Political Economy in Early Modern China and Its Relevance to Contemporary China

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article seeks to develop an understanding of the historical political economy of late imperial/early modern China, from the Song through the Qing dynasties, which recognizes its basic features as a distinctive Chinese form of commercial capitalism. Using defining characteristics of capitalism as set forth in Marx’s analysis of European, particularly English, capitalism, this article argues that the structures and functions of the late imperial Chinese economy, and the cultural inflections generated by that economy, constitute a historical form of capitalism clearly different in its details, but substantially embodying the key features of Western capitalism, such as commodity production, elaborate market mechanisms, credit and finance systems, a monetized system of exchange, and the extraction of surplus value from labor for accumulation by commercial actors in both the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. This is important not only for the correct identification of the late imperial/early modern Chinese system and for understanding the diversity of capitalist development outside the traditional Eurocentric framework, but also for its relevance to contemporary China’s project of socialist construction.