During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the Western Han Dynasty began to implement the salt and iron official camp policy, with the purpose of obtaining profits by monopolizing the production and operation of social necessities to support the huge financial expenditure of the Han Dynasty, and also wanted to weaken the strength of rich merchants and local princes through this means to consolidate the centralized rule.
The implementation of the salt and iron official camp was to meet the political needs of the Han Wu Emperor's dynasty, and its practical utility also achieved the political purpose of the Han Wu Emperor.
However, in the late reign of Emperor Wu of Han and even the zhaoxuan and the two dynasties, the negative impact of the salt and iron official camp was more exposed, which sharply sharpened the social contradictions after emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty.
In this context, during the reign of Emperor Zhao of the Western Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty held a "salt and iron conference", and the Minister of Finance Sang Hongyang and others launched a great debate with the "virtuous literature" from the society.
The crisis after the heyday
It should be clear that the salt and iron official camp was an economic policy implemented by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in order to meet the interests of the ruling class, that is to say, it was not intended to promote social development in itself, and it was not expected that the Han Dynasty would pay too much attention to the feelings of the grass-roots social in this regard.
In a certain sense, the salt and iron official camp is indeed "fighting for the interests of the people", but this people are not the working people, but the rich merchant class.
In the early Han Dynasty, the Western Han court adopted a policy of "ruling without doing anything" to govern the country, but did not interfere too much in social life.
During this period, the economy and society of the Western Han Dynasty basically belonged to the complete market economic system under the spirit of liberalism, and each merchant was free to compete by virtue of the quality of their products, the level of prices and other factors.
Since the introduction of the salt and iron official camp policy, in some areas, the Western Han Dynasty has achieved complete nationalization and operation, excluding all private capital.
On the other hand, full nationalization can be used by the power of the state to promote technological innovation and apply new technologies that private individuals cannot afford to adopt to commodity production.
The iron smelting industry of the Han Dynasty was a large number of new technologies such as cast iron softening treatment and steelmaking during this period.
However, the shortcomings of complete nationalization operation are also very obvious, because it is a monopoly operation, resulting in no living space for private enterprises.
In the later period, this led to its continuous low production efficiency, and did not pay attention to the quality of commodities and market demand, and the vitality of the official-run system became lower and lower, eventually to the point of wasting social resources, suppressing production enthusiasm, harming the interests of the people, and hindering social development.
The "Treatise on Salt and Iron" once said: "Salt and iron are expensive, and the people are inconvenient", which means that the salt and iron products under the official camp are expensive and cause a heavy burden to the people. Originally, one of the purposes of the salt and iron official camp was to crack down on those merchants who hoarded and inflated prices.
However, after the official camp, as a monopoly operator, the government deliberately raised prices in order to grab greater profits, and in the end it was not as beneficial to the people as in the private era.
At the Salt and Iron Conference, Xianliang Literature also said: "Nowadays, county officials make iron tools, how evil and bitter, and the cost is not saved", which pointed out that under the official-camp system, the allocation of resources in the production field is unreasonable, and the production efficiency is very low.
What is even more unfavorable to the people is that "the county officials drum cast iron ware, most of which are large instruments, and they should be used for the people and not for civilian use." Civilian bluntness, mowing is not painful.".
Under the official-run system, in the beginning, in order to improve production efficiency, iron production was a unified form, but the soil conditions in various regions were not consistent, and the production tools could not be improved according to local conditions.
Because the location of the official government to sell tools is fixed, and there is a time limit.
In some remote areas, the staff is often passive and sluggish, and sometimes the people cross the mountains to buy, but find that the official in charge of the sale has left, so that the time of the farm will be wrong.
All these kinds of diseases, resulting in the salt and iron official camp in the late Han Dynasty and after the Han Dynasty, not only the merchants whose interests were damaged were not happy, but even the ordinary people complained.
In this situation, the reform of the existing system has become a common call in society, and the question is whether to appropriately relax the right of the government to operate, or to return to the original private era.
Partisanship and salt-and-iron debates
In the sixth year of the reign of Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty, the Western Han Dynasty formally held a meeting on this issue, and the two sides attending the meeting were the Sang Hongyang faction, the founders of the salt and iron official camp, and the political representatives from the merchant class from society, "Xianliang Literature".
