While ancient Chinese peasants could basically produce their own food and clothing items, medieval Western European lordly estates were able to do not only that, but also produce more handmade...

The birth of capitalism had a kind of inevitability for the West, but it was an accident for all mankind, just as the Christian civilization was an accident for all human civilization, because not all human societies are bound to give rise to such a social form and religion!

When we take a comprehensive look at the earliest countries where capitalism took shape, such as Holland, Britain, and other Western European countries, and compare them with Asian civilizations, especially China, we are more certain that capitalism could only have been born in the social environment of Western Europe, and that the development of commerce and industry similar to that of capitalism could have occurred elsewhere, but it could not have developed into the kind of capitalism that we know so well! as we know it!

Industrial and commercial prosperity is not the same as capitalism! A case in point can be found in the Arab countries that were once dependent on commerce as the mainstay.

Marxism does not explain the reason for the birth of capitalism and why it was born in Western Europe, whereas Max Weber, another famous sociologist, argues that the birth of capitalism had a lot to do with Protestant Christianity, which he focuses on in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and he also argues that mercantilism, as it has been practiced in Western Europe since the beginning of history, was an indispensable condition.

The birth of capitalism must satisfy the following four points:

One: mercantilism

Two: protection of civil rights and private property

Three: the spirit of contract

Four: the spirit of scientific empiricism (also known as scientism)

These four factors are complementary to, and inextricably linked with, the birth and development of capitalism. A society can only develop into a capitalist society by itself if it has these four factors, but this does not mean that a society can develop into a capitalist society by itself if it has these four factors. There are also many other factors (accidental or inevitable) that influence the transition from possibility to necessity.

The above four points are essential for almost any truly capitalist society, even for a country like Japan, which was forced to learn from Western capitalism and change its laws, rather than develop into a capitalist society on its own, the above four points are no less important when they truly enter a capitalist society.

The fact that China has been unable to hover on the brink of becoming a capitalist society since the Opium Wars has a lot to do with our rejection of the above four principles!

In fact, in the traditional feudal society of China, almost none of the above four rules were taken up by us - the spirit of contract was still relatively present, and there was still a spirit of trust between private merchants, but this small-scale trust did not mean that society as a whole had a spirit of contract - especially through the relevant laws and regulations to ensure that such a spirit of contract was present.

None of the necessary conditions are in place for our traditional feudal society to evolve into a capitalist society on its own, so it's just a case of hanging a curtain on the wall --- no way!

One: the opposite of mercantilism: the emphasis on agriculture and the suppression of commerce.

The impact of mercantilism on the development of capitalism is pretty much self-explanatory; the very foundations of capitalism are based on commerce and industry. This is also the basis for those assumptions we made at the beginning, because there was a time when commerce and industry in feudal China also grew to a certain level of prosperity.

But prosperity does not mean that we as a nation valued it; on the contrary, China's feudal society has always pursued a policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce.

Our history, the first to put forward the "heavy agriculture and business" policy, should be the big change of the law should be Shang Yang, who in order to transform the entire Qin state into a very efficient war machine (similar to the later militarism) put forward the "fixed people, incentives for cultivation and war, heavy agriculture and business" and other related policies. In order to transform Qin into a highly efficient war machine (similar to militarism in later times), he proposed policies such as "fixing the people, rewarding farming and war, emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce", and used extremely harsh laws to manage the people, in which case private commerce was almost forbidden.

Of course the state kept the official commercial organizations in order to purchase some weapons and so on. This situation continued until Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms.

After the fall of the Qin dynasty, many of its institutions naturally failed, including the policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, so private commerce was revived, the best example of which is that when the rogue emperor Liu Bang went out in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, he couldn't even find a couple of horses with the same color of fur to pull his cart, and had to use oxen instead.

At the same time, the merchants were more generous than the emperor, the car and horse better than the emperor's, dressed more gorgeous than the emperor's, so in the role of absolute power caused Liu Bang's jealousy, so his staff came up with a set of "heavy agriculture and suppression of business" of the state policy (some people say that he did not come up with, the specific emperor is not important! ) -- in fact, it is a kind of resurrection of Shang Yang's policy.

To suppress merchants in every way, to impose heavy taxes on them, to lower their social status - such as merchants and their children can not be in politics and become officials, and even not allowed to wear what kind of clothes - this is definitely the emperor's jealousy and psychopathy, and through the state's violent organs to maintain this policy.

Since then, the policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce has been adopted by successive dynasties and has been implemented for more than 2,000 years on the land of China - the only exception being the Yuan Dynasty, where the status of merchants was quite high, which led to the emergence of a boom in commerce and industry in China at that time, but the problems of the Yuan regime made this boom die out completely with the demise of its regime.

Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty was more of an emperor who tried to control the sky and the earth and the air with unlimited personal power, and was extremely psychopathic, and under his rule, commerce suffered an unprecedented blow.

