ECON0605 Economics History of China Lok Wing Yan 2008027078

Dr. Patrick Leung

Written Assignment
According to The Great Divergence presented by Kenneth Pomeranz, as well as the
equilibrium trap from Mark Elvin, they aimed to explain the reasons why industrial
revolution did not occur in China before 19th Century. Pomeranz tried to seek equilibrium
between situations China and Britain in order to analyze the reasons. However, according
to the journals presented by Philips Huang, arguments over the reasons for China
stagnation were aroused and questioned. It was pointed out that limitations, errors and
problems are found from The Great Divergence. Followings would be discussions of
those problems.

In order to investigate why industrial revolution did not happen before 19th Century, it is
important to view this issue from both agriculture and population aspects. Pomeranz
focused on the equilibrium between China and England so as to explain the reasons
behind, however, it is found that there exist many differences in between. For agriculture
aspect, Pomeranz dismissed the difference between England and China. For England,
most of the farms were pasture and animal-feed which required greater usage of animal
rather than human. While for China, most of the farms were crop-feed which meant
greater labor intensification and the use of animal like donkey, for the replacement of
human was kept to a minimum. Since 17th Century, most of the farms in Yangzi Delta
focused on growing human-consumed crops like wheat, wet rice rather than livestock.
For those in low-lying areas like southern part of China, they mainly grew mulberries.
Those human-consumed crops were less captive intensive and also it affected the diet of
people living there, as well as their wearing and clothing habit. For this reason, they
mainly used cotton as the raw material for clothing. This also helped pushing the
development of cotton-growing from 1350 to 1800. Those farmers who originally
responsible for rice-cropping turned to cotton-growing which required about eighteen
times of labor as compared to rice-cropping. Besides the kind of crops they grew, the
fertilizers used by England and China were also different. For England, they tended to
use green fertilizer rather than human manure and started the early adaption of chemical
fertilizer. While for China, farmers continued the use of pig and human manure, urine as
base fertilizer. Not until 18th Century, shipping between different regions in China
became developed, farmers started to use (soy) beancake as chase fertilizer. To conclude,
England and the Yangzi Delta indeed showed different pattern of labor intensity, farm
size, as well as agricultural land per capita. China had relatively larger size of farm land,
as well as agricultural land per capita compared with England.

In addition to agriculture part, the claim towards productivity by Pomeranz also showed
some problems. In his research, he claimed that Yangzi Delta was no more under a
population or resource squeeze in 1800 than Britain. [1] It is believed that in 1800, the
labor productivity in Britain was higher than that of China. However, if land productivity
ECON0605 Economics History of China Lok Wing Yan 2008027078
Dr. Patrick Leung

was taken into consideration, China showed a higher rate than Britain. This mistaken by
Pomeranz mainly due to the ignorance of familization of production. In 1800, there
started the involution of cotton and silk production. Although those productions resulted
in a lower return compared with farming, it attracted woman, elderly or even children
which were normally not in the labor force of farming sector to take part in cotton and
silk production. This started to bring up the development of family production. Since
Pomeranz ignored the part of woman, elderly and children in cotton and silk production,
his estimation on income and cotton cloth production was therefore unrealistic.

On the consideration of resistance to labor-saving capitalization, Pomeranz ignored the

restriction on economy of scale by family production. Pomeranz viewed the “nascent
capitalism” by Levine as just normal involution. However, this turning point from large
scale farming place to family based farm marked an important reason for why
industrialization failed to happen. Not until 1950 to 1980, there existed chemical fertilizer
and mechanical revolution for advanced farming technology. This improvement
eventually squeezed out the large wage-labor-based farms since the ease of household
farming was greatly increased. Instead, household-based farms became more and more
popular. However, for household-based farms, it was hard to attain economics of scale
since family was usually unable to afford expensive expenses for such machines or
equipments. As a result, due to the elimination of the possibility of economics of scale,
farms in China remained in crop production, as well as rural handicraft industry rather
than animal-feed or pasture. For handicraft industry, there was a technological improved
spinning wheel in 18th Century which can greatly increase the efficiency of spinning.
(That moment, China was still household-based production.) Due to its high price, it
remained uneconomical for Chinese household to adapt. However, for England and
Dutch, this improvement of technology marked a crucial revolutionary stage in handicraft
industry which led them faster pace to industrial revolution. Pomeranz overlooked this
restriction and therefore error was shown in the calculation of spinner output. Pomeranz
adapted the grab-bag approach in the calculation of peasant income. However, since it
was inconsistent and the price he took in account was indeed the retail price charged by
merchant rather than the real income received by peasant, it finally came to the wrong
conclusion.