Sang Hongyang was a famous courtier of the Han Dynasty and a famous economic expert of the Han Dynasty, who came from a wealthy merchant family in Luoyang and entered the career at the age of thirteen, which is said to be due to his genius arithmetic ability, but some people say that his family bought a career for him.
Because of his outstanding talent, Sang Hongyang was appreciated by Emperor Wu of Han and became a close confidant of Emperor Wu of Han, and in the dynasty of Emperor Wu of Han, he successively held official positions such as Shizhong (侍中), Da Nong Cheng (大農丞), Zhisu Du Wei (治粟都尉), and Dasi Nong (大司農) and other official positions, and supported the economic work of Emperor Wu of Han in the dynasty of Counting, Telling, Salt and Iron Official Camp, Equalization and Equalization, Currency Reform, and Wine Andring, although he did not first propose it, but it was also promoted by him.
Against such a heavyweight was Xianliang literature, which refers to a subject of talent selection implemented by the Han Dynasty since the time of Emperor Wen of Han, and these selected scholars were later called Xianliang literature.
Most of them are some opposition intellectuals, their social status is not high, and they do not have much social wealth, and they were elected to participate in the Salt and Iron Conference in addition to the support of rich businessmen and the promotion of one person.
In his later years, Emperor Wu of Han made his young crown prince Liu Fuling emperor and hanged his mother Lady Hook Yi, in order to ensure the stability of his son's throne, Emperor Wu of Han left Liu Fuling four orphan ministers, including Sang Hongyang and Huo Guang.
However, Huo Guang, as a minister of the Inner Dynasty, and Sang Hongyang, who was the elder of the Outer Dynasty, had political discord, and the two were absolute mortal enemies.
The Salt and Iron Conference was a battlefield arranged by Huo Guang against political enemies, and his "soldiers" were these virtuous literatures, and Huo Guang hoped to grasp the initiative in this political struggle through the attacks of Xianliang literature on Sang Hongyang.
At the meeting, the two factions took the two positions of the disadvantages and advantages of the Salt and Iron Official Camp to explain the problem.
Xianliang literature attacked and criticized the policy of the salt and iron official camp, listed its various ills, and even believed that "when Emperor Gaiwen was emperor, there was no salt and iron benefit and the people were rich, and now there are people who are poor, and they do not see the benefits of the benefits and see their harms."
Sang Hongyang proposed that the salt and iron official camp could not only "make a lot of money and Sasuke's side fees", but also "build the foundation and suppress the end, leave the friends party, prohibit adultery and extravagance, and eliminate the road of mergers and annexations".
That is to say, the salt and iron official camp policy can not only raise military funds to protect the border and the people, but also play a social role, which is "the great cause of the country and cannot be abolished."
While making his position clear, Sang Hongyang also made his own criticism of the social phenomena described by Xianliang Literature, arguing that the reason for the phenomenon of distress in the people was not a matter of policy, but that some peasants were too lazy.
Obviously, in order to oppose virtuous literature, Sang Hongyang has already disregarded and covered up the facts, adopted an attitude of non-recognition and avoidance, and resolutely denied the negative elements of the Yantie official camp policy.
Policies such as the salt and iron official camp are the painstaking efforts of Sanghong Sheep's life and the cornerstone of Sanghong Sheep's status, which is why Huo Guang wants to use the Salt and Iron Conference to attack Sanghong Sheep, and Sanghong Sheep cannot abandon these policies, and the debate between the two sides was once very fierce.
At the end of the meeting, as a compromise, Sang Hongyang agreed to liberalize the monopoly policy with the least profit and the least impact, and the others continued to maintain the status quo.
The battle between righteousness and profit
Elaborating on the positions of these two sides, the criticism of the Salt and Iron Official Camp by Xianliang Literature is mainly based on three aspects, one is the concept of righteousness and profit, the other is the concept of the end, and the third is economic performance.
As intellectuals, virtuous literature is the recipient of Confucian culture, and Confucian culture often emphasizes the ideological concept of "emphasizing righteousness over profit", the so-called "end of broad morality, or the end of profit and benevolence... Indoctrination can be enjoyed and customs can be moved."
The Han Dynasty promoted Confucianism, and rulers often flaunted themselves as confucian rulers and promoted ritual education. But today, the rulers of the Han Dynasty are vigorously competing with the people for profits, completely violating Confucian values, which only teaches the people to seek profit and light righteousness, which does not meet the ideological requirements of the state.