He strictly limited the number of merchants, do not allow farmers from the business, farmers once from the business will be regarded as displaced persons to be arrested, but also from time to time to order merchants to abandon the business from the agricultural, in order to prevent the folk merchants foreign trade, the implementation of the most stringent prohibition of the sea - not allowed to seafarers out of the sea, not to mention trade, is the sea fishing are to be severely investigated, and for this reason, he also put a lot of fishermen to the inward migration to give the land to them to plant.

At the same time, he also imposed many official monopoly policies - such as salt and tea and other necessities - which further squeezed the survival of merchants.

The Ming and Qing dynasties were almost identical in their suppression of commerce, and this was the era of the Western Renaissance and the rise of capitalism, which led to huge changes like the impact of Mars on the Earth, causing people in the Western world to go crazy to explore the entire globe and try to expand their commerce and trade all over the world, and it just so happened that at this time, we were more suppressed than any other dynasty in terms of commerce and overseas trade, which caused us to miss out on an entire era! entire era!

But even if we had opened up the sea ban and traded with the West, which would have boosted commerce to some degree, that boom would presumably have been the same as the commercial boom of the Tang and Song eras, and would not have promoted much social progress! --Because our authoritarian imperial power is still in place, a commercial boom would not bring about any substantial change in society, it would just make more people a little richer.

Because the nature of agriculture and business has not changed, and the social hierarchy of business has not changed, businessmen, even if they are rich, cannot gain a say in politics to change the country's policies to form mercantilism -- and on the contrary, those businessmen who became officials by donating money to the government in China's history usually did not go to preach mercantilism.

On the contrary, he would downplay his former status as a businessman, or even suppress the businessman even more to emphasize his own determination --- this is a very peculiar psychology of the Chinese people.

Shi, agriculture, industry and commerce, businessmen are based at the bottom of the social ladder, and although they have money, they do not have any political rights.

The most typical example is: a read a few lines of the book nothing will not be a scholar, the lawsuit encountered by the official is not kneeling, but also have a seat, while those who are rich to provide countless employment opportunities to promote the development of society's businessmen, to see the official can only be honest kneeling - its status is even worse than only read a few lines of the classics of the poor literati who have virtually nothing to contribute to the community!

And when it comes to war, merchants often become the most desirable targets for looting and killing!

Often people counter me by saying, "Dr. You say that China has always emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce, then why were we so commercially advanced during the Tang and Song dynasties? "and so on and so forth, I always feel funny when I meet this kind of people: there is a necessary relationship between developed commerce and emphasizing commerce? China's commerce can be so successful even in the midst of the cracks, if we can adopt mercantilism, then it is estimated that the whole world is the territory of the Chinese!

Two: China's feudal society, civil rights and individual private property, that does not exist.

Chinese society from the beginning of history and Western society is very different, Western society from the beginning of the ancient Greek era on the city-state politics, democratic representative citizens assembly, and later developed to the Roman era and civil rights laws to protect the basic rights of citizens, and set up the protection of the people's official to supervise and guard against the government and the monarch of the civil rights violations.

Their people and the king (between the ruler), there is a mutual power and obligation relationship, the ruler's power can not arbitrarily override the supremacy of the people, and the people are not unconditional obedience to the ruler.

This was still the case even in the dark medieval period in Europe, where power and obligation relationships through the feudal feudal system were widespread, and rulers were not free to do as they pleased.

By 1215, the Magna Carta, an event that influenced the course of human history in the future, appeared in England, further limiting the power of the king (the ruler) in a manner similar to the provisions of the law, and at the same time, further protecting the civil rights and private property, and forming the prototype of the parliament in the history of mankind, which set a brand-new paradigm for mankind's transition from barbarism to civilization, and from autocratic dictatorship to democratic constitutionalism!

Inadvertently, Britain paved the way for human society!

But in China, it's the other way around. We don't have any concept of democracy and civil rights from the beginning of our history, and we only have criminal laws (civil rights laws and criminal laws were in place during the Roman period) to intimidate and punish the people for obeying their rulers, and we only ask for the people's absolute loyalty and obedience to their rulers, but we never ask the rulers to do what they need to do to safeguard the people's rights and interests!

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, we were more or less similar to the later Western Europe, where there was no democracy and civil rights, but there was still more or less independence of personality from the rulers.

But after the unification of the six states by the powerful Qin state through the Shang Yang change of law, and after Qin Shi Huang's pioneering establishment of his authoritarian system of government, which has influenced China for thousands of years, all the Chinese people (except the emperor himself) became slaves and private property of the emperor (ruler), and for more than 2000 years this situation has hardly changed at all, but on the contrary, it has always been deteriorating - as evidenced by the fact that the imperial power has been continuously strengthened.

Before the Song Dynasty, the emperor and the ministers were able to sit down and talk eloquently about politics, but in the Song Dynasty, the emperor could only sit down and the ministers stood; before the Ming Dynasty, there was also the chancellor of the prime minister's system to the emperor's power to the relative division, but the psychological personality of the extremely perverted Zhu Yuanzhang, the chancellor of the prime minister system is completely canceled, the emperor's right to reach the limit!

