This text provides a unique examination of the relationship between the state and market in China's economic development over several centuries. Its analysis is situated in the wider context of debates about technical progress in the pre-modern world, about the impact of Western imperialism, about the role of the state in the economic development of poor countries and in the transition of former communist countries from Stalinist systems of political economy. Peter Nolan is the co-author of "Re-thinking Social Economics" and author of "The Political Economy of Collective Farms".