5 - Temporal and Geographic Distributions of Property-rights Disputes in Guangdong

Summary

As stated in the introduction, an underlying assumption of this study is that population growth and commercialization increased the relative value of land and induced demand to extend or refine property rights, thereby creating the potential for violent disputes. In this chapter, I will examine the temporal and geographic distribution disputes in Guangdong province in order to draw a link between violent disputes and the broader economic changes of the eighteenth century. Unfortunately, the data are not available to measure precisely or systematically the impact of population growth or commercialization over time at the county level, where homicides occurred. Consequently, it is not possible to employ statistical methods to demonstrate a relationship between violent disputes and population growth and commercialization. Instead, I will present the spatial and geographic distributions of violent disputes and argue that these distributions were significant and suggest a plausible link between social conflict and the economic changes of the eighteenth century. If the underlying assumption regarding the connection between economic change and social conflict has merit, we would expect that the distribution of violent disputes over property rights would reflect the variable impact of population growth and commercialization over time and across space in Guangdong province. This assumption seems sound, but the introduction of violence into the argument complicates the matter. Whatever the connection between economic change and social conflict, we must acknowledge that violent behavior has its own complex dynamics that the limitations of the sources prevent us from fully understanding.