The purpose of this course is to summarize new directions in Chinese history and social science produced by the creation and analysis of big historical datasets based on newly opened Chinese archival holdings, and to organize this knowledge in a framework that encourages learning about China in comparative perspective. Our course demonstrates how a new scholarship of discovery is redefining what is singular about modern China and modern Chinese history. Current understandings of human history and social theory are based largely on Western experience or on non-Western experience seen through a Western lens. This course offers alternative perspectives derived from Chinese experience over the last three centuries. We present specific case studies of this new scholarship of discovery divided into two stand-alone parts, which means that students can take any part without prior or subsequent attendance of the other part. Part 1 (this course) focuses on comparative inequality and opportunity and addresses two related questions ‘Who rises to the top?’ and ‘Who gets what?’. Part 2 (https://www.coursera.org/learn/understanding-china-history-part-2) turns to an arguably even more important question ‘Who are we?’ as seen through the framework of comparative population behavior - mortality, marriage, and reproduction – and their interaction with economic conditions and human values. We do so because mortality and reproduction are fundamental and universal, because they differ historically just as radically between China and the West as patterns of inequality and opportunity, and because these differences demonstrate the mutability of human behavior and values. Course Overview video: https://youtu.be/dzUPRyJ4ETk
4.2: Wealth Distribution in Pre-Revolutionary China
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From the course by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Understanding China, 1700-2000: A Data Analytic Approach, Part 1
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The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
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From the lesson
Module 4: Wealth Distribution and Regime Change in Twentieth Century China
Meet the Instructors
James Z. LeeDean and Chair Professor of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences
This theory of revolution is important because especially in the Chinese context
where we're dealing with it's not just a question of revolutionary theory, but
we're dealing with revolutionary practice.
And the implications, therefore, of revolutionary theory had great
implications for the, literally the survivorship of a large portion of the
Chinese population in the late 1940s and the early 1950s.
Now, Mao's great sort of contribution to revolutionary theory was his appreciation
of the revolutionary potential of the rural proletariat.
Including a new class, which he called, not so much the have-a-lots, as opposed
to the have a lots. But the addition of an alliance of the
have-lots with what we might call the have-a-littles.
in, Mao called them, of course, the poor peasants or the poor lower middle
peasants. For Mao society was largely sort of tri
model. Have-a-lots, which he called landlords
and rich peasants, haves, the middle peasants and have-a-littles and have nots
we called the poor peasants and the hired hands.
These groups landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants, hired
hands defined the five major groups of rule population.
which were, which comprised together the revolutionary situation before the
revolutionary outcome of communist revolution and land reform.
According to Mao landlords were owners of land who did not engage in labor, who
depended on exploitation for their livelihood through such institutions as
land rent, money-lending, labor hire, et cetera.
Rich peasants were similar to landlords except that the exploitation chiefly took
the form of hiring long term laborers. And the total proportion of such
exploitation in their total income was smaller than that of landlords.
Middle peasants by contrast owned all or portions of the land they worked and
hardly rented anything out. any of the other lead out to others or as
poor peasants are rented land for cultivation and were exploited by others
through rent and interest although they had small land holding of their own.
And finally, of course, hired hands, the true total revolt the total have-a-nots
or neither land nor farm implements. And depended wholly or mainly on the sale
of their own labor for their living. It's these five categories.
Landlord, [FOREIGN]. Rich peasants, [FOREIGN] .
Middle peasants, Poor peasants, [FOREIGN] .
And the hired hands, [FOREIGN] . Which comprised the majority of Chinese
society in the 20th century. And these categories, until 1982, branded
Chinese from the beginnings of reform of in 1948, up until the, beginnings of
rural reform in 1979. Culminating in 1982 with the retirement,
so-called retirement, of what, of class categories.
According to Mao and his colleagues, which is Liu Shaoqi.
The landlords and rich peasants, and here I'm quoting from Liu Shaoqi's famous text
will make up less than 10% of the rural population own from 70 to 80% of the
land. The poor peasants, hired, laborers,
middle peasants, and others, who make up more than 90% of the rural population,
only hold 20 to 30% of the land. It was this statement that the Chinese
communist party applied to China as a whole, which legitimized the Chinese
Revolution. Because the Chinese Revolution was the
emancipation of the 90% of the rural population from the oppression of feudal
society. The reallocation of land, which had been
given 70 to 80% to just 10% of the population rather on a [UNKNOWN] basis to
the population as a whole based on need rather than based on ownership.
The puzzle of course, for social history and for social scientists.
For ever since this statement, is the lack of empirical evidence.
until recently, of course, China did not allow academic objective open discussion
of these issues of wealth distribution in China as a whole.
Overseas we only had a few scattered studies, either by participants or
observers of the revolution in specific Chinese villages.
Such as, William Hinton's well known study [FOREIGN].
Where according to Hinton's observations farm laborers and poor peasants added
together were only about half the population, and the 7% of have-a-nots,
not 10% only owned 31% of the land. Not 90% of the land or 80% of the land.
