A Brief Discussion On The Legislation And Regulation Of Usury In Qing Dynasty

Compared with the western society, the activity of usury was a characteristic of the informal finance in Chinese feudal society. Borrowing appeared in the Western Zhou Dynasty, with the development of economy, borrowing became more and more active in the successive dynasties. In Qing Dynasty, with the popularity of usury, on the one hand, the dynasts tried to regulate usury by means of legislation, and on the other hand, they themselves benefited most from usury. This paper introduces usury in Qing Dynasty, its participants, interest rate and its impact, and then expounds the form and content of law on usury in Qing Dynasty based on the laws from the past dynasties. Although the sound legislation of Qing Dynasty, it is far from reaching the desired effect, the very reason was that the dynasts of the feudal dynasties had their own limitations, while the rulers who were selfish in nature held the super power. As the top leaders of usury, they paid so much attention to their own desire that they occupied the lending industry and benefited from it without regulation by law instead of investing money on industry and commerce or facilitating the economy to proper. Nowadays, with the non-public economy vigorously encouraged, the people hold a lot of money and private lending is very active in some fields, but there are still some problems. Only by improving the legislation on private lending and establishing a standardized regulating system on private lending on the premise of the deepening reformation of financial system can we meet the needs of the increasingly-active private market economy and guide private lending to a promising way rather than share the same fate of Qing Dynasty.