Abstract:

According to field investigations and local archives from the 1930s, the living conditions of peasant households in Qingyuan on the North China Plain, can be reconstructed. The daily consumption levels of most peasants, including food, clothing, housing, and transportation, fell below the absolute poverty line. During famine years, over half of the lower-class peasant households faced complete destitution. Apart from kerosene largely replacing edible oil for lighting and the slow progression of machine-woven cloth substituting handmade cloth, modern production and household goods rarely entered peasant homes. This scenario can be described as “subsistence agriculture” or even “agriculture failing to ensure subsistence”, let alone enabling expanded reproduction or providing accumulation for industrialization. In contrast, English peasants experienced a continuous improvement in their standard of living from the late Middle Ages onward. By the pre-Industrial Revolution period, 75% of the rural population enjoyed increasingly varied daily diets, greater refinement in garments, and the emergence of two-storey dwellings. Their consumption capacity directly fueled the development of both domestic and international markets. A comparison of consumption levels between Chinese and English peasant households in pre-industrial societies profoundly underscores the underlying logic between peasants’ living conditions and economic growth−steady growth in commoners’consumption served as a stable engine for national economic expansion.

Published on Economic and Social History Review, Issue 4, 2025.