“Oriental Economy” and the Sociological Mechanism of Rural Industrialization in China

Abstract: This paper presents a revisiting of an unpublished manuscript by “Kuige” (“魁阁”) sociologist Shih Kuo-heng during his study in the United States in the 1940s, entitled “A Mine Town in China: A Study of Industry and Society”. Shih’s work presents a comprehensive approach that combines industry, moeurs and governance, revealing the unique characteristics of the traditional Oriental economy model and the sociological mechanisms that determine the success or failure of China’s rural industrialization through a case study of the rise and fall of the tin-mining in Kochiu. It also reflects on the mainstream paradigms of American social science at the time, such as modernization theory and the human relations school. Together with Shih’s better-known book China Enter the Machine Age, A Mine Town in China forms a companion volume to his study of industrialization in China, in which “the social basis of industrialization” is a central thread. The rediscovery of Shih Kuo-heng’s work helps us to reconnect with the industrial research tradition of early Chinese sociology, and also suggests that rural industrialization and even rural revitalization today still need to pay attention to the social foundation of industry and deal with the dialectical relationship between economic transformation and social restructuring.