Between Command and Market

Economic Thought and Practice in Early China

Series: 

Ancient Chinese economic thought has never been related to the evidence of economic practice. We know how state economies were supposed to be run in theory, but not the degree to which economic thought reflected everyday economic activity. Moreover, it is still not clear to what extent economic thought constituted a separate field of inquiry and was independent of fundamental cultural notions or political considerations. Finally, why was there so much more sustained interest in political economy in China than anywhere else? This book sets out to consider such questions through contextualised analyses of both received and newly excavated sources on economic thought and practice.

Contributors are Paul R. Goldin, Yohei Kakinuma, Maxim Korolkov, Elisa Levi Sabattini, Andrew Meyer, Yuri Pines, Christian Schwermann, Hans van Ess, and Robin D.S. Yates

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Elisa Levi Sabattini, Ph.D. (2006) Ca’ Foscari University at Venice and INALCO at Paris, was Associate Professor of Chinese Philology at L’Orientale University of Naples. She is currently affiliated at the Frieberg Center for Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and she is Senior Research Associate at Ruhr Universität Bochum. Her research focuses on intellectual history, Chinese thought and aesthetic practice of Early China. She is author of several articles and book chapters published for international peer-reviewed journals. She is co-editor together with Paul R. Goldin of Lu Jia's New Discourses: A Political Manifesto from the Early Han Dynasty (Brill, 2020).

Christian Schwermann, Ph.D. (2005), University of Bonn, is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the Ruhr-University of Bochum, Germany. His research interests include classical Chinese language and literature and early Chinese conceptual and political history.
"To jump straight to the conclusion: this is a deeply researched and thought-provoking set of essays on sorely neglected topics in Chinese economic, intellectual, and political history that deserves close and careful reading." - Richard von Glahn, JAOS, 143/4 (2023).
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors

Introduction
Elisa Levi Sabattini and Christian Schwermann

1 Economic Cycles and Price Theory in Early Chinese Texts
Paul R. Goldin

2 Agriculturalism and Beyond: Economic Thought of The Book of Lord Shang
Yuri Pines

3 Situating the “Qingzhong” 輕重 Chapters of the Guanzi 管子
Hans van Ess

4 Feng Xuan Buys Rightness, Gongyi Xiu Expels His Wife: Economic Exemplars in the Warring States and Early Han
Andrew Meyer

5 Between Command and Market: Credit, Labour, and Accounting in the Qin Empire (221–207 BCE)
Maxim Korolkov

6 The Economic Activities of a Qin Local Administration: Qianling County, Modern Liye, Hunan Province, 222–209 BCE
Robin D.S. Yates

7 To Ban or Not to Ban: Jia Yi on Copper Distribution and Minting Coins
Elisa Levi Sabattini

8 The First Chinese Economic Impact on Asia: Distribution and Usage of Monies in Early China in Synchronic and Diachronic Perspective
Yohei Kakinuma

Index
Sinologists, those interested in early Chinese thought, economic history and rhetorics
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