the prosperity of the Italian city-states prompted the cultural efflorescence of the Renaissance, the Chinese had a rural revolution

because the peasants were so poor, Europeans conducted oceanic explorations because they needed spices, and so forth. But fundamentally,

historians need to know about the material side of history because they are concerned with human welfare, social development, and national

histories. The classic definition of economics, after all, is that it studies the allocation of scarce resources among alternative uses. Therefore,

subjects such as agriculture, money, industry, and trade compel historians' interest for a variety of commendable reasons.

It is our contention, however, that the study of such subjects in economic history has not always employed a true economic approach or

perspective, at least among historians of China. This book is dedicated to the idea that the history of China's economy has been written many times

in many ways but that the economic history of China has not yet been written. This, indeed, is not such a history either, but the essays in this

volume are intended to illus-

― 2 ―

trate how economic history is not the same as the history of an economy, and how an economic perspective involves more than an interest in some

economic topic. Scholarship on China has excelled in studying the economy of China, but has barely begun to do so with a true economic

perspective. The fundamental objective of this volume is to delineate and illustrate the potential contribution of systematically applying an economic

approach to the study of China's economic history.

State of the Field

http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft6489p0n6&chunk.id=0&doc.view=print

11/07/2007

Chinese History in Economic Perspective

Page 3 of 203

Traditional Chinese scholarship did not neglect economic topics. Indeed, in the standard dynastic histories, sections on population, land taxes, and

money, for example, assumed a prominent position. Local histories also treated these topics, as well as listing or describing local products, grain

storage, and the like. A well-functioning economy was the hallmark of a successful dynastic regime, a visible sign of the harmony of heaven, earth,

and man. Economics and morality were linked; a prosperous economy was a sign of the essential morality of the ruler. The model of the economy,

like that of society, was based on the notions of harmony and stability, and not on the desirability of growth and change. The golden age of the past

was one in which men plowed the fields and women wove cloth. Wars and famines signified the disruption of stability. The goal was to restore the

status quo ante, the golden age, not to surpass it, because it could not be surpassed.

In recent decades, a different paradigm, that of Chinese Marxism, has dominated Chinese scholarship. The three broad areas that receive the

most attention from historians in the People's Republic of China are land tenure, foreign imperialism, and the "sprouts of capitalism." In the post-

Mao era, the "Asiatic mode of production" was added to this list. Studies of land tenure are closely linked to issues of servitude and subordination

among China's peasantry in each period of history. Studies of foreign imperialism stress the plundering of China's economic resources by Western

powers and Japan in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the obstacles to the development of a modern economy posed by the unequal

treaties. Studies of the "sprouts of capitalism" focus on the signs of development in China's late imperial, or early modern, economy (roughly since

the mid-sixteenth century), such as the expansion of handicraft production and the freeing of labor in the countryside, but the line of interpretation

has shifted from time to time—sometimes emphasizing the sprouts themselves and, at other times, the smothering of the sprouts. The revival of

interest in Marx's idea of the Asiatic mode of production highlighted the dilemma of Chinese Marxist historians: how to fit Chinese history into the

scheme of world history. Previously discredited by party historians because it tended to suggest that Chinese development did not fit into a unilinear

world pattern, the Asiatic mode attracted renewed attention in the 1980s in part because it helped

― 3 ―

legitimize China's recent economic policies, which may seem to transgress the stages of history normally posited in the Marxist scheme of history.

How one evaluates the Marxist scholarship on China is to a certain extent a function of one's ideological persuasion. Certainly the Marxist

framework provides a compelling agenda for research. Critics think, and sometimes dare to say, that the agenda is limited and that the questions

posed to some extent determine the outcome. But this criticism could be leveled at any paradigm or framework. What is striking to us, however, is

the extent to which a materialist or economic interpretation of history has essentially transformed itself into social history. It is the struggle between

social forces and the conflict of social classes that seem to determine the economic stage of history rather than the economic forces that determine

the social. Marxist historiography has stood Marxism on its head.

