第二讲李约瑟之谜.doc

中国经济专题讲义－2004年春季-第2讲
第二讲：李约瑟之谜和中国经济由盛而衰的原因
一. 中国在前现代社会的成就
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1． Angus Maddison. 1995. Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992. 一直到19世纪中叶，中国是全世界最大的经济
2． 技术：在工业革命以前的1000多年的时间里中国是世界上科技最先进的国家。(Francis Bacon认为使欧洲从黑暗的中世纪转变为现代世纪的发明是纸张、印刷术、火药和指南针，但是他不知道这些都是中国发明的)（Francis Bacon (1561-1626) The most influential and versatile English writer of the 17th century, Francis Bacon wrote on a broad range of topics, including ethics, philosophy, science, law, history, and politics. Bacon helped usher in the era of modern scientific thought by developing a reasoning process called induction. Induction is the process by which general conclusions are drawn from particular situations.）
3． 中国是世界上最工业化的国家，在11世纪时年产15万顿铁，其产量为欧洲的6倍。
4． 社会经济制度: 土地私有，高度的社会分工，劳动力自由流动，高效运行的要素市场和产品市场
《史记。货殖列传》范蠡（陶朱公）
“六岁穰，六岁旱，十二岁一大饥”，“论其有余不足，则知贵贱，贵上极则反贱，贱下极则反贵。贵出如粪土，贱取如珠玉”
贵出如粪土，贱取如珠玉－－投机的原则
论其有余不足，则知贵贱――价格由市场的供给和需求决定
贵上极则反贱，贱下极则反贵――生产者按市场的价格来决定生产
5． 在前现代社会中国是最富有、最城市化的国家.
公元0年, 中国的汉朝和欧洲的罗马帝国处于同一发展水平
公元1000年, 中国远远领先于西方.
清明上河图

望海潮
柳永
东南形胜，三吴都会，钱塘自古繁华。烟柳画桥，风帘翠幕，参差十万人家。云树绕堤沙，怒涛卷霜雪，天堑无涯。市列珠玑，户盈罗绮，竞豪奢。
重湖叠巘清嘉，有三秋桂子，十里荷花。羌管弄晴，菱歌泛夜，嬉嬉钓叟莲娃。千骑拥高牙，乘醉听箫鼓，吟赏烟霞。异日图将好景，归去凤池夸.
Marco Polo's description about Su-chou and Hang-chou, p. 270.（威尼斯人，1254-1324）
“Su-chou is so large that it measures about forty miles in circumference. It has so many inhabitants that one could not reckon their number." and Hang-chou "without doubt the finest and most splendid city in the world, ... anyone seeing such a multitude would believe it a stark impossibility that food could be found to fill so many mouths.”

"the West in the Dark Ages was essentially agrarian and, in comparison with China, was poorer and under-developed." (Carlo M. Cipolla, Beofre the Industrial Revolution European Society and Economy, 1000-1700, New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company p. 171).

As late as 1776, Adam Smith described “China has been long one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, and most populous countries in the world.” (p. 71) and “China is a much richer country than any part of Europe, …" (p.189) (Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (first Modern Library Edition), New York: Random House, 1937.

“It seems, however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultivation industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms in which they are described by travelers in the present times. It had perhaps, even long before this time, acquiring that full complement of riches which the nature of its laws and institutions permits to acquire.” (Adam Smith, p. 71).

中国落后于西方只是在工业革命以后的事。

中国用铁犁时,欧洲用木犁,当欧洲用钢犁时,中国还用铁犁

在14世纪时，中国已经达到了全面科学革命和工业革命的阀值（threshold level）.
为什么中国没有出现工业革命而变为落后?
李约瑟之谜:
为何在前现代社会中国在科学和技术上摇摇领先于其他文明?
为何在现代中国不再领先?
对这个问题的回答对预测中国在未来是否能复兴至关重要.
二. 现有的解释
有几个被普遍接受的假说:大部分的假说,可以解释中国现代为何落后,但不能解释为何过去先进,或是能解释过去为何先进,但不能解释现代落后
1. 文化决定论
a) 儒家文化，Marx Webb, “新教伦理与资本主义精神“
b) 五四运动, 打倒吃人的礼教
c) 文化难于改变
2. 国家竞争论—中国的大一统和欧洲国家的竞争
3. 专利制度(此说不合适,等谈到科学革命的决定作用再解释)
上述假说的问题

目前较有影响的假说中，可以分为需求失败论，和供给失败论。
需求失败论: 高水平均衡理论（Mark Elvin：The Pattern of China’s Past）.
在前现代社会中国拥有先进的“现代” 制度，导致较快的技术发明和传播，由于中国人的传宗接代观念鼓励早婚、早育和多生多育，以至人均土地不断下降.
机制一: 劳动力价格低，抑制对劳动节约技术的需求. (赵岗).
评论: 人口增加劳动力的价格会下降只在技术不变迁（或是变迁极端慢时）才成立, 假如技术变迁的速度快，劳动力增加，劳动力的价格也会不断提高，那么，对替代劳动力的技术也会有需求。只有在技术不变迁时，劳动力不断增加，有些劳动力替代的技术才会被放置不用。所以，这个理论要解释技术为何不变迁，却先假定了技术不变迁，在内部逻辑上有问题。 (例如日本，四小龙，中国沿海在改革开放以后的情况)。

