Land Transaction and Its Impact on Society and Economy in Imperial China: An Exchange with “Dian and the System of Land-Rights Transaction under the Qing” by Long Denggao et al.

Abstract

This article challenges the view that land transactions in China from the Song to the late Qing periods became increasingly marketized and effective in resource allocation. In traditional China, the land was never a commodity in the ordinary sense; it served as the very basic means of survival and production for peasants while functioning as the most critical determinant shaping the sustainability of the environment for the survival of humankind. Neither market transactions nor any means external or internal to the state were effective enough in regulating either the total demand or the total supply of the land in China and alleviating the tension in man-to-land relations. Land transactions in imperial China were very different by nature and in terms of their social and economic impact from the received wisdom in Western economic theories, which assumes the decisive roles of supply and demand in shaping market prices and the patterns of production in the commodity economy.