In the 80s of the 20th century, Mr. Jin Guantao published a very influential book "Behind the Appearance of History - An Exploration of the Superstable Structure of Chinese Feudal Society". He believes that China has a stagnant, cyclical and ultra-stable structure that lasts for more than 2,000 years.
But I don't think Chinese society is stagnant, and it's an unstable structure. In fact, this book also involves the analysis of the characteristics of traditional Chinese social structure, and below we briefly summarize the more important aspects of Chinese social structure.
The most profound impact on the social structure is China's political system.
From the Qin and Han dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties, the county system of administrative divisions allowed the central government to gradually centralize the dictatorship. The basic principle of the county system is that local government chiefs are agents of the central government, which is conducive to the monarch as the supreme ruler to hold arbitrary power. However, the county system allows aspirants to enter the ranks rather than relying entirely on hereditary, which also provides opportunities for the mobility of the middle classes of society.
In terms of the official selection system, after the Sui and Tang dynasties, the imperial examination system gradually emerged, and there were many examples of intellectuals from ordinary people being promoted to important officials through the imperial examination. Many of the prime ministers of the Song and Ming dynasties came from poor families. The power of the hereditary aristocracy and the family was gradually replaced by the plebeian intelligentsia, and the gap between social classes gradually dissolved.
Chinese society after the Tang Dynasty can also be called imperial examination society. Intellectuals representing academic ideals preside over politics, and then the government leads society, and the administrative power of the government is constantly metabolized, forming a central force leading society.
However, the traditional Chinese political system has its own drawbacks, that is, it tends to remain unchanged for many years. If something goes wrong with a system, make another system to imitate it. Over time, the disease became more and more complicated, and the people in it were more and more restrained. This also led to the tradition of man-rule in traditional Chinese society. Too much centralization, resulting in weak local power.
Traditional Chinese society was dominated by a small-scale peasant economy, and it was the policy of successive governments to emphasize agriculture and suppress business. Agriculture was regarded as the "main trade", and in theory, the social status of peasants was much higher than that of craftsmen and merchants. They are not only the main source of taxes, but also the main factor of social stability.
As a result of the land, tenancy and taxation systems, most peasants were unable to rely on the land to feed their families, and cottage industries became active in earning additional income. For farmers, the threat of natural disasters such as droughts, floods, and locust plagues is enormous, and farmers who experience disasters can easily become participants in uprisings.
Although in the eyes of Confucian physiocrats, the social status of merchants is the lowest, this is contradicting social reality. The merchants were inferior because the rulers did not want to divert the peasants from their profession. From the gradual development of commerce in the Tang and Song dynasties to the budding capitalism in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the influence of commerce and merchants in Chinese society gradually deepened.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the number of trade centers in China greatly increased, whether in large cities or small towns, or even rural markets, trade and commodity circulation surged, and logistics and transportation personnel, labor, small traders, dental merchants, and shop owners gradually increased in the commercial field, and foreign trade made China a net inflow of millions of silver.
However, the uncertainty of commercial trade is very high. The government did not provide social guarantees for businessmen, and businessmen did not establish business organizations with autonomy. Although guild halls were numerous in the major commercial cities of the Qing Dynasty, their existence was more for merchants to make friends with dignitaries than to have the power to organize autonomy. This is also an important reason why China has not developed capitalism.
In the structure of traditional Chinese society, the family system is also a part that cannot be ignored. A family is a community of monophyletic relatives that includes the family in structure but goes beyond the family in function. The family includes both the function of fertility and can also be regarded as a public institution with complex functions such as politics, economy, religion, and morality. The family plays an important role in maintaining local social order. The family's emphasis on etiquette and moral model behavior can make rural society more "disciplined". In the coordination between neighbors, the family also often acts as an intermediary.
The family also assumes the responsibility of upbringing the widows and orphans, as well as the education of their children. Fan Zhongyan, who proposed that "the world is worried and worried, and the world is happy and happy", is one of the implementers of this system. He implemented this system among the Shi clan, and the responsibility for the upbringing of orphans and widows of the same clan was the responsibility of Yizhuang Gongtian.
The welfare responsibilities of widows and orphans by the Shi clan began in the Northern Song Dynasty and flourished through the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and the system became the representative of social responsibility in the civil public domain.
In smallholder societies, the influence of cottage industries and commerce on the economy is becoming increasingly important, and the family, as the basic structural unit of local society, also plays a pivotal role in maintaining local order and taking charge of local public welfare.
The Four People's Society is a stalwart class dominated by the gentlemen and gentry.
During the Warring States period, the four classes of "scholars, peasants, industry and commerce" were clearly proposed, and in the history of more than 2,000 years, the Four People's Society gradually evolved, and by the Ming and Qing dynasties, it became an important organizational structure of traditional Chinese society.
Agriculture, industry and commerce, led by scholars, can enter politics and then influence the government and society, and can preside over education and encourage the academic atmosphere of the people, which can be said to be the backbone of the social structure. The existence of the scholar class has made the political leadership and education of traditional Chinese society a complete system, and Confucianism has become its common inner spirit.
