1 - The Political and Intellectual Framework

Summary

Chapter 1 provides the background for a discussion of Chinese economic thought in the Qing period, introducing its most important ideas, terminology, and tropes. In this context, it stresses the unique centrality of economic issues in Qing politics. It also illustrates how dismissing imperial tropes related to the notion of “nurturing” and “pacifying the people” (yangmin and anmin) as mere empty rhetoric prevents historians from fully understanding important political and economic objectives of the Chinese imperial government. This chapter also examines two important debates on the role of the state in the economy of the empire, the Debate on Salt and Iron (81 BCE) and the controversy surrounding Wang Anshi’s New Policies (1069–76). It further analyses the pro-market trends that accompanied the commercial growth of the Song dynasty – the beginning of a process of commercialization that was to come to maturation in the late Ming and early Qing periods.