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Wang Anshi

Original nameWang Anshi

Northern Song reformer, driver of the "Wang Anshi Reforms"

The First to Read "Where Wealth Comes From" · The Birth of Economics
ReformThe Young Shoots LawState InterventionNorthern Song

Who they are

A statesman and reformer of the Northern Song. Facing a state grown poor and weak, he pushed through the "Xining Reforms" under Emperor Shenzong’s support, trying to turn the tide with a series of bold economic policies: the Young Shoots Law had the state lend low-interest grain to farmers in the lean season before harvest; the Market Exchange Law had the state stabilize prices and regulate markets; the Hired Service Law let money be paid in place of labor duty. This whole approach — the hand of the state actively intervening in the economy, "managing wealth" to enrich the country — was strikingly ahead of its time nearly a thousand years ago. The reforms drew fierce controversy for touching entrenched interests and going awry in execution, and finally failed; Wang Anshi himself remains half-praised and half-condemned — the protagonist of an ancient experiment in "big government intervening in the economy."

Primary sourcesHistory of Song, "Biography of Wang Anshi"Collected Works of Master Linchuan

Key stories

A "Big Government" Experiment Nearly a Thousand Years Ago

The core of Wang Anshi’s reforms was to have the state step more actively into the economy: lending money to farmers, having officials regulate prices, unifying collection and distribution. The idea sounds familiar today, but set nearly a thousand years ago it was so far ahead that his contemporaries could hardly accept it. Conservatives like Sima Guang fiercely opposed it, holding that the state was competing with the people for profit and disrupting order. The reforms were enacted and then repealed amid controversy and resistance, and ultimately failed — yet the question they left behind is argued to this day: should the hand of the state manage the economy at all, and can it manage it well?

Version differences

Whether Wang Anshi’s reforms were a far-ahead reform benefiting the country, or a failed effort that competed with the people for profit and disrupted order, has been judged at both extremes from the Song to today; this site states the facts and both judgments without a final verdict.

Relationships

Mentor
🧮Guan Zhong

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

An ancient precedent for "big-government intervention"Wang Anshi’s reforms, with the "state actively managing wealth and intervening in the economy," are often compared to modern Keynesianism and state capitalism, and are among the most-cited historical cases when debating whether government should manage the economy.

Appears in

The Birth of EconomicsWang Anshi’s Reforms: A "Big Government" Experiment Nearly a Thousand Years Ago
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