1. How the Law May Create Poverty: The Rent Prepayment Custom in Modern North China and Its Social Consequences.
- Author
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Xiao, Weilin
- Subjects
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SOCIAL impact , *SOCIAL history , *ECONOMIC history , *LEGAL history ,MING dynasty, China, 1368-1644 - Abstract
The custom of prepaying land rent, a widespread practice in North China stretching from the Ming dynasty to the Republic, has not been fully discussed in the scholarship. This article addresses two issues surrounding this custom from the perspectives of legal history and the social and economic history of North China. The first issue is the custom itself. The article explores how the Guomindang government institutionalized and legitimized the custom at the normative and empirical levels through the Civil Code of the Republic of China and other laws. The second issue is the institutional consequences. Through historical analysis, this article points out that the rent prepayment custom brought about fluctuations in the grain market in rural North China, plunging peasants into a situation of selling grain at low prices in order to prepay the land rent, which in turn led them into a cycle of poverty. 摘要: "预租制"作为近代华北地区广泛存在的租佃习惯，在学界尚未得到充分讨论。本文试图从法律史与既有的华北地区社会经济史的角度出发，解决预租制的两个问题。第一是制度本身问题，本文将分析民国国民政府如何通过中华民国《民法》以及其他特别法律，使该习惯在事实与规范层面得以制度化并具备合法性的。第二是制度后果问题，本文将通过史料分析，指出"预租制"这一制度化了的习惯，会带来华北农村粮食市场的波动，让农民陷入低价售粮以缴纳预租的局面，进而让农民进入贫困的循环之中。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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