Paradigm conflict of new economic historiography

Paradigm Conflict between New Economic Historiography and China Traditional Economic Historiography;

The development of China's new economic historiography began in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During this period, new institutional economics began to enter China, which triggered the new institutional economics fever in China. With a large number of comments and interpretations on the studies of Coase, North and vogel in China, the ideas and research methods of the new economic history are gradually familiar to domestic economists. While paying attention to the current reform in China, domestic scholars began to consciously study the cases of institutional changes in Chinese and foreign history with the theory and method of new economic history, and compared and confirmed them with the current institutional changes in China, so as to have a deeper understanding of institutional changes. The new economic history has become an important field of economic research and education.

With the upsurge of research on new institutional economics in economics, the research on China's traditional economic history has also been impacted by this upsurge, resulting in different reactions. On the one hand, some historians began to consciously learn and draw lessons from the theory of new economic history, and used it as an important theoretical tool to understand and explain China's historical phenomena. Concepts such as property right, system and transaction cost are often used. On the other hand, many historians show a strong aversion to this kind of economic imperialism. They believe that the new economic historiography makes history no longer like history, and history is separated from the description of historical facts and becomes a vassal of theory. At the same time, they think that it is anti-historical to blindly copy the new economic history theory based on western development experience into the study of Chinese economic history, and the study of economic history by economists is simply "completely unprofessional" and "irrelevant".

The sharp criticism of traditional historians on the new economic historiography is related to the following two reasons: First, the narrative methods of historiography and economics are different. The former is inductive and descriptive, following the principle of "history precedes logic", while the latter is deductive and logical. Although the application of induction and description is not excluded, both induction and description are carried out under a prefabricated logic system, that is, logic precedes history. Specifically, the economic history of historiography "is a study of past economic practices that we don't know or know clearly, so it can only be based on historical materials." Here, all economic theories are methodology, which is to analyze and summarize the existing economic facts in history. The economic history studied by economics is based on historical experience to construct a theory, and its concern for historical facts is only for the needs of theoretical construction. As Hicks said, "In order not to make the logical process conflict with the most obvious facts, we should look back at the historical records." Here, all historical experiences are different cases or data in different periods, which are used to refine or verify the theory. At the same time, the research object of economic history in economics is not limited to economic phenomena, but involves many factors such as politics, economy, society and culture. History and economy are essentially one. Economists' bad habit of "roughly using historical materials and mainly relying on ancestors to put forward theoretical hypotheses" has attracted criticism from historians. In the eyes of historians, the reason why new economic historians are interested in history is only because they want to regard history as a "natural experiment". "Economists study historical phenomena in almost the same way and think that there is no difference between the past and reality", thus reducing history to contemporary history and becoming a vassal of economics.

Secondly, and more importantly, as a theoretical tool used in economic theory, there is a methodological conflict between the new economic historiography and the traditional historiography in analyzing and summarizing historical facts. Although "thinking in theoretical terms" is not "the profession of historians", historians always use economic theories or fragments of some theories intentionally or unintentionally when summarizing and analyzing historical phenomena. Historians have repeatedly emphasized "historical authenticity", but in fact, the history they wrote is still not free from theoretical reconstruction. The history presented by historians depends not only on how many historical facts they get from the excavation and textual research of historical materials, but also on what theories they use to deal with these facts. Hayek once warned that the concept of "historical facts" should be questioned. In his view, there is no "historical fact" that can be defined according to space-time coordinates like nature, because "not everything that happens at the same time and place is a part of the same historical fact, and all parts of the same historical fact do not necessarily happen at the same time and place". Whether a piece of information constitutes a part of historical facts depends on the selection of historians' minds. The more complicated the historical facts are, the greater the difference caused by this screening. In this sense, history and theory are inseparable. "When we select some parts from the knowledge we have about a certain period and regard them as components that have a clear relationship with the same historical fact, we are actually using a theory." The research objects of economic historiography, such as market, economic system and mode of production, are all complex systems, and the related historical facts are more components of theoretical reconstruction. Explaining economic history with different theoretical tools, even if it is based on the same historical materials, the results will be very different.