Substituting modernization theory for Confucian or Marxist theory, the postwar generation of Western historians has also sought reasons for

China's economic backwardness in modern times. American scholarship in the 1950s and 1960s tended to focus on treaty-port developments and

the introduction of Western trade and technology into China, implying that contact with the West, even on unfavorable terms, offered an

opportunity for positive change that was missed. [1] A second wave of scholarship has focused on the role of entrepreneurship and bureaucratic

leadership (or the lack of it) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, finding in them a major reason for China's "failure to modernize" along

Western lines, even when exposed to Western influence. [2] In a similar vein, scholarship in Taiwan has emphasized the institutional and

bureaucratic aspects of China's economic development in the last two centuries.

In an innovative and influential interpretive history, Mark Elvin tried to break away from the yoke of Western periodization schemes to show

that China's history followed a different "pattern," in which a medieval economic revolution led to a "high-level equilibrium trap" that did not prevent

further growth, but did impede significant change—"economic development without technological change." [3] Yet like other Western scholars, and

indeed like the Chinese scholars, his underlying preoccupation is with explaining China's poor economic performance in modern times.

Like Elvin, recent Western scholarship has tended to search back beyond

[1] E.g., Chi-ming Hou, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1840–1937 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965).

[2] E.g., Albert Feuerwerker, China's Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-huai (1862–1874) and Mandarin Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass., 1958);

Yen-p'ing Hao, The Comprador in Nineteenth-Century China: Bridge between East and West (Cambridge, Mass., 1970); Wellington K. K. Chan,

Merchants, Mandarins, and Modern Enterprise in Late Ch'ing China (Cambridge, Mass., 1977); and Sherman Cochran, Big Business in China: Sino-

Foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890–1930 (Cambridge, Mass., 1980).

[3] Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford, 1973), Part Three, pp. 203–319.

― 4 ―

the troubled modern period to find strengths and weaknesses in the Chinese economy before the nineteenth century that might help to explain its

behavior after the Opium War. These studies have focused on the role of the traditional Chinese state in shaping the economy, particularly in the

eighteenth century. Building on Ping-ti Ho's work on China's population, [4] these studies have, on the one hand, emphasized the positive role of the

state in encouraging the settlement of undeveloped and frontier areas [5] and in maintaining granary stocks to stabilize prices and prevent famines [6]

while, on the other hand, stressing the essential limitations of state power. Yeh-chien Wang's work on Qing land tax, Madeleine Zelin's work on tax

surcharges, and Susan Mann's work on the merchants' role in collecting commercial taxes all tend to show how the Qing and Republican

governments were unable, and sometimes unwilling, to capture a larger share of the country's wealth for their own purposes. [7]

Some American scholarship, as well as some Japanese scholarship, has shared the Chinese interest in the primacy of social forces in

governing economic history. For example, standing on different sides of an ideological divide, Ramon H. Myers and Philip C. C. Huang have

disagreed sharply on the extent to which the land tenure system in North China produced social inequalities. [8] The work of William T. Rowe and

others on the growth of Chinese cities tends to emphasize the strength of commercial developments that took place largely outside the sphere of

direct government influence. [9] And G. William Skinner's influential work on marketing and his macro-regions paradigm both stress the essential

independence of economic activity from political trends as embodied in the dynastic cycle. [10]

Although there are notable exceptions not captured in this broad summary, it is striking how American scholarship on Chinese economic

history,

[4] Ho, Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).

[5] E.g., Peter C. Perdue, Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500–1850 (Cambridge, Mass., 1987).

[6] Pierre-Etienne Will, Bureaucratie et famine en Chine au 18e siècle (Paris, 1980), and Pierre-Etienne Will and R. Bin Wong, Nourish the People:

The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1991).

[7] Yeh-chien Wang, Land Taxation in Imperial China, 1750–1911 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973); Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate's Tael: Rationalizing

Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Ch'ing China (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984); and Susan Mann, Local Merchants and the Chinese

Bureaucracy, 1750–1850 (Stanford, 1987).

