Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 7, 2022

 

Financial Policy and Social Economy in the Song Dynasty

(Abstract)

 

Li Huarui

 

In the Song dynasty, industrial and commercial taxation far exceeded agricultural taxation, to an extent which no other dynasty could match. This phenomenon was largely due to its strongly utilitarian financial policies. The court made industrial and commercial taxation its main revenue source; it operated effectively through the use of market features and the laws governing market relationships and the commodity economy, and actively stimulated consumption. Under this dominant policy, rulers seeking huge wealth used state power to mobilize various resources, implementing a system of monopolies and commercial taxation. This in turn actively stimulated the commodity-monetary economy, expanding the scale of market exchanges and promoting the development of the commodity economy. Song financial policies manifested the imperial state’s unique advantage of economic intervention, a feature of its prosperous commodity-monetary economy unlike other dynasties.