The new economic history theory and the traditional theoretical tools used in the study of Chinese economic history, mainly Marxist economics, are fundamentally different in methodology. The methodology of economics includes three different levels: in the philosophical sense, individualism or holism; Theoretically, whether inductive or deductive; Specific methods, including statistics, measurement and case description. Among them, the difference in philosophy determines that different theories will have completely different directions. The theory of new economic history, whether it is the balanced analysis of neoclassical economic history theory or the evolutionary analysis under the comparative historical system analysis, is based on the philosophy of individualism and liberalism, emphasizing the important role of individuals in historical evolution, and the difference is only the personality setting of individuals who are completely rational or partially rational. This is different from Marx's historical materialism, which also reveals the law of historical evolution. The latter, based on holism philosophy, attributed institutional changes to some kind of super-rationality that transcends individual consciousness. In the process of historical evolution, the individual is completely helpless and must obey some super-power or irresistible law. Under this holistic philosophy, "only collective entities (such as nations and countries) and social groups (such as classes and tribes) will have history;" Individuals have no history of any kind (except their own life course). Individuals understand, think and act in the specific social structure that determines their behavior ... Taking individuals as the starting point of research greatly reduces the importance of social background and its history. "Reflected in the value judgment, the holistic view of history emphasizes the history of the country and the nation, guides individuals to position themselves from such historical feelings, and thus exerts a powerful ethnic-oriented political and ideological function. Individualistic view of history focuses on the interaction and expression between individuals and systems, organizations and cultures in historical evolution. It looks at and judges collective entities such as countries and nations from an individual perspective, and takes economic performance rather than historical feelings as the standard for judging historical events. Taking the Opium War as an example, the holistic view of history focuses on the overall changes in the state and class structure caused by this incident, injecting strong national and ethnic feelings into this incident, while the individualistic view of history focuses on the changes in the social, economic, legal and cultural environment of individual activities caused by this incident and its impact on social organizations, cultural evolution, individual behavior choices and socio-economic performance changes. This may be an important reason why the new economic historiography is called anti-historicism.

Another major criticism of the new economic history may come from the methodological characteristics of individualism in the new economic history, that is, its universalism. The new economic historiography applies the same concepts and categories in economics to all historical stages and social forms, as if "these societies are dominated by the same capitalist logic"; For any social organization, every economic transaction is the result of cautious market behavior. The methodology of individualism does not recognize any rationality beyond individualism, but regards "division of labor-transaction-market expansion" based on individual decision-making as the basic force of human historical evolution, and recognizes the superiority of free market system, indivisible property rights protection system and competitive political market structure. Although the equilibrium analysis takes economic efficiency as the standard, and the evolutionary analysis gives an evolutionary view by comparing the survival, development, prosperity and decline of the economies carried by different systems in history, there is no difference between them in conclusion, that is, they all point out the important role of the free market system based on individualism in economic growth and social prosperity. Therefore, the theory of new economic history is often accused by its critics of "using the myth of market universalism to defend social inequality under the real economic system", which is similar to Parker's assertion that "the success of new economic history lies in showing that the market mechanism works well". The universalism contained in the theory of new economic history inevitably leads to criticisms such as "blindly copying western theories", "western-centered theory" and "divorced from the historical truth of China" when it is used to explain the history of China.

Paradigm Conflict between New Economic Historiography and China's Traditional Economic Historiography How to coordinate the paradigm conflict between historiography and economics in the current study of China's economic history is related to the differences in narrative methods between the two disciplines and the methodological differences in the theoretical tools they rely on. The two disciplines can not be well integrated and communicated, which restricts the development of the two disciplines. For the compilation of economic history, the prejudice against economic theory makes it impossible for historians to choose more suitable and richer theoretical tools from economists' toolbox for their own use, and the ability of historians to analyze and summarize specific events and discover the general laws behind them is affected, thus losing the opportunity to emancipate their minds from the shackles of old theories. As far as economics and economic history are concerned, the lack of in-depth understanding of historical facts will inevitably lead to the suspension and distortion of economists' theories when they study the localization of China with the theory of economics. Economist will find that many concepts as that core of this theory have no correspond concepts in history. The lack of historical knowledge, but the stiff confusion between theory and historical facts, not only affected the explanatory power of the theory, but also lost the opportunity to make use of China's rich historical system resources for theoretical innovation.

In the study of economic history, historians and economists in China should not blame each other, but learn from each other. In this regard, the American Economic History Society has provided a good experience. They will hold regular gatherings of historians and economists to promote exchanges and dialogues between the two disciplines. In China, economists and historians should also put aside prejudice and seek positive communication.

1. What should historians do? For historians, facing the imperialist phenomenon of economics, the first thing to do is to strengthen their discipline confidence.

In the long run, all economic theories are methodologies, which serve the interpretation and understanding of history. History does depend on theoretical reconstruction, but in the process of human knowledge improvement, the theory is constantly changing, and the historical experience and facts behind it are independent. From this point of view, historiography will not become a vassal of any systematic social science.

