Was there ever a Chinese tea party?

…best estimates are that during the second half of the 18th century imperial taxes captured only 5 percent of the gross national product in China, compared to 12-15 percent in Russia, 9-13 percent of national commodity production in France, and 16-24 percent of national commodity production in Britain.  During the 18th century in Russia, moreover, corvees and military service were far more onerous than in China, where most labor services had been commuted.  If we consider that under the Northern Song in 1080, imperial revenue averaged about 13 percent of national income, and under the Ming in 1550 6-8 percent, we find some support for Skinner’s thesis that percentage of the surplus captured in imperial taxes shrank steadily relative to the share retained by local systems.

Victor Lieberman presents “philosophical commitment to low taxes” as a major reason for this pattern.  Further explanations are a lack of foreign threats and that the Chinese state did not always have the capacity to collect much more.

Those points can be found in Lieberman’s quite interesting Strange Parallels, Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800-1830, volume 2, Mainland Mirrors: Europe, Japan, China, South Asia, and the Islands.  The book is even longer than that title, clocking in at 947 pp. and that is only the second part of the whole.