[8] Ramon H. Myers, The Chinese Peasant Economy: Agricultural Development in Hopei and Shantung, 1890–1949 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970) and

http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft6489p0n6&chunk.id=0&doc.view=print

11/07/2007

Chinese History in Economic Perspective

Page 4 of 203

Philip C. C. Huang, The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China (Stanford, 1985).

[9] William T. Rowe, Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889 (Stanford, 1984).

[10] See especially "Introduction: Urban Development in Imperial China" and "Regional Urbanization in Nineteenth-Century China," both in G.

William Skinner, ed., The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford, 1977).

― 5 ―

somewhat like PRC scholarship, has really revolved around social and institutional history. In fact, the bulk of the work concerning the Chinese

economy has been done, not by those trained in economics, but rather by social historians, anthropologists, and others. Most of these scholars—

including some of the contributors to this volume—have not in the past made regular and systematic use of economic analysis to inform and

structure their inquiries. In part this may be due to ideological or disciplinary predisposition, and in part it may reflect the types of sources available

for the study of economic history. Traditional official records are strong on bureaucratic institutions and practices but weak in quantitative material.

Even so, the tendency for researchers to neglect economic approaches in writing the history of China's economy may reflect their limited

appreciation of how the economic perspective can sharpen an analysis of the historical record.

In the 1960s similar criticisms were raised by a group of "new economic historians" against the work of the earlier generation of economic

historians in the West. Feeling that the traditional economic histories of Europe and the United States overemphasized the description of legal and

other institutions, the new generation advocated the application of economic theory and quantitative methods to historical scholarship. With the

advent of Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman's study of slavery in the American South, and the ensuing controversies, the Cliometric revolution

reached its heyday and, some have said, began to peak. [11] Nonetheless, a more quantitative and analytic approach continues to prevail in the

leading journals of economic history.

Our goal is not to champion the introduction of Cliometrics into Chinese economic history but rather to advocate adopting a more self-

conscious economic perspective that may or may not involve quantitative analysis. Our belief is that the use of economic theory can illuminate

issues that might otherwise prove inaccessible. In addition, the contributors to this volume have reached the surprising conclusion that applying

economic analysis to historical topics often enlarges the interpretive significance of phenomena that historians, and not economists, are best

qualified to comprehend.

Economic Theory

What do we mean by an economic perspective ? We mean the application of economic theory and methods to the study of historical topics.

Classical economic theory, as developed in the West, rests on a number of key concepts, which some call principles and others may call

assumptions. The most fundamental of these is the concept of choice . Donald N. McCloskey

[11] Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (Boston, 1974). The development of the

new economic history is discussed in Alexander J. Field, ed., The Future of Economic History (Boston, 1987), in the editor's introductory essay.

― 6 ―

defines economics as "the study of human choice under constraints." [12] Income and wealth, the conventional measures of economic well-being,

define the extent of choice available to consumers. In most economies, choice is exercised primarily in markets, which offer opportunities to sell

commodities and human skills in return for income, which can be translated, again through the marketplace, into consumption goods. Prices signal

the rates at which any individual's resources of money, time, and skill can be converted into desired commodities or services. For the economist,

prices demand attention because they offer precise measures of both choice and constraint that (important for the historian) are often recorded in

great detail. Markets and prices thus emerge from the centrality of choice as natural focal points for historical inquiry.

Rationality is a closely related concept. Rationality means that people are motivated by self-interest, primarily pecuniary. Economic rationality

means that individuals, families, and organizations have well-defined ideas about how various opportunities affect their well-being and that choice

rests upon comparison of the cost of available alternatives. Economic rationality suggests that people know how to calculate costs and benefits and

that they are free to act according to their choices.

