China has gone through periods of anarchy and state-control, so good farmer qualities — working hard, being thrifty, and planning for the long term — led to success only some of the time:
There was thus a parallel model of selection that favored “big man” qualities: charisma, verbal bombast, physical strength, ability to intimidate, talent for mobilizing gangs of young men…
This point is discussed by Feichtinger et al. (1996) who see Chinese history as a shifting equilibrium between farmers, bandits, and the State: “Farmers who produce a good, bandits who steal this good, and rulers fighting against banditry and taxing farmers.” When the State weakened, as it often did, farmers had to placate bandits as best they could. Banditry may have then surpassed farming as the best way to accumulate wealth, prestige, access to women and, ultimately, reproductive success.
As Bianco (1991) notes:
About ten years ago, a Chinese scholar, invited to spend his holidays in Haute-Provence, was worried: “There aren’t too many bandits there?” As an emigrant settled in France since the revolution, he continued — and to this day continues — to associate the countryside with banditry as a matter of course. For a rich family like his own (otherwise he would not have become a scholar), the obsessive fear of a bandit raid, of being taken away or of extortion was constant. The landowners maintained private militias who could at least stand up to the small gangs, and their sons avoided venturing too far away for fear of being kidnapped. The oldest son especially was the most valued prey because the family would have to rush to pay a high ransom to ensure the continuity of their lineage and appease the spirits of their ancestors.
[…]
On some rail lines of southern China, the train almost never reached its destination without being attacked at least once [by bandits]. In the province of Yunnan, highwaymen controlled most of the roads, stopped and ransomed travelers, and those merchants who persisted in pursuing their occupation, since commercial traffic ended up being choked off or became more selective.
We forget, especially the libertarians among us, how awful things were before the State pacified social relations. It was this pacification that made free and open societies possible. It especially made the market economy possible. Ironically, when the Communists wiped out banditry — something no previous regime had managed to do — they also laid the basis for their country’s future economic takeoff.
The proposition that the China represents what you get when the state is weak or absent is ludicrous.
That China’s countryside was overrun with bandits is no more an advertisement for the benefits of a strong state than the condition of Detroit is an advertisement for the benefits of a strong state.
The state is apt to give higher priority to disarming its subjects, than defending them. Detroit and Chinese banditry is what you get.
While it’s always possible to gather enough bandits to overwhelm any particular village, it is also usually possible to arm the village well enough that it isn’t worthwhile. If every village is so armed, what happens to the bandits? If instead the state disarms the peasants…
There’s also the question of where the bandits came from in the first place. Villagers don’t just get up one day and think, ‘hey, banditry would be pretty cool.’ A primary source is deserters, post-war mercenaries, and remnants of defeated armies. Another is destroyed or looted villages. I believe the third is escaped criminals and people like ‘poachers’ who had their livelihoods suddenly outlawed.
Always the dominant narrative is that the growth is linked to politics, or in current times money (Keynesians, Monetarists), erasing the technology status from the picture. It is understandable engineers aren’t in media. Media is part of the political-journalist complex, so they talk about things they can get power from. But most of the time growth is linked to the technology status available that makes it easier or more difficult to grow.