There was also significant difference between the family home industry in Yangzi Delta
and proto-industrialization in England. For England, due to its demographic pattern, there
was higher rate of marriage there. Moreover, people there intended to marry in an earlier
age such that farm production was inherited from one generation to the next in a faster
stage. For China, there was no change in demographic behavior. Therefore, rural
handicraft industry which mainly relied on woman and elderly were only sideline
activity, not account for much production. Pomeranz also ignored the development of
urbanization in England and China, especially in Yangzi Delta. In England, there was
ECON0605 Economics History of China Lok Wing Yan 2008027078
Dr. Patrick Leung

agriculture revolution in 17th-18th Century which helped increasing the supply of food
through more advanced technology. Therefore, it could be able to support large off farm
population with greater supply and town-based proto-industrialization was developed in
this way. For the case of China, since no urban town growth can be developed due to the
failure of agriculture revolution, the farming pattern remained family based. However,
Pomeranz had no mention of agriculture revolution and new urbanization in his research.

In The Great Divergence proposed by Pomeranz, he skipped the point of growing

demand for urban goods which help driving the start of industrial revolution. From what
Jan De Vries mentioned, the employment of woman and elderly for cotton and silk
production, though resulted in lower return and therefore lowered the average wage per
worker compared with farm work, it increased the family total income since originally
they obtained very low or even zero income. (Since woman and elderly were generally
not counted in the calculation of work force) Raising income increased the demand for
urban goods like mirror, books clocks etc. This consumption pattern changes actually
indicated the start of industrial revolution. Besides the ignorance to the changes in
consumption pattern, Pomeranz also focused in the wrong consumption combination. He
put his focus on tea and sugar consumption which indeed only accounted for 5% of the
total consumption rather than other peasant household consumption which had more
significant effect in demand pattern.

Although Pomeranz did mentioned about clothing consumption, misleading comparisons

were used. In his research, per-capita production was used and therefore came to the
conclusion that China was comparable to England and other European countries by
giving the readers the impressions that per-capita consumption of clothing was similar to
that of per-capita production. Finally, he came to the results of “Chinese textile
consumption stacked up quite well against that of Europe in the mid- to late eighteenth
century”. [1] Besides, there were also arguments in the purpose of cotton and cloth
production. Pomeranz thought that the cotton and cloth production mainly aimed to
maximize the output per unit of land due to the reason for exchanging grain for family
supporting. However, another researcher Xu Xinwu pointed out that about 70-90% of
cotton and cloth production were for export to other regions of China rather than local
uses. It can be seen that there was wrong estimation of clothing, as well as cotton
consumption by Pomeranz.

Right at the beginning of this paper, it is mentioned that both agriculture and population
were important in investigating the reasons why industrial revolution did not happen in
China until 19th Century. After discussing in agriculture aspect, it is now turned to the
population side. Pomeranz’s discussion on population was based on what James Lee
mentioned. According to James Lee, female infanticide was quite a popular practice in
rural China. Or this can be regarded as postnal abortion where poor peasants would give
up the daughters after birth in order to give birth to more sons instead. This was because
ECON0605 Economics History of China Lok Wing Yan 2008027078
Dr. Patrick Leung