For feudal society, agriculture is the foundation of a hundred industries, and if you want to achieve long-term peace and stability in the country, you must attach importance to agricultural development.
However, the Sanghong sheep's generation vigorously advocated "the benefit of the end of the world" and invested the state's energy in the final industry of industry and commerce, which was a sabotage of the fundamental policy of the state and would eventually hinder the development of agricultural production.
Proceeding from the actual performance of the salt and iron official camp, Xianliang Literature pointed out that the policy of the salt and iron official camp has disrupted the normal economic order of society, hurt the peasants' enthusiasm for production, and is not conducive to the development of social production.
At the same time, it also raises prices, the so-called "trade with the United States, and double by half." Buying and losing the truth, selling the truth", undermining the principle of fair exchange, making the people's living burden even heavier.
In addition, it has exacerbated social polarization, created social antagonisms and undermined social stability.
There are four main views of Sang Hongyang, one of which is that the so-called "under the whole world, can not be the royal land", the imperial power naturally has sovereignty over all the things under its rule, and the return of salt and iron to the officials cannot be questioned.
Second: the country needs a lot of funds for war, if this money is not out of the salt and iron, it must be obtained from the people, the salt and iron official camp makes "the people do not add endowment, but the world is rich", is to benefit the people, the people should be grateful, where can oppose.
Third: the salt and iron monopoly can effectively suppress local forces and ensure national stability, if private operation is restored, who will manage those local forces?
Fourth: The salt and iron official camp can crack down on those rich and powerful households, alleviate the gap between the rich and the poor in society, and promote social stability.
Leaving aside the view of virtuous literature, as far as Sang Hongyang's point of view is concerned, its argument is problematic. The argument is too overbearing, in fact, it is a kind of clever argument, and it is untenable.
The second argument seems reasonable, in fact, although the tax is not directly from the people, but the government will add taxes to the price of goods, allude to the price, and then sell at a high price, the actual taxpayer is still the people, but the burden is heavier.
The monopoly operation of the government can be different from the private wage labor force and the use of free labor and slave labor, so that a large number of labor forces that could have been absorbed by industry and commerce can only become displaced people at this time, which further expands the ranks of displaced people in the Han Dynasty and aggravates social turmoil.
Because a large number of rich households could not invest in the field of reproduction, they could only use their surplus capital to purchase land for farms and houses, which further aggravated the phenomenon of land annexation in the Han Dynasty.
It can be seen that there were indeed great problems with the salt and iron official camp policy of the Han Dynasty, but for the official government, the stability of the rule was the most important. Only when a policy is pursued that it jeopardizes the solidity of its rule can it be changed, and vice versa.
Since then, in the need to alleviate social contradictions, the rulers of the Han Dynasty have gradually relaxed the official camp policy, but they have never been able to give up this cash cow.
The salt and iron official camp is a kind of measure and thought formed and developed by ancient society in long-term practice, and is the specific practice of the ancient idea of "emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business".
In the process of practice, the drawbacks of the salt and iron official camp policy were increasingly revealed, which brought certain troubles to the rule of the Han Dynasty.
However, this does not mean that there is any problem with the policy of the salt and iron official camp itself, the problem does not lie in the system itself, but in the specific implementation process, which is caused by imperfect and unreasonable system construction.
On this point, as we said at the beginning, the primary purpose of the feudal government in carrying out this policy is to maintain its own rule, not to benefit the people, so from the very beginning, the trouble that this policy may cause is not considered, but only wants to accumulate wealth and attack the powerful princes.
If the Western Han Dynasty can leave enough market space while implementing nationalization and operation, maintain the economic composition to an appropriate level, and do a good job in subsequent system construction, the vitality of this policy may be more vigorous.
In the Zhaoxuan and Zhaoxuan dynasties, the Han Dynasty's policy towards the salt and iron official camp was often relaxed, and the relaxed social environment made the private industry and commerce develop rapidly, which eventually contributed to the "Zhaoxuan Zhongxing".
Resources:
"Salt and Iron Franchise Pros and Cons"
"Analysis of Sanghong Sheep Economic Reform: Taking the Salt and Iron Official Camp as an Example"