The Economic and Political Background of Chinese Ancient Political Thought

Xia, Shang and Western Zhou were all slave societies. In the slave society, the slave owners own all the means of production and the slaves themselves, and they practice the dictatorship of the slave owners politically, while the slaves who create wealth are in a position inferior to cattle and horses, without living security and personal freedom. The king is the biggest slave owner, and the state machine is centered on the king, forming a monarchy. The monarch was tyrannical over the slaves. Slaves are often killed at will and even become victims of slave owners. In order to get rid of the tragic fate, slaves took various forms to fight against slave owners. During this period, productivity was low and science was underdeveloped. Slave owners often used religion and theocracy to preach to rule the people.

From the end of the Spring and Autumn Period to the Opium War, China has been in an imperial society for more than two thousand years. In imperialist society, a few landlords own most of the land, while farmers have little or no land. Politically, the landlord class monarchy was implemented, the emperor had supreme power, established a huge bureaucratic system with landlords and gentlemen as the backbone, and exercised cruel rule over the people. The peasants have no right to participate in and discuss state affairs, but only the obligation to obey. The contradiction between the peasants and the landlord class is the main contradiction in imperial society. In order to resist the economic exploitation and political oppression of the landlord class, farmers held hundreds of armed uprisings. The scale of peasant uprising and peasant war in the history of China is rare in the history of the world.