Chinese society was more shaped by state actions than were other societies. The government officials were ranked high in the social structure. The world’s first professional social service and the first civil service academy were in China. The wealthy and the more educated were exceptionally favored in the state. Below the state official class comes the landowner class whose power has varied throughout the Chinese history. In the first century b.c.e, small-scale peasant farmers had been displaced by large landowners and tenant farmers. State opposed the creation of large estates, without much success. Large landowners could often evade taxes and sometimes kept independent military forces that could challenge imperial authority. Wang Mang came to power in 8 c.e with a plan to shift the balance of power. He nationalized private estates and distributed them to the landless, limited amount of land a family could own and ended private slavery. But, in 23 c.e, he was assassinated and his reforms collapsed. Most of the population belongs to the peasants’ class. They periodically rebel against the power of the landlords. The merchants were at the bottom of the social ladder regardless of their wealth. Chinese culture disliked merchants and saw them as beneficiary of the work of others.
Moreover, Indian society was known for distinct social classes. The caste system, caste is race in Portuguese, may have evolved from the encounter between Aryans (light- skinned) and natives (dark-skinned) but they are other factors that may also have contributed and sustained the caste system such as the interaction of culturally diverse peoples and economic specialization of people over a long period of time. By 500 b.c.e., there was clear belief that society was divided into four main classes: priests, warriors and rulers, and peasants of the Aryans and the natives as a single group. Generally, the Aryans were considered superior compared to the natives. Each of the four great classes was divided into many jatis, sub-castes based on specific occupations, and each jati has particular duties, rules and obligations. This system involved great inequality between different classes, and it was maintained by religious beliefs, i.e. violating the caste system will result in punishment in future life, and some socioeconomic benefits, i.e. the internal support in each social group.
Furthermore, almost all human civilizations had some form of slavery with considerable variation over place and time and across civilizations. Slavery was minor in China, 1% of the population, but very common in Italy during the Common Era, 33-40% of the population. The emergence of slavery can be attributed to the following reasons: the domestication of animals provided a model for human slavery, war, patriarchy, and private property ideas encouraged slavery, and the patriarchal “ownership” of women may have encouraged slavery. The Greek and Roman were slave societies. One third of the population of classical Athens was enslaved and Aristotle once said that some people are “slaves by nature”. Wealthy Romans owned hundreds or thousands of slaves and people of modest means often owned two or three slaves. Slaves had no rights and faced the death punishment in the case of rebellion.
Discussion Questions:
What was the situation in China before Wang Mang? What types of reform did he do? What was the result of the reform?
What is the origin of the caste system in India? What are the main social classes?
What are the main reasons behind the emergence of slavery?
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