So what we saw in other words, these early example of revolution was a
situation, which didn't quite fit the claims of the communist party for
oppression and needed emancipation. Indeed, in Long Bow as described by
Hinton, actual have-nots only comprise 6% of the population, poor peasants were
roughly equal in size to middle peasants, 40% of the population.
And they, between the poor peasants and middle peasants, they actually controlled
70% of all the land. Not the reverse as stated by Liu Shaoqi
was 70% of the land being owned by just 10% of the population.
The landlords and rich peasants. And Long Bow, it was only 30% of the
land. Half.
Similar numbers based on stories undertaken just before land reform by
Japanese researchers from the Southern Manchurian Railroad, the well-known
Manchester studies of so, several hundred villages.
Especially in north China and northeast China seem to indicate and Long Bowl was
not an anomaly. [INAUDIBLE] at Stanford University in a
well-known study showed that as far as we, he could tell.
the north China village, as exemplified by these four lines here, from four
specific villages. Much as Long Bow were characterized by
having very few land lease/g. In fact, as you can see by this chart
almost nobody had no land. Instead, the, distribution of land was
relatively equal. About 20% of the population may have
owned 40-50% of the land. But the majority of people all had
something. So the question that that social science
and social historians faced until recently.
Was to what extent were these early studies by the Japanese by participants,
were they really representative of China as a whole.
Is only recently in the last 25-years that China has allowed the, a study of
wealth distribution before land reform and the publication of the results of
these studies. And one of the most influential of such
works by Qin Hui. he proposed what he, examined what he
called the Guanzhong model. And he discovered that according to the
Guanzhong model, using a number of land records for a variety of counties
especially in the Shanxi province. That wealth distribution, rather than
being a highly unequal before the revolution, actually was surprisingly
equal. if if you were to compare the Gini
coefficient by county. For example, he shows that the vast
majority of Gini coefficients was measure, are a measure of inequality in
distribution are roughly in their, the .20s.
Which would be roughly the level of inequality of Sweden today.
In other words one of the most equally, equal, sort of societies in the developed
world. And that a number of villages, almost no
village had a Gini coefficient of higher than the mid the mid 20s.
and many in fact, were even in the teens, which means that they would even be more
equal than Sweden today. subsequent work by others show that
confirm these results. that the early results of Myers and the
early res sort of studies described by Bill Hinton were seem to be replicated
throughout most of China. Well, the very, very true have-nots and
actually not even that many have-a-littles.
And also not that many have-a-lots. So, we've assembled here is we've taken
all the summaries of all the most reputable studies over the last 25 years.
Most are from North from the Eastern Chinese sea board, from Shandong, from
Gansu, from Chenchia Chongqing provinces. And we can see from these studies, is
that in every case the what is so called the have-nots, the Gugong, the Gunong,
the actual hard laborers usually comprise only about 6% of the population.
The poor peasants usually comprise only about a third or 40% of the population.
And the so-called have-a-lots, the landlords who comprise around 7% of the
population rather than owning something like 80% of the land own maybe 60% or
less. So, this true both for this study of four
Shandong villages. For this study of four Hubei districts,
where we can see landlords only comprise what, the ten, 3.5% of the households,
46% of the land. it's also true for East China as a whole
where you can see here poor peasants comprise on average 46, 45, 47% of the,
of the population. And own still about almost 20% of of the
wealth. So, the fact that, the, the irony is, is
that overall, if we look at all these studies, whether it's Fujian, Eastern
China, Hubei, Shandong. all the new empirical evidence seems to
be suggesting that, unlike the early Chinese comm, communist claims of a
society that was highly unequal. The irony is, is that the Chinese
Revolution, the largest sort of, redistribution of landed wealth in human
history. actually seems to have occurred in the
society that was surprisingly actually equal rather than unequal.
So, what kind of revolution was the Chinese Revolution?
Matt Noellert has done and is doing an in-depth study of one Chinese county,
Shuangcheng, South of Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang, which is unusual for
several reasons. First, because of the preponderance
actually, of have-nots. As compared to China as a whole where
have-nots generally are a distinct minority.
And also because of the unusual preservation of data in Shuangcheng
county, for almost all 120 administrative villages just for many, many of the
natural villages. In Shuangcheng in 1946 landless
households can price 74% of the population, houseless households can
price 64% of landless population. In other words for these houseless
households if they did not have employment so they could pay rent.
Their only alternative was to live on the street or outside.
Nationally of course, China distributed 40% of all the land to 300 million
peasants between 1946 and 1952. land reform started in Northeast China in
47, 48, and then where a spread throughout most of China in 1951 and
1952. of all the land redistributed formally
owned by, it was said, 10 to 12 per a million persons.
2 3rds was said to be taken from landlords and one third from rich
peasants. And 2 3rds of this land was said to be
given to poor peasants and landless, and 1 3rd to middle peasants.
However, given the paucity, as I said, of empirical evidence up until this point.
It is unclear whether these state claims of what they effectively accomplished
really produce a documented revolutionary situation.
and to what extent therefore, this revolutionary outcome is the product of a
classic Tilly revolutionary situation. Especially the Marxist or Maoist
revolution, which requires the common interests of a revolutionary class based
on the organization of production.
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