Traditional Economic Crises and Economic Modernization

Yanan Wang ()
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Yanan Wang: Xiamen University

Chapter Chapter 32 in The Basic Theory of Chinese Economy, 2026, pp 199-201 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This section examines how traditional economic crises in China were shaped by a landlord-based feudal order in which land and fiscal extraction formed the foundation of social production relations. While such crises often appeared as subsistence shortfalls and breakdowns in consumption, their scale and destructiveness were intensified by the close entanglement of commerce with autocratic politics and dynastic cycles: major wars and institutional collapse repeatedly destroyed commercial accumulation and hindered the formation of new productive forces capable of transforming production relations. In contrast to Europe—where urban craft organization and the relative autonomy of commerce and industry could sometimes survive feudal turmoil and foster modernization—China’s recurrent dynastic crises tended to restore rather than replace the existing order. Nonetheless, the section emphasizes that, over the long run, key preconditions for capitalist development continued to grow within this “stagnant” pattern, including the expansion of domestic markets, commercial organization and accumulation, proto-manufacturing workshops, and the gradual loosening of constraints on land transactions, which together shaped the later emergence of modern economic crises.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-95-6330-2_32

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-95-6330-2_32

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