By the end of the imperial period, Chinese society developed a gentry group, a local elite group between local officials and peasants. "Gentry" is the embodiment of gaining fame through the imperial examination, which shows the bureaucratic characteristics of this group; "Shi" refers to intellectuals with the spiritual connotation of Confucius and Mengism. The "gentry" as "gentlemen" have their own independent status based on wealth, education, power and influence.
When talking about the gentry, this book points out that the gentry had many privileges in traditional Chinese society, including economic privileges, judicial privileges, and so on. In addition, the gentry were also advocates of local public utilities, trying to reconcile the interests of local farmers with local officials. The nature of the gentry was very complex, reflecting the diversity of social classes in late imperial China.
Before the establishment of modern state power, China was a gentry society.
Due to the development of the imperial examination system, a large number of students in various localities pass the imperial examination at all levels every year. However, the Qing Dynasty implemented a policy of small government, with very few formal positions, and most of the meritorious scholars did not have the opportunity to join the bureaucracy, or even have the opportunity to obtain any actual positions in their lifetime. However, they have another way out, that is, to actively participate in local affairs, to be leaders of local affairs, and to enjoy certain privileges. If they are exempt from servitude, they will not be punished if they are caught in a lawsuit.
Although in recent years some scholars have put forward different views on the statement that "imperial power does not reach the county", its essence does not contradict our understanding of the county-level government in the Qing Dynasty, and it is still the gentry society that Fei Xiaotong and other scholars have studied, that is, the local society dominated by local elites.
The gentry (or local elites) were the cornerstone of Qing rule, the foundation of national stability, and the leaders of traditional society. Once the autonomy of the gentry and the compromise between the rulers and the gentry (i.e., local society was run by the gentry and the elites themselves) were undermined, the dynasty as a whole lost its social stability. The destruction of social organization by the New Deal at the end of the Qing Dynasty shattered the stability established by the society in the past, and the gentry who had hopes for Qing reform were completely disappointed with the Qing dynasty.
Braudel, a representative of the French Annals School, pointed out that political revolutions are determined by society, that is, short-term political waves are determined by social undercurrents in the medium period.
What I want to emphasize here is not to be superstitious about the so-called "great unification". We should observe history from a variety of angles, which can be summarized as nothing more than two views of history:
One is the imperial view of history (or heroic history), and the other is the popular view of history (or daily history). Many historians actually uphold the imperial view of history, in their eyes, only the opening of the territory, the prestige of the great power, the coming dynasty of all directions, the imperial grace, the palace strategy, the harsh punishment law...
In their historical writing, what these imperial inheritances brought to the ordinary people of that era is almost negligible, they cannot see or care about those bloody histories: corpses are strewn up, wives and families are scattered, families are broken, lives are ruined... Western historians have also contributed to the popularity of this totalitarian myth. For example, Karl Wittfogel, in his book Oriental Despotism, proved that in order to achieve the construction and management of large-scale water conservancy projects, a strong centralized power must be established to rule the vast land, so absolute monarchy is an inevitable choice. Owen Lattimore's Inner Asian Frontiers of China argues that the invasion of the Central Plains by "barbarians" from the North and Central Asia was also a driving force for the establishment of powerful authoritarian regimes.
These historians turn a blind eye to the historical facts: under authoritarian and centralized rule, the Chinese nation has paid a terrible price from generation to generation, failing in both water control and border control. The repeated flooding of the Yellow River and the constant invasion of northern nomads are living historical lessons.
On the surface, a regime can effectively solve the crisis facing the country if it can mobilize all its resources, but history proves the opposite.
Chinese history has repeatedly proved that great empires did not bring happiness and stability to the people. The period of relative stability and stability of the people's lives, such as the "rule of Wenjing" in the Han Dynasty and the "Kaiyuan prosperous era" in the Tang Dynasty, should have been the norm, but in thousands of years of Chinese history, it was very rare.
If there are only two extremes in a society, one is the official (or government) and the other is the people (or individuals), there is no social buffer zone in the middle, and the support of the intermediate society is lost, then this society is the most lacking in stability.
Tocqueville pointed out that since the resources are in the hands of the government, then the government will be responsible for all the unfortunate things that happen, and the people will "blame the government" for any dissatisfaction with the status quo, even "the government is blamed for the most inevitable disasters, even the seasonal weather anomalies." Therefore, there is no other way in society to absorb and digest negative factors, and all mistakes and misfortunes must be borne by the government.
The power is highly concentrated, and those in power are satisfied, only to find out that it is the high concentration of power that pushes them to a desperate situation. So, Tocqueville said, "I think of this almost endless division, and I understand that since French citizens are less prepared than citizens anywhere to act together and support each other in a crisis, a great revolution can overthrow such a society in an instant." ”
Places lack diversity and societies become rigid and incapable of self-healing and regulation. Tocqueville concluded: "The peculiar life of the provinces has disappeared, and this makes all French people very similar to each other. Through the differences that still exist, the unity of the country has become evident; Consistency in legislation is a manifestation of national unity. ”
A healthy and prosperous society must be free, autonomous and pluralistic, and civil society must be fully developed.