What does industry and commerce in Qing Dynasty mean?

Wherever material civilization develops to a certain extent, there will be handicraft and commercial activities and corresponding employees. However, unlike agricultural production, industrial and commercial production is a cooperative mode of production; If we want to cooperate well, we must have a set of norms about division of labor, cooperation, work content, benefit distribution, rights and obligations of all parties, and so on. These norms, from the equivalent exchange in the economic sense, using a unified currency as the medium of economic cooperation, to the clear ownership and patent protection in the political sense, and then to the affirmation of these norms in the social and moral sense, have a hierarchical distribution from narrow to wide and from shallow to deep. The wider and deeper these norms are established in a social group, the more conducive it is to promoting the all-round development of industry and commerce in that social group. I call these norms "social norms for industry and commerce".

In any society, the mode of production of industry and commerce will appear more or less. However, in different social subjects and different historical stages, the scope and degree of "social norms exclusive to industry and commerce" that are conducive to promoting the overall income of industry and commerce are different. The different scope and degree established by this norm will play different roles in the development of industrial and commercial production.

Urban industrialists and businessmen in medieval Europe had their own economic interests, social forces and production and living standards. But in the society at that time, their economic interests were not guaranteed, their social strength was weak, and their production and living standards were in a weak position. At that time, kings, nobles, lords and churches still dominated political power. They should not only control the development of urban industrialists and businessmen, but also make use of their development. City businessmen, when controlled, will try their best to resist; When you are used, you will try your best to develop yourself. However, decentralized feudal political countries are generally conducive to the development of industry and commerce in European cities.

It is in this process that European urban industry and commerce gradually expanded their economic interests and social forces, and established their own social norms at a broader and deeper level-from the economic level to the political level, and then to ideological and moral concepts. More and more people are gathered in this social norm, and more and more people are organized according to this social norm.

If the above is about how the embryo of capitalism grew up in the matrix of European society, then this article is about how this embryo is related to other factors in the matrix. Although there are many factors in the European matrix that hinder or even try to kill this embryo, there are also many factors that support and promote its growth, and the power of promoting factors is generally greater than that of hindering factors. The situation in China is as follows: before the Opium War, the initial form of capitalism, the economic activities of industrialists and businessmen, developed on the land of China, but it was tightly suppressed by China's mother, the unified bureaucratic empire, and it was difficult to develop and grow; In this respect, it is very similar to the Roman Empire. After the Opium War, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty realized that capitalism was unnecessary, but the industrial and commercial production results brought by capitalism were very attractive. In order to get this result, the Qing government carried out political reforms, and the industrialists and businessmen finally found a better living environment.

Any social body, after the development of material civilization to a certain extent, will appear commodity economy, industry and commerce; This was the case in the Roman Empire, medieval Europe and ancient China.

In China in the Tang Dynasty, trade had developed greatly. In the Song Dynasty, there were long queues of shops on the streets. At that time, the private economy advanced by leaps and bounds, gradually exceeding the scale of government-run commerce. Wholesalers or brokers gather in one place to monopolize local agricultural products or handmade products to marketers, including large franchisees, businessmen and vendors, who usually sell them around the world through network-like inns. Moreover, there was a guild at that time. The more important guilds usually deal in basic commodities, such as grain, salt, tea and silk, or set up banks. At the same time, the number of coins has greatly increased, and the importance of money in trade and national finance has also increased. Both paper money and paper money appeared. Since the Song Dynasty, commercial income has become an important source of government revenue.

By the Ming dynasty, the development of commerce was further than before. At that time, Huizhou merchants were all over the world and engaged in various businesses, such as selling Jingdezhen porcelain, tea, silk, salt, wood and grain. There are about100000 porcelain workers in Jingdezhen, most of whom take the form of wage labor. Products are not only sold nationwide, but also exported overseas. Suzhou has become the center of domestic commerce, finance, textile, printing and dyeing industry, and the nearby Songjiang area is the center of cotton textile industry. At that time, there were many guilds, all of which had guilds in cities such as Beijing. The development of commodity economy in Ming Dynasty was maintained in Qing Dynasty.

However, although China, like Europe in the Middle Ages, developed its industry and commerce to a certain extent. However, it is difficult to achieve universal and independent development in Europe as in the Middle Ages. It is difficult to break through the control of the state machine; It is also difficult for "industrial and commercial special social norms" to develop from shallow to deep, from narrow to wide, from simple to complex, from economic level to political and social moral level. The main reason for this difference is that in the Middle Ages in Europe, there were scattered and constantly fighting with each other, while in ancient China, there was only one big coach most of the time.

There are great similarities between medieval Europe and ancient China in the relationship between state machinery and industrial and commercial development. Both of them belittle industry and commerce in social concept; Both of them are worried that the development of industry and commerce will shake the original social order, social concepts and moral standards; Both will vigorously develop industrial and commercial achievements.