European and Chinese Histories of Economic Thought: Theories and Images of Good Governance (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics)

329 Pages·2021·30.675 MB·English

by  Iwo Amelung (editor), Bertram Schefold (editor)

European and Chinese Histories of
Economic Thought
The Western literature on the history of Chinese economic thought is sparse,
and comparisons with the history of Western economic thought even more so.
This pioneering book brings together Western and Chinese scholars to reflect
on the historical evolution of economic thought in Europe and China.
The international panel of contributors covers key topics such as currency,
usury, land tenure, the granary system, welfare and government, with special
attention given to monetary institutions and policies. The problem of “good
government” emerges as the unifying thread of a complex analysis that includes
both theoretical issues and applied economics. Chinese lines of evolution
include the problem of the agency of the state, its ideological justification, the
financing of public expenditure, the role played by the public administration
and the provision of credit. The early radical condemnation of usury in the Near
East and in the West gives way to theoretical justifications of interest-t aking in
early capitalist Europe, which lead to advances in mathematics and business
administration and represent one of the origins of modern economic theory.
Other uniting themes include the relationship between metallic and paper
money in Chinese and European experiences, and the cross-f ertilisation of eco-
nomic practices and ideas in the course of their pluri-m illennial interactions.
Differences emerge – the approach to the organisation of economic life was,
and still is, more state- centred in China. The editors bring together these ana-
lytical threads in a final chapter, opening wider horizons for this new line of
comparative economic research, which is important for an understanding of
modern ideological turns.
This volume provides valuable reading for scholars in the history of eco-
nomic thought, economic history and Chinese studies.
Iwo Amelung is Professor at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
His research interests are the history of knowledge of modern China, the bur-
eaucracy and social history of the Qing period, and the emergence and devel-
opment of scientific disciplines in modern China.
Bertram Schefold is Senior Professor at Goethe University, Frankfurt am
Main, Germany. He teaches economic theory and the history of economic
thought. His research interests are capital theory, and the history of economic
thought and development.
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European and Chinese Histories of Economic Thought
Theories and Images of Good Governance
Edited by Iwo Amelung and Bertram Schefold
For more information about this series, please visit www.routledge.com/ series/
SE0341
European and Chinese
Histories of Economic
Thought
Theories and Images of Good Governance
Edited by
Iwo Amelung and Bertram Schefold
First published 2022
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Iwo Amelung and Bertram Schefold;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Iwo Amelung and Bertram Schefold to be identified as the authors
of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
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British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 43448- 9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 10399- 0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 43449- 6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9780367434496
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
Contents
List of figures and tables ix
List of contributors x
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xviii
PART I
Chinese lines of evolution 1
Section 1 The agency of the state 3
1 People’s livelihoods and good governance in the past and
for the future 5
R. BIN WONG
2 Justifying office- selling for famine relief in
nineteenth- century Qing China 19
ELISABETH KASKE
3 The cost of security: Financing Yellow River hydraulics
during the late imperial period 33
IWO AMELUNG
Section 2 Land, interest and usury 47
4 Outline of the institutions for land transactions in
traditional China 49
DENGGAO LONG AND XIANG CHI
vi Contents
5 Loans and interest rates in traditional China 63
QIUGEN LIU
6 Foreign currencies in ancient and premodern China 77
YAGUANG ZHANG, YUE BI AND ZYLER WANG
PART II
European lines of evolution 89
Section 1 From rationalisations of usury to
deductive theories of interest 91
7 Theorising interest: How did it all begin? Some landmarks
in the prohibition of usury in Scholastic economic thought 93
IRINA CHAPLYGINA AND ANDRÉ LAPIDUS
8 Merchants and the new Catholic view on the economy:
Florence and Augsburg between the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries 106
MONIKA POETTINGER
9 From Kaspar Klock’s “De aerario” (1651) and Leibniz’s
“Meditatio de interusurio simplice” to Florencourt’s
“Abhandlungen aus der juristischen und der politischen
Rechenkunst” (1781): How calculus led from the logic of
a device for circumventing the prohibition of usury to a
modern theory of depreciation 119
BERTRAM SCHEFOLD
10 Interest on money, own rate of interest, the natural interest
rate and the rate of profits: A short history of concepts
ultimately emerging from the usury debate 133
VOLKER CASPARI
Section 2 The spread of monetary relations and
the transition from poor relief to the welfare state 143
11 Labour and poverty in medieval and early modern Europe 145
COSIMO PERROTTA
Contents vii
12 After China, before Sweden and England: The circulation
of paper money in Naples 158
LILIA COSTABILE
13 European models and transformations of the welfare state 170
HANS- MICHAEL TRAUTWEIN
PART III
Contact, comparison and interaction 185
Section 1 Before the revolutions 187
14 Xunzi and Plato on the economics of totalitarianism:
A meeting of distant minds 189
TERRY PEACH
15 Yantie lun in the Pro-Legalist and Anti- Confucian Campaign 202
QUNYI LIU
16 A critical examination of Chinese influences on Quesnay 215
RICHARD VAN DEN BERG
Section 2 The traces of the past in the transition
to modernity 231
17 Rethinking traditional attitudes towards consumption in
the process of formation of Chinese economics (Late Qing
and republican periods) 233
OLGA BOROKH
18 China’s ancient principles of price regulation through
market participation: The Guanzi from a comparative
perspective 246
ISABELLA M. WEBER
19 Confucian entrepreneurship and moral guidelines for
business in China 259
MATTHIAS NIEDENFÜHR
viii Contents
PART IV
Conclusions and perspectives 275
20 Towards a systematic comparison of different forms of
economic thought 277
IWO AMELUNG AND BERTRAM SCHEFOLD
Index 303
Figures and tables
Figures
2.1 Authority in contribution campaigns 26
2.2 Disaster reports, 1840– 1911 27
2.3 Famine relief in three provinces and income of the Shanxi
Contribution Campaign, 1877– 79 28
4.1 The relations between dian, yazu (rent deposit) and tenancy
from the point of view of the land owner 52
10.1 Saving– investment mechanism 139
13.1 Targets and instruments in the Rehn- Meidner model 178
13.2 Inflation and unemployment in Sweden and Germany, 1973– 98 180
15.1 Estimated output and productivity, 1952– 76 209
15.2 A simplified governance framework of the new political
economy in China 212
16.1 Reproductions of the divinatory hexagrams and the Tableau 220
19.1 2016 campaign poster in Beijing with an Analects quote 266
19.2 The Neisheng- Waiwang principle in Confucian
entrepreneurship 271
Tables
2.1 Contribution campaigns, 1644– 1840 22
3.1 Revenue and expenses of river administrations 41