Glad to see Yuzuru's paper forthcoming Argument: Tokugawa Japan had relatively low land inequality, which made people exceptionally poor, whereas W. Europe was much more unequal which gave it higher living standards. (This may seem paradoxical to some people but it's not really)
( Should be noted: peasant ownership of land was de facto, not de jure. Technically lords owned the land, and collected rents = tax, but peasants had the de facto right to transact with that land, including sale, lease, etc. )
( One further note: perhaps it made the paper more publishable to connect its findings to the Great Divergence debate, but it's a bit tedious that the paper had to say that lower pre-industrial living standards may have been one reason Japan "did not industrialise first"...
Why do we keep reasoning as though somewhere on earth was inevitably headed for industrialisation and there was a kind of regional pre-industrial horse race to the finish??
I mean -- isn't it enough to observe that Japan's low wages helped with its industrialisation drive in the late 19th & early 20th centuries, making it the first non-European country to do so; and these low wages had their origins in pre-industrial land ownership concentration???
( P.S. -- Fans of Brenner should like this argument because Kumon is transplanting the Brenner argument about England versus France to Western Europe versus East Asia, even though different mechanisms are implied by Kumon.... )
( P.S. Brenner fans should like this argument because Kumon is transplanting the Brenner argument about England v France to W Europe v E Asia, even though different mechanisms are implied by Kumon, so it's not truly Brennerite like say Grace Kwon on Japan )
Several have asked about mechanisms. Paper only claims ~half of the living standard difference betw England & Japan is explained by land inequality. Mechanism is Malthusian: more people with access to land means a larger population can be supported but lower standard of living.
Many have asked about mechanisms. Paper only claims ~half of the pre-industrial living standard difference btw England & Japan is explained by land inequality. Mechanism is Malthusian: more people with access to land => larger population supported but at lower standard of living
( Important to stress: that operates only in the pre-industrial era. This does not apply to the 20th century!) Additional mechanism is that in Japan, landless had below replacement fertility, whereas in England landless had above replacement.
@meilaoban And population and per capita income were inversely correlated in the pre-industrial era.
@meilaoban And population and per capita income were inversely correlated in the pre-industrial era. cc @briankturner101
@PeterPe54614002 @LBelenesR as well as (a little bit later) chemical fertilisers (even before the Haber-Bosch process). Also, pre-Meiji period, peasants did not specialise: they grew rice to pay tax, but they also grew millet, buckwheat, sweet potatoes, etc. as typical peasant diversification strategies
@PeterPe54614002 @LBelenesR In the Meiji period, a combination of political centralisation and transportation investments created a more secure national market, making Japanese farmers specialise more in terms of crops.
@PeterPe54614002 @LBelenesR Also, in Asia, livestock was more costly in terms of output than in Europe. Europe had more livestock, and hence more capital invested in agriculture.
@jo_linkous because on Brenner's own terms agrarian capitalism does not lead to industrial capitalism without neo-Smithian assumptions and the whole point of 'agrarian capitalism' was to challenge neo-Smithian assumptions ;-)
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