The centrality of choice in economics leads to the concept of opportunity cost , which defines the cost of a specific action in terms of the value

of alternative options rather than actual monetary outlay. Or, in McCloskey's words, "choosing one thing means giving up another, because things

are scarce, constrained." [13] In the economists' view, the cost of education, for example, includes the value of income-earning opportunities

forsaken by the student as well as the actual tuition she or he pays. The opportunity cost of moving to a new location must comprehend the value

of wages lost while on the road as well as transportation costs. Opportunity cost is quite literally the value of "the road not taken."

Much of economic analysis revolves around the concept of equilibrium , which portrays economic circumstance as the outcome of a balance of

conflicting forces. Market price is determined through bidding, a process of organized struggle between buyers, who seek to force the price to the

lowest possible level, and sellers, whose interest is served by attaining the highest possible price. Market forces ceaselessly push price and quantity

in the direction of equilibrium. If demand exceeds supply at the current price, anxious buyers will bid up the price, simultaneously curbing demand

and attracting additional supplies. If price is so high that supply exceeds demand, sellers' prices will be bid down, leading toward the balance

between desired purchases and sales that characterizes an equilibrium position.

[12] McCloskey, "The Economics of Choice" (Unpublished paper prepared for the Workshop on Economic Methods for Chinese Historical Research,

Honolulu, January 1987), p. 1.

[13] Ibid., 1.

― 7 ―

Together with the idea of entry and exit , which simply maintains that productive resources, including human labor, will abandon occupations

offering low rewards and gravitate toward the areas of greatest opportunity, the economists' equilibrium notion offers a valuable tool for historical

researchers. Even though the interaction of supply and demand in particular markets may not leave clear tracks in the historical record, the

qualitative consequences of changes in equilibrium positions often generate shifts in the direction of resource flows that will not escape the

historian's notice. As D. K. Lieu has observed, businessmen in China (and elsewhere) "are ready to clear out at any time" if they see better

prospects in another trade. The appearance of new businesses and the abandonment of old trades thus become a sensitive barometer of relative

profitability in different lines of endeavor. [14] Similarly, if large numbers of workers migrate from North China to Manchuria, or from the rust belt to

http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft6489p0n6&chunk.id=0&doc.view=print

11/07/2007

Chinese History in Economic Perspective

Page 5 of 203

California, no statistical analysis is required to verify the existence of regional differences in economic opportunity.

Objections to Economic Theory

When thus presented as a series of abstract concepts, economic theory often provokes the deepest skepticism, if not outright hostility, among

noneconomists.

Some have charged that these ideas of neoclassical Western economics are not universal principles or absolute truths but are, instead, a

series of assumptions that are largely a matter of perspective or even faith, not susceptible to proof or argument. Moreover, these ideas are

culturally and historically specific, a product of a particular phase of Western history, and are not universally applicable. Some, like Karl Polanyi,

have argued that these ideas themselves have shaped people's behavior and the development of economic institutions, especially markets, that

they have been, in short, not descriptive but prescriptive. [15]

Others object to economic theory because they believe it to rest on a view of human nature that is self-fulfilling, possibly erroneous, and

certainly repugnant. "Rational economic man as a reflection of human nature is a fiction. . . . But it is a powerful fiction, and it becomes less and

less a fiction as more and more of our institutions get pervaded by its assumptions and other paths are closed," writes one recent critic. [16] Adam

Smith's notion that individuals pursuing their own self-interest are "led by an invisible hand" toward improving the society and economy in which

they live is difficult to reconcile with more flattering views of human nature and human good.

[14] Lieu, The Growth and Industrialization of Shanghai (Shanghai, 1936), p. 103.

[15] Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston, 1957).

[16] Barry Schwartz, The Battle for Human Nature: Science, Morality and Modern Life (New York, 1986), p. 325.