With the development of economics today, although more and more emphasis is placed on its scientific nature, it can never meet the conditions of natural science experiments. History is the only laboratory it can use, and the key to the laboratory is in the hands of historians. Providing the most authentic data and restoring the historical truth to the greatest extent is the greatest contribution that historians can make to economics. From this perspective, the basic methods of historiography-historical materials and textual research-are of great significance to the study of economics and economic history. Secondly, historians should learn from economists, enrich their theoretical tools, and choose theoretical tools according to the coupling degree between theory and history, instead of taking it for granted that a certain theory is right. He Chen pointed out that there are two controversial tendencies in the study of economic history. "First, dating research methods are popular, and it is often impossible to see the context before and after long-term development. Second, some people overemphasize the applicability of Marx's economic history view in the history of China and choose historical materials to accommodate the theoretical framework. " The first situation reflects the lack of systematic theoretical tools to guide the traditional economic history research, thus lacking historical insight; In the second case, it points out the source of many chaotic phenomena in the current economic history research in China. For example, the division of social stages and the use of the word "feudalism", since the Qin Dynasty, China was centralized and did not have a feudal system in the western sense. Rigid application of Marx's theory of social stages not only makes the study of Chinese economic history unrecognizable, but also misinterprets and misuses Marx's theory. For historical research, theory should be a tool rather than anything else.

While being wary of the shackles of the new economic history theory, historians also need to reflect on whether they have got rid of the shackles of dogmatism. From this point of view, the impact of the new economic history on traditional historiography research will be strong, which will involve the purpose, method and even transformation of the whole discourse system, and this transformation is just the normal reaction of a country's historiography and social sciences in the process of transformation. With the expansion of the influence of the new economic history, the concepts of property right, system, transaction cost, social evolution and economic growth have been widely used in the study of Chinese economic history. The use of these concepts not only means the richness of words used to express thoughts and describe facts, but also shows the change of a way of thinking and the opening and reform of social ideology to a certain extent.

2. What should economists do? For economists, the first thing that needs to be clear is the importance of history in economic research.

To this end, it is necessary to memorize Schumpeter's sentence: "If a person does not grasp the historical facts and has no sense of history or so-called historical experience, he cannot expect to understand the economic phenomena of any era (including the present)." Economists should learn to hear stories from historians and bring theories (no matter how beautiful and complicated they look) to the history laboratory for testing and correction. Although the economic theory unrelated to history is logically rigorous, its explanatory power to the real world seems doubtful.

So far, the prescriptions given by neoclassical economists to countries in transition have not shown good results, because their ability to ignore the institutional changes of each country is a function of its own history, and the unique history of each country makes it impossible to develop according to some unified law. As the saying goes, "a bear's paw is the second arsenic", copying the experience of other countries mechanically may have serious consequences in practice. Only by combining history can economics show its ability to explain theoretically and understand reality. Secondly, economists should learn to reflect on the economic theories and methods they rely on. At present, positivism prevails in economic research, which leads to an "empirical superstition". Statistics and econometric methods have been abused to a great extent, and a large number of works without economic thoughts have appeared, such as "formalization for formalization" and "measurement for measurement", which has made economic research increasingly a "self-help game" for economists and lost historical feelings and humanistic care. This phenomenon is unavoidable in the study of new economic history.

As early as 20 years ago, R.M. Solo criticized that econometric historians were obsessed with establishing and testing models, thinking that they could get all the answers from equation derivation, instead of asking how the world became like this like real historians. Econometrics emphasizes regression and integration, and finally "replaces historical thinking with time series", but "fails to provide a broader vision for economics from the aspects of social system, cultural customs and people's mentality". In order to avoid this defect, economists must get rid of narcissistic "self-help games", learn from historians and draw inspiration from historical descriptions and social chronicles, otherwise measurement tools will become "torture devices" for historical research, which will constrain economists' exploration of the internal logic of history. Economists will eventually find themselves in a dilemma: a large number of historical phenomena with research significance cannot enter the research field of vision because they cannot be quantified, while other phenomena are very convenient for quantitative analysis, but they are of little significance to social and economic development. Paying attention to historical description method may be a good choice for economists to get rid of this embarrassing situation. How to coordinate the paradigm conflict between China's new economic historiography and traditional economic historiography?

At present, the conflict between historiography and economics paradigm in the study of Chinese economic history is related to the differences in narrative methods between the two disciplines and the differences in methodology of the theoretical tools they rely on. The two disciplines can not be well integrated and communicated, which restricts the development of the two disciplines. For the economic history of historiography, the prejudice against economic theory makes it impossible for historians to choose more suitable and richer theoretical tools from economists' toolbox for their own use, and the ability of historians to analyze, summarize and discover the general laws behind specific events is affected, thus losing the opportunity to liberate their thoughts from the shackles of old theories. As far as the economic history of economics is concerned, the lack of in-depth understanding of historical facts will inevitably lead to the suspension and distortion of economists' theory when they study the localization of China with the theory of economics. Economists will find that many concepts as the core of the theory have no corresponding in history. The lack of historical knowledge, but the stiff confusion between theory and historical facts, not only affected the explanatory power of the theory, but also lost the opportunity to make use of China's rich historical system resources for theoretical innovation.

