Development course of folk handicraft industry

Independent private handicrafts appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period. By the Warring States period, great progress had been made. The period from Warring States to Qin and Han Dynasties was an obvious development stage of China folk handicraft industry. After Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the degree of development weakened. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there was a marked improvement. The Tang and Song Dynasties were another prosperous period for China's folk handicrafts.

Folk handicrafts in ancient China are all kinds of handicrafts privately operated in feudal society of China, which are based on manual labor and its cooperation. Including family handicrafts closely related to agriculture run by farmers, independent individual handicrafts run by urban and rural laborers, and manual workshops or industrial and mining workshops run by landlords and other businessmen.

Generally speaking, peasant families engaged in handicraft production only exist as a supplement to planting, and production is mainly to meet their own consumption or pay taxes. They occasionally put some products on the market, mainly in exchange for production or daily necessities that they can't manufacture. It is a material transformation process of use value through the medium of small commodity market, not for the established purpose of commodity production. The more common it is, the closer and stronger the natural economic structure of the whole society will be.