CAPITALISM AND THE CHINESE PEASANT
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less far than one might suppose from the superficial — though very striking changes in the material standard and style of living. This is especially true of the political and economic spheres. To say, as Potter does in describing the activities of one particularly wealthy individual, that "in the New Territories at present, political power is easily translated into wealth" is to oversimplify a complex symbiotic relationship between economic and political power scarcely a new thing in Chinese society. Further consideration of the ways in which different types of peasant society are integrated would have raised some fascinating questions on the particular case of “depeasantization” in the Chinese context. Just how much difference has the great increase in wealth made? Has it, perhaps, intensified patterns of behaviour that were already present? Potter describes the same, or another, wealthy personage as being constantly attended by three or four close business and political associates, almost all of whose entertainment expenses he pays: what is the nature of the relationship between these men? And how does it differ from the analogous ones described in the Chinese novels comedies of manners which could offer new insights to the anthropologist of traditional China?
Unfortunately, Potter lacked time and opportunity thoroughly to investigate the Hop Yick Company, a most interesting organisation in the local market town of Yuen Long. Skinner's work on the integration of whole marketing areas is very relevant to the New Territories, and it would be useful to have more detail on the articulation, past and present, of Yuen Long market with the surrounding villages.* One among many important questions raised, but perhaps insufficiently discussed, by Potter concerns the entry of outside capital into a market which previously derived its livelihood exclusively from its function as a focus for the economic and political activity of the surrounding district: what
A small point of fact (p. 170): the Hop Yick Company did not evolve from a market organisation controlled by a Kam Tin lineage group, interesting though such a development would have been. It was formed when the other groups of villages in the Yuen Long marketing area became tired of the domination of the old market by the Tangs of Kam Tin. These groups (yeuk or heung) found themselves with the capital and the political integration necessary to throw off the Tangs' control, and to form a new market on the doorstep of the old. (Cf. Hong Kong Administrative Reports, 1917, J.2: "The new market at Un Long proved its utility and incidentally took much of the life out of the old market, where several bankruptcies had to be registered") Kam Tin was excluded from the foundation of the new market.
CAPITALISM AND THE CHINESE PEASANT
121
less far than one might suppose from the superficial — though very striking changes in the material standard and style of living. This is especially true of the political and economic spheres. To say, as Potter does in describing the activities of one particularly wealthy individual, that "in the New Territories at present, political power is easily translated into wealth" is to oversimplify a complex sym- biotic relationship between economic and political power scarce- ly a new thing in Chinese society. Further consideration of the ways in which different types of peasant society are integrated would have raised some fascinating questions on the particular case of “depeasantization” in the Chinese context. Just how much difference has the great increase in wealth made? Has it, perhaps, intensified patterns of behaviour that were already present? Potter describes the same, or another, wealthy personage as being con- stantly attended by three or four close business and political as- sociates, almost all of whose entertainment expenses he pays: what is the nature of the relationship between these men? And how does it differ from the analogous ones described in the Chinese novels comedies of manners which could offer new insights to the anthropologist of traditional China?
Unfortunately, Potter lacked time and opportunity thoroughly to investigate the Hop Yick Company, a most interesting organisa- tion in the local market town of Yuen Long. Skinner's work on the integration of whole marketing areas is very relevant to the New Territories, and it would be useful to have more detail on the articulation, past and present, of Yuen Long market with the surrounding villages.* One among many important questions raised, but perhaps insufficiently discussed, by Potter concerns the entry of outside capital into a market which previously derived its livelihood exclusively from its function as a focus for the economic and political activity of the surrounding district: what
A small point of fact (p. 170): the Hop Yick Company did not evolve from a market organisation controlled by a Kam Tin lineage group, interesting though such a development would have been. It was formed when the other groups of villages in the Yuen Long marketing area became tired of the domination of the old market by the Tangs of Kam Tin. These groups (yeuk or heung) found themselves with the capital and the political integration necessary to throw off the Tangs' control, and to form a new market on the doorstep of the old, (Cf. Hong Kong Administrative Reports, 1917, J.2: "The new market at Un Long proved its utility and incidentally took much of the life out of the old market, where several bankruptcies had to be registered") Kam Tin was excluded from the foundation of the new market.
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