― 8 ―

There are those who believe that the classical economists' view of human nature is not only incorrect but that it can be replaced by a superior form

of morality. Amitai Etzioni, for example, argues for the replacement of utilitarianism with ethical principles that stress intention, not result, for the

replacement of individual calculation with collective rationality, and for the replacement of economic rationality with values and emotions. [17]

Most others who object to economic theory do so on the grounds that it is empirically invalid. They say that simple observation will reveal

that not everyone is motivated by monetary self-interest above all other considerations and that the notion of economic rationality must therefore

be false. The economists reply that economic rationality need not imply ceaseless calculation of cost and benefit by households and businesses, nor

must economic decisions rest exclusively on financial considerations. Although economists often construct theories on the assumption that

individuals and business firms pursue maximum financial rewards, the notion of rationality encompasses the possibility that a desire for prestige or

perhaps stability, as well as monetary gain, may motivate economic behavior. The recent debate about the "moral economy of the peasant"

highlights this controversy, with James C. Scott arguing that in peasant societies the dominant motive is survival and security, so that risk

minimization, not profit maximization, is the principal goal. [18] Economists respond that peasant rationality is essentially no different from anyone

else's rationality and that avoidance of risk is not inconsistent with rational calculation.

Critics also protest that rational choice implies perfect information and intelligence. But what if someone does not have all the information

needed, or what if he or she is stupid or, worse still, lazy? I could increase my financial resources if I thought about my investments all the time,

but I do not choose to use my time that way. The opportunity cost, measured in work or recreational time lost, is simply too high. But economists

reply that decisions based on limited information and crude calculations may in fact reflect rational behavior. After all, the time and expense

required to collect further information or to conduct detailed studies of opportunity costs may outweigh the anticipated benefits of prolonged search

and analysis.

Finally, skeptics reject the idea that people actually have a choice in economic matters and are free to enter into or exit from economic

activities as some kind of economists' wonderland, full of Mad Hatters. Surely, in real life people are not always free to change jobs, change

residences, or change investments according to the dictates of rational calculation. [19] Custom, law,

[17] Amitai Etzioni, The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics (New York, 1988).

[18] James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New Haven, 1976).

[19] The Nobel Prize—winning economist George J. Stigler tells the story of an economist who carefully decided how far from the city to locate his

country home by efficiently balancing the number of fresh eggs he could get against the number of friends who would still be willing to visit him. In

his review of Stigler's memoirs, Robert Krulwich dryly comments, "Here, I say, is why more and more people ignore economists." New York Times

Book Review , Oct. 23, 1988.

― 9 ―

social practice and prejudice, inertia, and any number of restrictions on behavior exist today and were even more decisive in premodern times.

Economists, however, recognize that market activity and price formation do not occur in a social or cultural vacuum. They see the institutional

arrangements that circumscribe and encapsulate economic activity—the household, legal structures, customary market procedures, forms of

contract arrangement, business organization, even ideology and morality—as constraining economic activity along with limitations on the stock of

physical and financial resources. [20] But economists regard institutions as flexible rather than immutable. If costs exceed benefits, economists

anticipate change (perhaps gradual) in the relations between individuals and social institutions, as well as between buyers and sellers. The post—

World War II increase in female employment in the United States represents such an event, with the unorganized response of millions of women to

altered labor market conditions leading to changes in marriage practices, family size, child rearing, educational patterns, eating habits, and many

other aspects of life long regarded as determined by custom and tradition rather than the marketplace.

The clash between economists and noneconomists is perhaps best embodied in the economists' favorite term, ceteris paribus (literally, all

other things being equal). While economists will acknowledge the importance of noneconomic factors, those bothersome factors are generally left in

the background of their theories and models. Let others study politics, law, social class, injustice, and the like. Models can be pure and "elegant," a

favorite expression of economists, because all those other factors can be held constant or set aside. And since such factors are not easily

quantifiable, how much more convenient to leave them out. Quantification of the nonquantitative is best left to the "soft" social scientists—the

sociologists, the political scientists, and the historians. [21]

It is ceteris paribus that allows economists to be optimists. Although economics is called the dismal science, in fact economists tend to

maintain a rosy view of the world controlled by an invisible hand. If only the government and others would stay out of it, the rational response to

opportunity could produce growth and a better life for everyone. In the field of Chinese studies, the

http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft6489p0n6&chunk.id=0&doc.view=print

11/07/2007

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: