Largest economy in the world in history?

[WWTVICTOR]

Quite.

1) China traded. Unlike Europe it might not have been a society basing itself on it, and where Confusianism didn't exactly condone merchants (low sort of people), but by golly did China trade.
We have tremendously interesting local Chinese archives of 16th and 17th c. Chinese customs officials were charting what were going in and out. (There is a by now classic customs official's PM on rhinoceros horn, aptly demonstrating the amazing range of Chinese expertise in differentiating between various African and Asian species. I.e. the Chinese were far from passive recipients of goods. They had significant expertise in differentiating between types of goods and quality where global trade was concerned.) And the volume of trade was huge.

2) China in the time period in question traded manufactured goods. That is a huge advantage. In modern terms it means a whopping trade surplus. They had the production capacity to provide for themselves, and sell a surplus to Europe, charging a mint for it too. One might as well slam the US in the 1950's as poor and backwards for being able to build whatever the hell it needed itself, and better than anyone else, selling their stuff to anyone, that is anyone who could afford it. That was China in the 16th and 17th cs.

3) So what we have is a situation where the Europeans, frantic to trade for Chinese goods, find that the only thing they have to offer for which there is actual demand in China is bullion. However, gold and silver is hard to find and even harder to get out of the ground. Not least if it's located on another continent, like South America.
But so desperate to trade are the Europeans, it doesn't matter. They mine, and conquer and build international trade networks like their life depended on it. And in some sense I guess it did.
This means as far as trade is concerned the Chinese are in such a position of strength, the Europeans were willing to jump through any amount of hoops, crisscrossing the world and making all the hard work, to scrape together enough precious metal to be allowed to exchange it for some of the Chinese produce.

4) That wasn't all bad for Europe of course. Mining is terribly complicated and expensive, but in itself tends to lead to break-throughs in chemical knowledge, better engineering (pumping technology being a major concern actually). And setting up a global system of trade was useful in the end. It's just that it was terribly expensive, risky, and in the end the human cost of it all was kind of huge. By the time a European trade got himself to China with enough Cadiz silver, he could rely on every ounce of it having cost a couple of Indians their lives in the mines at Potosi, etc. Still, the potential profits of this kind of trade is such that the Europeans are willing to run all the risks and invest all the capital. (And if necessary kill, maim and enslave as many people as it took in the process.)

5) And to spell it out: Profits were not made in China. If anything the Chinese profited hugely from the exchange of their goods for the gold and silver of the rest of the world, obligingly provided by the European traders.

The typical run for a European East Asia Company (I'm thinking of the Swedish one, as I happen to know it best), was to load up the ships with salable produce. Find a market for it, ideally directly in Cadiz, or at least make a trade for whatever would sell there. (As it happened Swedis tar, copper and ship timber sold quite well in Spain.)
At this point, if you're good and know your business, you could make a small profit on the exchange. It wasn't necessary though. The profit margin would be crap compared to what you were planning, and you might as well sell at a loss, considering the future deals in mind. The important part was to get as much silver (in Cadiz it was New World silver) as possible. Then you would be set to make the 30 month roundtrip to China (survival estimates being about 2 out of 3 to embark). Off you go to the mouth of the Pearl River.
When in China, you exchange your silver for as much of the local produce in high demand in Europe as possible: china, silk, laquerware etc. And it's the Chinese naming their price, in hard currency. At this point you, the European trader, is just buying at a direct loss. The profit is all Chinse. But just you wait...
Because, having made it back to Europe, you now arrive with a ship laden with the wealth of China, which the European markets just can't wait to gobble up. Profit margins from the sale of the cargo would typically be several hundred percent. Everyone gets rich. Well, everyone that survived. (Primarily that would be the company investors, who never had to go to China themselves, but anyway.)

The important bit to remember here, however, is that for the European trader the actual profitable bits of this complex exchange were ALL IN EUROPE. In China it was all Chinese profits, and with minimal risks and costs to the Chinese at that.

As a consequence, generations of (al)chemists in Europe kept beavering away at working out the process of making china, aka "the white gold". (Success in the 18th c.) There were any amount of attempts to acclimatise tea plants etc. in Europe, and every Tom, Dick and Harry going to China seems to have been tasked with working out how to make silk like the Chinese. (Plenty of industrial espionage going on directed at the Indian textile industry as well, not least by the French, since the Portugese had cornered the market on imported Indian dyed cotton fabrics.) Anything to be able to cut out the dangerous and expensive bits involved in trading with China. The situation held until the 19th c., when the British, having gained control of India, managed to hook China on Indian opium as a cheaper replacement for bullion.

And none of it was done because China was somehow poor. It was the opposite. Same with India, if perhaps to a lesser extent.

On top of that, this use of the gold and silver from the New World getting circulated to China still might have been the best use of it the Europeans found. Conventional wisdom would have it that having lots of gold and silver makes you rich. Perhaps, but only if you're the only one with it. If there is a sudden influx of lots of gold and silver, and everyone gets a piece of the action, the end result is inflation. Suddenly your gold and silver just doesn't buy as much as it used to. Very disconcerting, especially if you cannot work out why, and the reason the Emperor, with access to all the riches of the New World, ended up being constantly broke. A truly great power of the time, the Ottomans, also found themselves next to overwhelmed by it, and they weren't even in on the New World gambit.

Wow, quite a looooong passage, I wonder how could you do that!

By European definition, China did not trade.
The Ming government had promulgated strict laws to forbid people from crossborder trading and communication. Hence this trade was done by illegally, not officially. Numerous coastal residents, mainlanders and fishermen came like flood waters to trade as the profit is tremendously high. The sale of an artifact or a piece of porcelain to the South East Asia brought you in a big income, therefore the Chinese merchants came flock to the open sea. Not long after from the Spanish conquest of Philippines, more than 91% of tariffs were paid by Chinese merchants. Nevertheless while the Imperial Court was struggling with "Japanese pirates" at that time, the sea trade restriction policy (literally sea ban) was executing more strictly, because Japanese piracy was rampant at that time. During that period, a Chinese merchant came to his height in smuggling business and established a foothold on a Japanese island, and his income was approximately equivalent to the richest province of Jiejiang's financial revenue.

The Confusians did not like traders, certainly. There were four kinds of peoples, the gentry, farmers, craftsmen and merchants. However in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), lots of people ignored the traditional values and joined the merchants. Many of the failed imperial examinees or retired governemnt officials participated in trading activities in contrast to their counterparts in England, buying large piece of farmland. Perhaps they did not involved in cross-sea trading activities but inter-provincial trading, and most of the time, the scale of trading between two provinces were much larger than between two European countries.

The country's finance did not depend on cross-country trading, at least not since 1368 A.D.. Different from the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Late Chinese Imperial Dynasties benifited much less from sea trading; reluctantly, they resorted to imposing tax on goods when it was impossible to ban illegal trade. Official tributes from smaller countries like Korea and Ryukyu Islands formed the mainstream of trading activities, a large amount of domestic goods (the Chinese government rejected goods obtained from trading, eg. ivory) as tribute to the Imperial Capital, inexchange for which China would give out an even larger amount of jewellery and silks as a gift, and to show off her generousity, prosperity and wealth.

Supplementary:
It was a hilarious misconception that Macao was ceded because China wanted to trade with Portuguese...or something else. In my opinion, it simply symbolize its colonialism deeds from America, Africa, India, and finally China. Ruthless treatments to local people weren't brave, and doing things like setting up columns stones to show their national sovereignity to others would never be welcomed when puropse revealed.

Secondly, here is the answer in response to some questions about the standard between trading between China and Western countries, that is silver, the Chinese called them white silver when using in trading activities, despite the legalized official currency is Ming banknotes. Scarcity of silver resources worsened and became a leading factor of Ming's subversion.


EDIT: Correction is done.

 

[aelf]

By European definition, China did not trade.
The Ming government had setted up strict laws to forbit people from crossborder trading and communication. Hence this trade is done by private, not official.

wut

However in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), lots of people did not care about the traditional rules and join the merchants, many failed Imperial examinees or retired governemnt officials participating in trading activities instead of buying large piece of farmland in England.

wut

Supplementary:
There was some hilarious misconception that Macao was something like because China wanted to trade with Portuguese...or something else. China has a huge market that a rising Portugal could not compare with and ... ... ... ... ... ....

wut

I have to conclude that this post was made when drunk or high.

 

[Masada]

heh 'confucian' mindset die on a fire. hell 'china' as a conceptual historical framework die on a fire.

for that matter 'europe', 'western europe', 'industrial revolution', 'european exceptionalism' etc die on a fire.

 

[WWTVICTOR]

wut


wut


wut

I have to conclude that this post was made when drunk or high.

(1) I swear. I won't get wrong in such basic concept. The European definition depends on what angle you are looking through.
(2) I read it from a book which I am holding, I am not a fool
(3) Please refer to the prior provided Wikipedia webpage of GDP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_GDP_(PPP)
In 1500, Portugal's GDP (PPP) in millions: 606, Whole West Europe: 44183 China: 61800.
You may say, Portugal have been declined for years! I am sorry, the information is really insufficient and I have no attempt to find more data. I will be glad if you can provide those informations.

Masada's reply confused me and I am going to check out from my dictionary.

Your reply disappointed me as I thought that yours are much objective. "wut", "wut", "wut" is not a good answer.
I am too old to drink and I am really tired as well, my English is not good today as I am in a bad mood. I apologize if you cannot get it, I will try to explain as well as I can.

 

[Tee Kay]

Edit: never mind.

 

[strijder20]

WWTVICTOR, I think Mr Wut Aelf was referring to the fact those quoted lines weren't very clear. In fact, they aren't even sentences.

 

[aelf]

WWTVICTOR, I think Mr Wut Aelf was referring to the fact those quoted lines weren't very clear. In fact, they aren't even sentences.

I wasn't complaining about grammar. What he said made no sense whatsoever. Trade isn't trade if it's conducted privately? Chinese merchants deciding to trade instead of buying large pieces of farmland in England during the Ming Dynasty? And what does "... ... ... ... ... ...." mean in the first place?

Are we dealing with a creature from an alternate universe here?

 

[WWTVICTOR]

I wasn't complaining about grammar. What he said made no sense whatsoever. Trade isn't trade if it's conducted privately? Chinese merchants deciding to trade instead of buying large pieces of farmland in England during the Ming Dynasty? And what does "... ... ... ... ... ...." mean in the first place?

Are we dealing with a creature from an alternate universe here?

Yeah, I know that my grammar is poor, that's tomorrow's stuff.
You've obviously misunderstood my meanings, if you try to understand in that form, it's not logical.
The first is reserved.
The second one, I meant that the retired ones trade instead of buying large pieces of fields, differed from what the English had done (purchasing lands in order to become gentry).
The third one, I meant that there is a lot of stuff to talk about, using ... is not enough, ... ... ... ... ... ... is much better

There is no question that human is a creature on Earth, parallel universe? I am not certain, perhaps?!

 

[Plotinus]

Moderator Action: Just to reiterate there, this may not be a Red Diamond thread, but it would still be nice to maintain some kind of standards of debate in the History forum, and a response that is limited to "wut" does not do much to help that. One might even think it borderline trolling, as it doesn't show much respect to the other person and certainly doesn't engage with what they've actually said.

 

[aelf]

Would it have made any difference if I'd said "What?"? I'm not sure how to engage with posts that don't make any sense whatsoever.

Yeah, I know that my grammar is poor, that's tomorrow's stuff.
You've obviously misunderstood my meanings, if you try to understand in that form, it's not logical.

Huh? What form?

The first is reserved.

What? What does that mean?

Am I still failing to engage with what is actually said here?

The second one, I meant that the retired ones trade instead of buying large pieces of fields, differed from what the English had done (purchasing lands in order to become gentry).

Okay, that makes more sense now. I'm not sure if they were really bucking the trend there by deciding to become merchants, but whatever.

The third one, I meant that there is a lot of stuff to talk about, using ... is not enough, ... ... ... ... ... ... is much better

So your argument is that the Portuguese did not go to China to trade but to flex its imperial muscles? Sounds like utter rubbish to me.

 

[Verbose]

As always, I feel confirmed in my view that one of the worst possible way to try to work out what the Chinese actually got up to through history, is to focus on the ideological set-piece constructs about how things were supposed to work issued by the upper echelons of the imperial court.

 

[Masada]

Unlike Europe it might not have been a society basing itself on it

er, right. except these kinds of sentiments are about as bad the whole confucian mindset thing. mostly because it isn't true and even were to be more receptive to the claim its impossible to prove in a meaningful sense. people here need to remember that 'trade' is not synonymous with 'international trade' and includes me exchanging a good with someone at a market stall or transferring manufactured goods from the yangtze to guangxi. moreover china as an internal market was on balance, as large, if not larger than the whole of freaking europe. europe just had these annoying things called 'borders' that make its trade, which in spatial terms for the most part wasn't all that 'hot', detectable to us. but there's another point i've alluded to that needs to be made more forcefully, if we accept that trade encompasses mutual exchange then it stands to reason that all societies are built on trade - i.e. the exchange of goods and services for other goods and services. so on a whole bunch of fronts claims like this are wrong and annoyingly so.

most of my gripes are little ones anyway. kudos on the last post particularly. because if europeans cared much about elite court behaviours as the be-all-and-end-all we'd still have to assume that the because the church banned it europeans couldn't borrow or save. which is arrant nonsense but w/e.

 

[Traitorfish]

but there's another point i've alluded to that needs to be made more forcefully, if we accept that trade encompasses mutual exchange then it stands to reason that all societies are built on trade - i.e. the exchange of goods and services for other goods and services. so on a whole bunch of fronts claims like this are wrong and annoyingly so.

How does "commercial exchange exists in this society" become "this society is fundamentally orientated around commercial exchange"? That seems like an additional development to me, and one which was present in neither Europe nor China at this point.

 

[J. pride]

I was flipping through this list and basically found it a bit westcenteric, some people did raise the point of India and China but those are basically void because of you cannot just say China and India and have to name specific dynasties. India and China were comparable to the whole of Europe interms of population and land area so by saying that is as accurate as saying that Western Europe had the largest economy in the world. Now as far as lists go, here is mine on the chronology of the largest economies in the world. (There are some BC empires I will mention but only the most noticable so that means that Hittites, Pheonicia, Athens, Assyria, Egypt or Babylon will not be in simply because when do know that one took over the other?)

Timeline of the World's largest economies:

Ancient and Hellenistic Era:

Achaemenid Dynasty by far (Persia)
Maurya Dynasty (India) followed by the Selucid Empire
Roman Republic and Carthage (don't know which one was wealthier?)
Roman Empire and Han Dynasty (China) (Hans might have been wealthier, although im not sure)

Start of the Middle Ages:

Byzantine Empire and Jin Dynasty (China) and Gupta Dynasty (India) (I would guess that the Guptas were the wealthiest of the three)

600-750 ad: Ummayad Calpihate (Arab) followed by Tang Dynasty (China)

750-1000 ad: Abbasid Caliphate by far (Arab) followed by Cordoban Caliphate and Pala Dynasty (India)

1000-1190 ad: Several different regional economic powers including: Fatimid Dynasty (Egypt), Byzantine Resurgence, Seljuk Dynasty (Persia), Pala Dynasty (Northern India), Chola Dynasty (Southern India), and perhaps the wealthiest was Song Dynasty (China).


1200-1400 ad: Mongol Empire and Yuan Dynasty by far, Delhi Sultanate (India), Italian City States, France, Ayyubid and Mamluk Dynasy and Mali Empire.

1400-1500ad: Ming Dynasty by far followed by Italian City States, Ottoman Empire, France

1500-1600ad: Close call between Ottoman Empire, Spain and Ming Dyansty.

1600-1700ad: Mughal Empire by far followed by Qing Dynasty, Spain, France, and the Ottoman Empire.

1700-1800ad: Dutch, England, France, Austria, Russia, Afsharid dynasty (Persia) but the largest giants were still the Mughals and Qing.

1800-1900ad: England (by far), followed by other European Powers notably France, Netherlands, Austria-Hungary, Germany etc.

1900-1930ad: U.S.A followed by Britain, France, Germany (before wwi) etc

1939-1945ad: U.S.A, Empire of Jaman, Nazi Germany, British Empire

1945-present: U.S.A

Near Future: China??

Far Future: India??

 

[Dachs]

I was flipping through this list and basically found it a bit westcenteric, some people did raise the point of India and China but those are basically void because of you cannot just say China and India and have to name specific dynasties.

Why?

 

[J. pride]

Why?

Are you referring to the first part where i said the list was a bit westcentric or the second part where I said that people should not use India or China and instead refer to a specific entities?

I assume that your question is about the first half. Not that this list is totally Eurocentric or that I even flipped through all 9 pages but it is a bit biased. like this post I randomly pulled out:

Minoans -> Egyptians -> Phoenicians -> Persia -> Greece -> Carthage (for a short period of time?) -> Rome -> Kingdom of Burgundy (this is just a random guess, idk much about this time) -> Venice -> Ottoman Empire -> Portugal (for a short period of time?) -> Spain -> Great Britain -> Germany -> US -> China?

skips over Chinese, Indian and Arab dynasties.

After Rome it'd probably look more like this: China, China, China, China, China, China, Napoleon's Empire, British Empire, Germany, America. (India was very rarely a united entity during that period of history, so hard to list them above China. Maybe a brief period under the Mughals)

If we remove China from the equation, it might go like this.

Rome, Eastern Roman Empire, Umayyad Caliphate (furthest extent of initial Muslim Conquest).

After that its a tough call until the Mongol Conquest. Europe was a splintered backwater, so its hard to mention them. The Byzantines were still strong, but the initial Mongol expansion pushed them back hard. India was still divided. Probably the Seljuk Turks' empire, but that didn't expand til later. So we're left with a few hundred year gap here. Probably put it between the Eastern Romans and one of the Caliphate successor states.

Than the Mongol empire. Without question. Even if we exclude China, they pretty much controlled everything East of Poland.

After that there's no clear successor without China in the mix. Venice made its rise around this time. Than eventually the Ottoman's became dominant. Mughal's were huge as well a bit later. Around that time Spain was making its own global play. For a couple of centuries you could probably pick one of those three.

Ok, this one's not eurocentric but rather China-centric as it is highly unlikely that after the fall of the Romans till Napoleon China was the most dominant economic power in the world.
For one I am pretty sure that the Ummayad and the early Abbasids (before splinter) were larger than the Tang dynasty economically. After the fall of the Tang, China was divided into warring states, so it wasnt until the emergence of the Song that China was once again unified. This means that the largest economy during that timeperiod was either an Indian Dynasty, one of the caliphates (Abbasids and Fatimids) or the Byzantine Empire which was recently rebounding (circa 950-1050). Now fast forward to after the Mongol invasion and once again the Mughal Empire was as economically large if not larger than the Ming Dynasty. I am pretty sure that I read somewhere that the Mughals were the wealthiest empire for quite some time. If I had to guess I would say that after the fall of Rome till Napoleon, China was the wealthiest state on three occasions:

