ABSTRACT
China's fiscal organization under the Ming dynasty, in part reflecting the deliberate design of the dynastic founder, left no such avenue open. Neither the salt dealers, nor the Cohong merchants, nor the Shansi draft bankers had generated enough influence to establish a new trend for China's mercantile capitalization. A modern state differs from traditional China under the Ming and Qing primarily in the fact that its government is an active participant in the works of the national economy. Direct taxation on a multitude of small self-cultivators, a feature of the Chinese imperial order, continued through the Ming and Qing. An alert observer cannot fail but see the passive management of the Chinese local government in the later imperial period running over the long stretch of five hundred years. Until very recently, groups of Chinese historians were trying to advance the theory that during the late Ming, a 'sprouting of capitalism' took place in China.
