- Nov 13, 2019
- 3
- #1
Christian
I've heard that the Song dynasty was a golden age for China, and was very friendly to commerce, despite Chinese society having looked down upon merchants and commerce for generations. So would a longer lived Song dynasty have developed a form of early capitalism if they had the chance?
- Nov 13, 2019
- 1
- #2
[totally a legit person]
Unless there is an Adam smith-Esque philosopher, which could be easily done, just have someone smart looking at some smugglers and think of why they are smuggling, but on their own, then probably not. For you see one of China's main problems in OT, is that they always got comfy, thanks to their status as the center of world trade, and only innovated during the many "war-lord" periods in-between the dynasties. This is why the middle east, and then the Europeans, became much more advanced, and because of their own arrogance they never tried to learn from the western "barbarians", the Qing upon first meeting British diplomats spoke to them in Latin, a famous example of how they did not learn from those they traded with. Them discovering early capitalism all on their own would be pretty hard, but despite what I have said it is definitely not infeasible, they did randomly discovered gun-powder on accident in OT.
- Nov 13, 2019
- 5
- #3
fdas
Banned
A nation doesn't need to invent or discover capitalism. Capitalism naturally happens because people work to maximize their own profit.
- Nov 13, 2019
- 1
- #4
Strategos' Risk
Confucian states had capitalism, the problem was that it was a sort where merchants were on the bottom of the social order, and the state had a huge presence.
- Nov 13, 2019
- 2
- #5
bbctol
fdas said:
A nation doesn't need to invent or discover capitalism. Capitalism naturally happens because people work to maximize their own profit.
As a system, it requires private ownership and open markets. Medieval peasants tried their best to maximize their lot in life by working land for feudal lords, but that doesn't make their system capitalist.
- Nov 13, 2019
- 5
- #6
RousseauX
Donor
fdas said:
A nation doesn't need to invent or discover capitalism. Capitalism naturally happens because people work to maximize their own profit.
Capitalism refers to a very specific economic system based on financial institutions and production outside of the family unit. People have being "wanting to make a profit" since 8000 BC or so and capitalism only rose in the 1500s.
- Nov 13, 2019
- 2
- #7
Socrates
bbctol said:
As a system, it requires private ownership and open markets. Medieval peasants tried their best to maximize their lot in life by working land for feudal lords, but that doesn't make their system capitalist.
To happen with the success it saw in the West, it also needs to have corporate legal structures that outlive the individuals involved. And to not have any super normal surplus to be extracted by the state.
- Nov 14, 2019
- 4
- #8
Richard V
The British developed extensive legal protection for personal property, in part due to fierce international competition. It’s hard to say whether the external pressures faced by the late Song would have led to similar conclusions.
OTOH by the late Song there was nation wide issuance of paper money, joint stock companies and well organized international trade. There were powerful artisan and merchant guilds including those that owned large scale private iron production which were powerful interest groups the government collaborated with for national defense. If these guilds started to issue their own banknotes and the government got creative and regulated them with fractional reserve banking... it might not be 18th century British Capitalism, but it would fit a lot of descriptions.
- Nov 14, 2019
- 3
- #9
Raferty
I suppose the institution of more merchant guilds and the large application of private capital for projects was possible.
It is much harder for any Chinese polity to wean itself from the thousands year old traditions of rent seeking and the concentration of talent in a bureaucracy.
To get capitalism as we know it, it would have to be a gradual process in which the power of the scholar bureaucrat class loses power while the imperial family becomes more dependent on the support of mercantile interests to hold onto power.
In Japan, this happened, but with the warrior noble class rather than the mercantile one.
The raw materials are here for this. You had a commercially ambitious and prosperous polity and a court with contentious relations with the scholar bureaucrats at times. But the kind of aglomeration of financing houses that in Europe developed to support constant dynastic war was not really a thing.
If this does happen, it would have to be a gradual process of state centralization and state penury happening simultaneously.
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