A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium by Chris Harman Page A
Authors: Chris Harman
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socio-economic changes’ and ‘political reforms in several states’. 19
The Ch’in state could eventually conquer the others because it implemented these changes most systematically. It relied on a new central administrative class of warriors and officials to crush the old aristocracy. These gave the key role in cultivation to the individual peasant nuclear family, allowing it to own the land, pay taxes and contribute labour directly to the state rather than to the local lord. ‘It was the new productive force of the small farmers that supported the new regime’. 20
This was a social revolution, the replacement of one exploiting class by another, from above. It was a revolution carried through by armies, which exacted an enormous toll. One classic account claimed, probably exaggeratedly, that there were 1,489,000 deaths during 150 years of war from 364 to 234 BC. 21 The last few years of pre-imperial China were ‘a monotonous recital of military campaigns and victories’, with one victory allegedly involving the beheading of 100,000 men. 22 The establishment of the empire was accompanied by the deportation of no fewer than 120,000 of the old ‘rich and powerful’ families. 23
The transformation was not just the result of the initiative of a few rulers deploying powerful armies. The changes in technology and agriculture had set in motion forces which the rulers could not control and often did not want.
As the surplus produced by the peasants grew, so did the demand of the rulers, old and new, for luxury goods, metal weapons, horses, chariots, bows and armour for their armies. The peasants needed a constant supply of tools. All these goods could only by supplied by ever greater numbers of craft workers, operating with new techniques of their own, and of merchant traders operating between, as well as within, the individual states. Standardised metal weights and then coins circulated, further encouraging people to trade.
The influence of the merchants was demonstrated when the richest of them became chancellor to the future emperor in 250 BC, was granted land comprising 100,000 households and surrounded himself with an entourage of 3,000 scholars. 24
Cho-yun Hsu goes so far as to suggest, ‘In the years of turmoil from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, there was the strong possibility of developing a predominantly urban-centred social life rather than a rural based agrarian economy. Large and prosperous market centres flourished and the urban mentality of profit making…predominated’. 25
The German-American historian of China, Karl Wittfogel, argued, while still a Marxist in the 1930s, that there were similarities between China in this period and Europe during the later stages of feudalism almost 2,000 years later. 26 China could have been transformed by the merchant ‘bourgeoisie’ into a new society based overwhelmingly on production by wage labourers for the market. Instead, it fell under the dominance of the bureaucracy of the state, which succeeded in channelling the surplus away from both the merchants and the old aristocracy and concentrating it in its own hands. The merchants supported the state in its struggle against the aristocracy, only to see themselves robbed of the fruits of victory by the state bureaucracy.
Certainly, the state repeatedly attacked the merchants under both the Ch’in Dynasty and its successor, Han (from 206 BC to AD 220). The first Han emperor, for instance, ‘forbade merchants to wear silk and ride in carriages…Neither merchants nor their children and grandchildren were allowed to serve in the government’. 27 The state took control of two of the key industries, salt and iron, to ensure, as a Han document tells, ‘the various profits of salt and iron are monopolised [by the empire] in order to suppress rich traders and rich merchants’. 28 Higher taxes were levied on trading profits than on agriculture, and the wealth of merchants who tried to evade the taxes was
The Ch’in state could eventually conquer the others because it implemented these changes most systematically. It relied on a new central administrative class of warriors and officials to crush the old aristocracy. These gave the key role in cultivation to the individual peasant nuclear family, allowing it to own the land, pay taxes and contribute labour directly to the state rather than to the local lord. ‘It was the new productive force of the small farmers that supported the new regime’. 20
This was a social revolution, the replacement of one exploiting class by another, from above. It was a revolution carried through by armies, which exacted an enormous toll. One classic account claimed, probably exaggeratedly, that there were 1,489,000 deaths during 150 years of war from 364 to 234 BC. 21 The last few years of pre-imperial China were ‘a monotonous recital of military campaigns and victories’, with one victory allegedly involving the beheading of 100,000 men. 22 The establishment of the empire was accompanied by the deportation of no fewer than 120,000 of the old ‘rich and powerful’ families. 23
The transformation was not just the result of the initiative of a few rulers deploying powerful armies. The changes in technology and agriculture had set in motion forces which the rulers could not control and often did not want.
As the surplus produced by the peasants grew, so did the demand of the rulers, old and new, for luxury goods, metal weapons, horses, chariots, bows and armour for their armies. The peasants needed a constant supply of tools. All these goods could only by supplied by ever greater numbers of craft workers, operating with new techniques of their own, and of merchant traders operating between, as well as within, the individual states. Standardised metal weights and then coins circulated, further encouraging people to trade.
The influence of the merchants was demonstrated when the richest of them became chancellor to the future emperor in 250 BC, was granted land comprising 100,000 households and surrounded himself with an entourage of 3,000 scholars. 24
Cho-yun Hsu goes so far as to suggest, ‘In the years of turmoil from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, there was the strong possibility of developing a predominantly urban-centred social life rather than a rural based agrarian economy. Large and prosperous market centres flourished and the urban mentality of profit making…predominated’. 25
The German-American historian of China, Karl Wittfogel, argued, while still a Marxist in the 1930s, that there were similarities between China in this period and Europe during the later stages of feudalism almost 2,000 years later. 26 China could have been transformed by the merchant ‘bourgeoisie’ into a new society based overwhelmingly on production by wage labourers for the market. Instead, it fell under the dominance of the bureaucracy of the state, which succeeded in channelling the surplus away from both the merchants and the old aristocracy and concentrating it in its own hands. The merchants supported the state in its struggle against the aristocracy, only to see themselves robbed of the fruits of victory by the state bureaucracy.
Certainly, the state repeatedly attacked the merchants under both the Ch’in Dynasty and its successor, Han (from 206 BC to AD 220). The first Han emperor, for instance, ‘forbade merchants to wear silk and ride in carriages…Neither merchants nor their children and grandchildren were allowed to serve in the government’. 27 The state took control of two of the key industries, salt and iron, to ensure, as a Han document tells, ‘the various profits of salt and iron are monopolised [by the empire] in order to suppress rich traders and rich merchants’. 28 Higher taxes were levied on trading profits than on agriculture, and the wealth of merchants who tried to evade the taxes was
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