sons can result in greater labor productivity compared with daughters. James came up to
the conclusion that about 25% of newly infant girls were killed every year. With this
support, Pomeranz concluded that the life expectancy, as well as the mortality of Chinese
was roughly comparable with that of European. However, it is believed that the
calculation of 25% was wrong and indeed the actual number should be greater. Since it
only took into account the number of babies killed greater than two months, certain
numbers of babies being killed once they were born was erased from the mortality data.
Moreover, the total martial fertility rate was calculated wrongly as well. Therefore, it
results in low birth rate, but with quite a high rate of total martial fertility. Addressing the
population issue, Arthur Wolf proposed the saying of “Late starting, early stopping, long
spacing” [1] towards the situation in China. Late starting indicated late birth of babies
which related to early marriage and late menarche while early stopping meant people
stopped to give birth to new babies in an early age. Long spacing happened between
children, which resulted from poor nutrition and the lack of necessities of the poor.
Therefore, the population pattern in China was indeed quite different with that of England
and Europe and thus incomparable. Apart from birth, Pomeranz also ignored the
demographic record of massive disasters in mid 19th Century like Taiping upraising,
Yangzi Delta and Muslim upraising etc. After those disasters, the population showed a
significant drop in numbers and indeed it should be equated with the absence of
subsistence pressure. In addition to this, Pomeranz also skipped some important changes
relating population during 18th Century, like (i) Buying and selling of woman and (ii)
Raise of “rogue male” population. Since woman had relatively low social status during
that period due to their low rate of productivity, their value were very low and therefore it
showed insignificant record of woman population. Conjecture of population pressure
with inequality was therefore formed and later this resulted in an expanding power of
lower peasant class to fight for their right and respect. This also showed a hidden path for
industrial revolution to start.

Besides agriculture and population, coal issue is also important in studying the reasons of
China stagnation. Pomeranz stated that there was difficult access of coal mine in
northwest which hidden the growth of resources and thus slow down the growth of
industrial revolution in 18th Century. However, according to Tim Wright, he mentioned
that China was one of the best-endowed countries in terms of coal deposit. And indeed,
the development of China coal mine grew quickly since 1896. Therefore, the late
development of industrial revolution and lack of resources were unrelated with each
other.

Besides Kenneth Pomeranz, Mark Elvin also proposed some reasons for China
stagnation. He mentioned that society’s surplus was indeed falling continuously, and thus
there was less and less capital left for development of technology. However, China
actually showed surplus from taxes, land rent, profits and interest payments, which
ECON0605 Economics History of China Lok Wing Yan 2008027078
Dr. Patrick Leung

proved that lack of resources should not be one the reasons. Besides, he mentioned that
the shortage of raw materials, like cotton, and fuel and metals, like copper also hidden the
growth of industrial revolution. In facing those problems of shortage, technology is one
the possible ways. Therefore, shortage should push the rate of technology development
rather than slow down it. In conclusion, both Kenneth Pomeranz and Mark Elvin indeed
provided many reasons to explain why industrial revolution did not happen in China until
19th Century. There are also many debates among different views over their views. The
Great Divergence proposed by Pomeranz cannot be regarded as totally wrong since some
parts of it did mention the importance and it did served as a nice reference for further
study of long history of Chinese economy development.
ECON0605 Economics History of China Lok Wing Yan 2008027078
Dr. Patrick Leung

References

1. Philip Huang, Development or Involution in Eighteenth Century Britain and

China? A Review of Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence, The Journal of
Asian Studies, 2002
2. Kenneth Pomeranz, Beyond the East-West Binary: Restituting Development
Paths in the Eighteenth Century, The Journal of Asian Studies, 2002
3. Philip Huang, Further Thoughts on Eighteenth Century Britain and China:
Rejoinder to Pomeranz’s Response to My Critique, The Journal of Asian Studies,
2003
4. Kenneth Pomeranz, Facts are Stubborn Things: A Response to Philip Huang, The
Journal of Asian Studies, 2003
5. Peter Lindert, “Preliminary Global Price Comparison, 1500-1870”
http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/papers/lindert.pdf
6. Peter Perdue, “China in the Early Modern World: Shortcuts, Myths and
Realties”
http://web.mit.edu/21h.504/www/china_emod.htm
7. Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence,
http://academics.cuberoof.com/The%20Great%20Divergence.pdf