Reviewed by: State, Peasant, and Merchant in Qing Manchuria, 1644-1862 Marc Andre Matten (bio) Christopher Mills Isett . State, Peasant, and Merchant in Qing Manchuria, 1644–1862. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007. xiv, 418 pp. Hardcover $65.00, ISBN 0-8047-5271-0. Isett's book consists of three major parts. The first one describes the ideological, political, and economic interests of the Qing dynasty in its homeland Manchuria, while comparing these interests to the actual policies implemented in this region. The second part explains how labor and property relations came into being. The final part closely questions to what extent those relations were a hindrance to the development of economy and trade. Isett's object of analysis—Qing Manchuria—basically covers the three northeastern provinces of China—Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning—from the establishment of the Qing dynasty in 1644 to 1862, when the Manchurian port at Niuzhuang was opened. Isett provides in his book a thorough and detailed analysis of the reasons for and to what extent the development of economy in Manchuria was restricted. It is a long-missing addendum to the debate on Max Weber and capitalism in China in the 1980s and the 1890s (Yu Yingshi and Philip Clart), now putting socioeconomic instead of cultural explanations in the foreground. His book shows eloquently that Chinese individuals in late imperial China were neither subjugated to the market nor interested in producing for the market; thus, the economy of subsistence was not eliminated—which, according to Marxist historians like Isett, would have been an essential prerequisite for modern capitalism. By referring to two major models of economic development theory, the "Smithian" and the "Malthusian" (or "Malthusian-Ricardian") model, Isett tries to explain differences in the economic development of China and Great Britain. According to the author, the economy of Great Britain basically operated in a Smithian way, which means that the economy developed and grew by undergoing increasing specialization and by opening up new markets. In contrast to the recent "California School" (including Kenneth Pomeranz, Li Bozhong, and Bin Wong) that argues that Chinese economy—just like its European counterpart—was able to follow a pattern of Smithian growth, Isett argues that dynamic economic growth not only relies on market relations between sellers and buyers, but depends on specific social and political conditions, that is, long-term, macroeconomic patterns that are the result of particular social and political arrangements. These arrangements—which he calls social property relations—determine how individuals get access to means of economic activity, and thereby the long-term pattern of economic change. This analytical approach—mainly influenced by Robert Brenner—claims that the given property relationship establishes the best economic strategies for individuals as well as social classes. Property relations not only establish rules of reproduction that configure long-term patterns [End Page 225] of economic development, but they are also constantly reproducing the social relations of people and classes. In addition, social property relations are politically determined. Thus individual economic actors have to accept them as they are; they can be successful only within the existing property system. The major consequence of this model is that economic growth is not the result of workings of the market, growth of trade, or changes in the division of labor. Nor can it be influenced by sudden shifts in technology, or forms of forced exploitation (like colonization). Nor is it "the outcome of cultural proclivities such as a commercial or entrepreneurial spirit" (pp. 3–4). Isett tries to prove this point by showing that, owing to differing reallocations of labor, the productivity of labor grew in England, but declined in Manchuria. In this sense, England developed along a Smithian growth path (rising output per unit of labor input), while the Ricardian-Malthusian growth model—which argues that patterns of change in rural economies reflect shifts in the relative prices of land and labor, adjusting to changes in the population numbers—explains the lack of development in Manchuria. In other words, because England underwent further specialization, a deepening division of labor, reorganizing production toward greater efficiency, as well as accumulation and investment of capital in labor-saving methods, its economic growth was secured. But this...