机制二: 随着人口增加，人均耕地下降，剩余越来越少。当新技术出现时，没有足够的剩余来购买新技术(Mark Evlin, Anthony Tang)
评论: 剩余的多少除决定于劳均耕地的水平外，还决定于技术水平，只有在技术不变时（或变化慢于劳动力增加的速度时），劳动力增加才会导致剩余的不断减少.所以，这个机制同样在内部逻辑上是有问题。
经验上的问题:
假说 1: figure 1. table 1. Buck's survey.
假说 2: figure 1. table 1. Riskin's estimate, first five-year plan.
A. Table 1
Per capita Acreage of Cultivated Land, A.D. 2-1887
_______________________________________

Cultivated land Population Per capita
Amount Number acreage
Year (million mu) Year (million) (mu)
_______________________________________________________

2 571 2 59 9.67
105 535 105 53 10.09
146 507 146 47 10.78
976 255 961 32 7.96
1072 666 1109 121 5.50
1393 522 1391 60 8.70
1581 793 1592 200 3.96
1662 570 1657 72 7.92
1784 886 1776 268 3.30
1812 943 1800 295 3.19
1887 1,154 1848 426 2.70
_________________________________________________________________________

Source: Kang Chao, Man and Land in Chinese History: An Economic Analysis. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986, p. 89.

1Figure 1: Population in China (in million)
三. Lin hypothesis:
1). What is industrial revolution.
Conventional definition: Inventions of steam engine, mechanisation of textile industry, and exploitation of iron and coal.
Lin's definition: sustained high and accelerated rate of technological innovation.
2). Lin's hypothesis: different way of technological invention and discovery.
A). Technology: a body of knowledge about how to combine a set of inputs for producing a certain product.
B) Technological distribution curve.
C) Invention: Finding a technology with higher productivity than the productivity of current-used technology.
D) Invention possibility curve.
E）移动技术发明可能曲线的因素：个人天赋，发明用的物资，科学知识.
F) 发现新技术的机制：尝试错误（Trial and Error）,例如：超导
E) 技术发明的范式:
前现代社会: 经验
现代: 试验、以科学为基础的试验

h) Three testable hypotheses:
n The likelihood of inventing a better technology is a positive function of the number of trials.
n The probability of inventing a better technology is a negative function of the highest productivity of previous draws---the level of existing technology.
n Increases in the stock of scientific knowledge and improvements in the quality of available materials raise an inventor's likelihood of finding a better technology.
i) Lin's hypothesis: China had advantage in the pre-modern times because of its large population. After the scientific revolution in the sixteenth century, Europe had advantages, because of i) starting to use experiment and ii) later on, using science to release the bottleneck of invention. (Science and technology initially were separated).
4. Why a Scientific Revolution did not occur in China
1. What is a Scientific Revolution?
2. Primitive science: casual observation--China had an advantage.
3. Modern science: mathematization of hypothesis about the nature, and controlled experiments or replicable tests to examine the validity of hypotheses.
4. Scientific Revolution is a revolution in technology of finding new knowledge. Its discovery mechanism is the same as the invention of technology.
4. Why China did not have a scientific revolution?
1) Needham's postulation: China had a bureaucratic system. Europe had an aristocratic feudalism, which was more favourable to the rise of mercantilist value system. The collapse of feudalism gave rise to capitalism and modern science. A.中国传统工商业非常发达，明代资本主义的萌芽，B.科学革命是出于好奇而没有商业动机。产权保护不重要。
2) Qian Wen-yuan's postulation: imperial and ideological unification. A. 前现代社会的欧洲由于宗教的统一，在抑制异端学说上和中国中国相比，可能有过之而无不及。B. 国家间竞争对科学革命没有直接贡献，因为在15、6世纪科学对技术没有直接贡献；C.科学实验需要经费，在中国能拿出的钱比在欧洲能拿的钱多，虽然由于大一统能拿的概率较低
2) Lin's hypothesis:
a) Mathematics and controlled experiments are human capital, which require investment.
b) European countries were ruled by feudalistic aristocrats, which were hereditary. China was governed by bureaucrats. Government service was the most honourable and profitable occupation in China, which attracted the gifted.
c) Civil service examination and Confucian classics.
d) Climbing official ladders.
黄仁宇<万历15年>,张居正
e) 儒家哲学、科举和中国的大一统
1. 科举开始时也要考数学，后来为何只考四书五经？
2. 灌输一种君君臣臣的价值标准，使中国在信息和控制技术极端落伍的古代能够维持大一统。自宋以后，基本没有发生军事政变
3. 让最优秀的人才进入统治阶级，减少了革命的动机
＊科举制度是一个在某一条件下卓越的制度，可能会在其他条件下成为社会进步的障碍的一个例子
一个相关的问题，韦伯疑问：资本主义在中国早就萌芽，为何没有自发的变为资本主义社会？
如果没有技术的不断变迁，生产规模就不可能不断扩大，资本不断深化，资本主义的生产关系也就不能深化。
4. Concluding remarks:
1. 中国人并非先天的不能产生科学和工业革命，也就是说中国人在将来是有可能对科学和技术的持续进步作出贡献。
2. 人口多在将来是有利条件还是不利条件?
The advantage of large population once China reaches the technological frontier.
Implications:
n Early achievement: Middle Kingdom metality
n Confucianism: the learned class should take the nation as his responsibility and should be royal to the emperor.
n Modern defeat: frustration
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