In the study of economic history, historians and economists in China should not blame each other, but learn from each other. In this regard, the American Economic History Society has provided a good experience. They will hold regular gatherings of historians and economists to promote exchanges and dialogues between the two disciplines. In China, economists and historians should also put aside prejudice and seek positive communication.

1. What should historians do? For historians, facing the imperialist phenomenon of economics, their primary task is to strengthen their discipline confidence.

In the long run, "all economic theories are methodologies", which serve the interpretation and understanding of history. History does depend on the reconstruction of theory, but in the process of human knowledge improvement, theory is constantly changing, and the historical experience and facts behind it are independent. From this point of view, historiography will not become a vassal of any systematic social science.

Today, although economics emphasizes its scientific nature more and more, it can never meet the experimental conditions of natural science. History is the only laboratory it can use, and the key to the laboratory is in the hands of historians. Providing the most authentic data and restoring the historical truth to the greatest extent is the greatest contribution that historians can make to economics. From this perspective, the basic methods of historiography-historical materials and textual research-are of great significance to the study of economic history of economics. Secondly, historians should learn from economists, enrich their theoretical tools, and choose theoretical tools according to the coupling degree between theory and history, instead of taking it for granted that a certain theory is right. He Chen believes that there are two controversial tendencies in the study of economic history. "First, the way of dating research is popular, and the context of long-term development is often invisible. Second, some people overemphasize the applicability of Marx's economic history view in the history of China and choose historical materials to accommodate the theoretical framework. " The first situation reflects the lack of systematic theoretical tools to guide the traditional economic history research, thus lacking historical insight; The second situation points out the roots of many chaotic phenomena in the current study of Chinese economic history. For example, the division of social stages and the use of the word "feudalism", since the Qin Dynasty, China has been a centralized system, and there is no feudal system in the western sense. The rigid application of Marx's theory of social stages not only makes the study of Chinese economic history "unrecognizable", but also misinterprets and misuses Marx's theory. Theory should be a tool for historical research, not something else.

While being wary of the shackles of the new economic history theory, historians also need to reflect on whether they have got rid of the shackles of dogmatism. From this point of view, the impact of new economic history on traditional historiography research will be strong, which will involve the transformation of purpose, method and even the whole discourse system, and this transformation is the normal reaction of a country's historiography and social science in the process of transformation. With the expansion of the influence of the new economic history, the concepts of property right, system, transaction cost, social evolution and economic growth have been widely used in the study of Chinese economic history. The use of these concepts not only means the richness of words used to express thoughts and narrate facts, but also shows the change of a way of thinking and the opening and reform of the field of social thought to a certain extent.

2. What should economists do? For economists, the first thing that needs to be clear is the importance of history to economic research.

To this end, they need to memorize Schumpeter's sentence: "If a person does not grasp the historical facts and has no sense of history or so-called historical experience, he cannot expect to understand the economic phenomena of any era (including the present)." ⒅ Economists should learn to listen to historians' stories and bring theories (no matter how beautiful and complicated they look) to the history laboratory for testing and correction. Although the economic theory unrelated to history is rigorous in logic, its explanatory power to the real world seems doubtful.

So far, the prescriptions given by neoclassical economists to countries in transition have not shown good results, because they ignore that the institutional change ability of each country is a function of its own history, and the unique history of each country makes it impossible for them to develop according to some unified law. The so-called "one bear's paw, two arsenic" may have serious consequences in practice. Only when economics is combined with history can it show its theoretical ability to explain and understand reality. Secondly, economists should learn to reflect on the economic theories and methods they rely on. The prevalence of positivism in current economic research has triggered an "empirical superstition". Statistics and econometric methods have been abused to a great extent, and a large number of works have appeared, such as "formalization for formalization" and "measurement for measurement", which have no economic ideological content, making economic research increasingly a "self-help game" for economists, losing historical feelings and humanistic care. In the study of new economic history, this phenomenon is inevitable.

As early as 20 years ago, R.M. Solo criticized that econometric historians were obsessed with establishing and testing models, thinking that they could get all the answers from the derivation of equations, instead of asking how the world became like this like real historians. Econometrics pays attention to regression and integration, and finally "replaces historical thinking with time series", but "it can't provide a broader vision for economics from social system, cultural customs and people's mentality." In order to avoid this defect, economists must get rid of narcissistic "self-help games", learn from historians and draw inspiration from historical descriptions and social chronicles, otherwise measurement tools will become "torture devices" for historical research, which will constrain economists' exploration of the inherent logic of history. Economists will eventually find themselves in a dilemma: a large number of historical phenomena with research significance cannot enter the research field of vision because they cannot be quantified, while other phenomena are very convenient for quantitative analysis, but they are of little significance to social and economic development. Paying attention to historical description may be a good choice for economists to get rid of this embarrassing situation.