-Early part of the Tang Dynasty (The Byzantines and the Persians had fought a costly war and the Arabs had not fully emerged)
- Song Dynasty (The Crusades were in progress and Europe, India and the Middle East were splintered)
-Qing Dyanty (Was the largest Chinese dynasty, Even during their decline they were comparable to the all powerful British empire in terms of economy)

 

[Dachs]

Are you referring to the first part where i said the list was a bit westcentric or the second part where I said that people should not use India or China and instead refer to a specific entities?

I assume that your question is about the first half.

Nope, second half. And my contention was not with "specific entities" but with the "dynasties" part.

 

[Verbose]

er, right. except these kinds of sentiments are about as bad the whole confucian mindset thing. mostly because it isn't true and even were to be more receptive to the claim its impossible to prove in a meaningful sense. people here need to remember that 'trade' is not synonymous with 'international trade' and includes me exchanging a good with someone at a market stall or transferring manufactured goods from the yangtze to guangxi. moreover china as an internal market was on balance, as large, if not larger than the whole of freaking europe. europe just had these annoying things called 'borders' that make its trade, which in spatial terms for the most part wasn't all that 'hot', detectable to us. but there's another point i've alluded to that needs to be made more forcefully, if we accept that trade encompasses mutual exchange then it stands to reason that all societies are built on trade - i.e. the exchange of goods and services for other goods and services. so on a whole bunch of fronts claims like this are wrong and annoyingly so.

most of my gripes are little ones anyway. kudos on the last post particularly. because if europeans cared much about elite court behaviours as the be-all-and-end-all we'd still have to assume that the because the church banned it europeans couldn't borrow or save. which is arrant nonsense but w/e.

You're right. My comment you objected to was in fact based on the exact same kind of sloppy thinking, mistaking Confusian stated ideals of society for the actual way things worked. My mistake there.

I know the history of Japan somewhat better than the Chinese one, and the Japanse case has the same situation. Technically speaking the merchant class was po-poed no end by their supposed social betters. In reality they were seriously wealthy, seriously useful for Japanese society by their innovation of financial instruments, and being the people with the money, as staggering amount of the artistic and cultural products we today admire as the finest expressions of Japanese society and culture were produced by them and for them.

All these stories in Japanese theatre from the Tokugawa period, of the conflicts between ninjo (human sentiment) and giri (duty) among samurai, were initially produced for consumption by the literate and sophisticated merchant class. They were staged the way they were since the merchants found the samurai ideals of putting duty before human sentiment to be astonishing and horrific, just like westerners would.

Samuari of course were forbidden to catch the shows, since it was a base and useless passtime for base and useless people, technically speaking. Still, the bans against samurai running to the theaters had to be repeated again, and again, and again, since apparently there was no stopping them.

That's also a case of theoretical Confusian social ideals meeting practial reality.

 

[Plotinus]

Would it have made any difference if I'd said "What?"?

Yes, because at least that's a word - but it still wouldn't have advanced the discussion because you wouldn't have said what it was about those statements that you object to, or don't understand, or dispute, or whatever it is you're trying to do.

I'm not sure how to engage with posts that don't make any sense whatsoever.

My advice, then, would be simply to say that it doesn't make sense and perhaps say why. Or failing that, just ignore posts of that kind.

 

[Masada]

usury should have been somewhere in that last passage.

That's also a case of theoretical Confusian social ideals meeting practial reality.

mmm

How does "commercial exchange exists in this society" become "this society is fundamentally orientated around commercial exchange"? That seems like an additional development to me, and one which was present in neither Europe nor China at this point.

not really. it seems kind of self-evident. people aren't islands and can't produce all that they require. therefore people trade.