At this time, the Magna Carta, which restricts the power of the king and protects the rights of the people in Britain, has been enacted and implemented for more than a hundred years, but we are on the road of despotic darkness, further into the abyss!

There is no king's land under the sky, and there is no king's subject under the land!

All the people have become slaves or private property of the rulers (emperors), so let's not talk about civil rights and private property.

Capitalism requires the accumulation of capital and the protection of private property, which is crucial - to take a simple example:

Even in a mercantile society where, for example, a person has worked hard and diligently to establish a relatively large enterprise, if the society fails to protect the private property, then some officials or nobles will take a fancy to the enterprise and force it to become their own business, and then they will be forced to take it as their own. If the society fails to protect private property, then some official or prince or aristocrat sees this enterprise and forcibly takes it as his own, or confiscates the enterprise because someone has broken the law, then in such a social environment, the property of all industrialists and businessmen is not protected.

The result can be imagined, not to mention that we don't even have the most basic mercantilism.

The traditional feudal society of China is always repeating the facts I just described. Industrialists and businessmen survived in the cracks of society, they had to bear the risks of war and illegal occupation by the rulers, and under such a careful situation, they tended to invest the profits from their business in areas unrelated to commerce and industry in order to prevent their property from being seized.

For example, the purchase of fields as the family **** the same property (you can refer to the "Dream of Red Mansions" in the Qin Keqing died in a dream to Wang Xifeng that conversation), this practice is not conducive to the development of industry and commerce, but in order to insure and have to do so often, which is equivalent to the misappropriation of operating funds and profits.

In the long run, that business is often only in a small and medium-sized some even directly quit, which is extremely unfavorable to the whole industry and even the overall development of industry and commerce.

But sometimes we have to do it.

Private property can't even be protected, the birth of capitalism, and how to say.

In his Principles of the Philosophy of Law, the great philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel made the protection of private property the fundamental centerpiece of the origins of modern law, and its importance can be seen!

Three: the spirit of contract.

The spirit of contract is ubiquitous in capitalist societies, from the smallest two people doing business together to the largest presidential electors going around making speeches to proclaim their own philosophy of governance and calling on the public to vote for them, all of which is a manifestation of the spirit of contract.

Capitalism, from its birth to its development, has embodied the importance of the spirit of contract. If the important role of mercantilism and the protection of civil rights and private property is reflected more in the accumulation of wealth and assets above the rich, then the spirit of contract, is the formation of the cornerstone of the relationship between people in a capitalist society.

He involves the division of labor and collaboration of the whole society, especially during the Western sea voyage, the employer and the crew of the various relationships between the spirit of the contract will be expressed to the fullest, but also based on the spirit of the contract, the birth of modern companies, banks and stock exchanges and other modern enterprises and institutions, and even its national system, are based on the contract.

In the present day, we will still be seeking the spirit of contract, a few years ago to make a lot of talk about the privatization of Alipay by Jack Ma, is regarded as a manifestation of the spirit of contract is not respected! Perhaps in our consciousness, only the black and white contract is a contract, but in the history of Western capitalism, the verbal agreement between people (even if it is very casual) that is also a contract, and has the effect of law!

A very simple example, in the movie "Iron Fist", a man went to a game and casually said to the owner of the arena, "Buy me as much as you want on whoever wins. As a result of that one sentence, the side he bought later lost, and he was rounded up by the owner for owing money -- a contractual relationship formed by that one sentence alone.

The spirit of contract in the West, to a large extent, originated from the spirit of the medieval aristocracy (also called chivalry), words must be done, deeds must be done, promises must be kept, and the pursuit of the spirit (the soul) of the sublime, the virtue as part of their basic human dignity, and at the cost of their lives to defend this human dignity, the spirit of this aristocracy, which is almost universal, and later on it has evolved into the spirit of contract.

China, also in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, this aristocratic spirit and style prevailed, the so-called "ghosts and gods are not to be deceived" then, if a person swears to the ghosts and gods, he must abide by the oath shall not be reversed, and so we will see the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period of so many lovely characters and lovely things, a lot of in our view now, is incredible, even we think it is that are unbelievable and even what we consider to be foolish.

Because in our history this aristocratic spirit and style was replaced by the later thick black style for more than two thousand years, we do not have that kind of aristocratic spirit and style in our bones, so we see the once they will feel lovely, incredible, and even stupid!

China's last spiritual aristocrat Xiang Yu cut his own throat on the Wujiang River, and from then on, whether in space or time, the aristocrats, a scarce species, became completely extinct in China! After Liu Bang, a scoundrel, became emperor, China opened a "new era of feudal society" in which "heroes do not ask for sources, and emperors do not speak of shame", and led more people toward "more shameless and shameless!

The unlimited strengthening and generalization of the absolute power of the emperor, leading to the later Chinese thick and black increasingly prevalent, in order to power, you can face thick heart black, in order to power, you can kill your brother and father, in order to power, you can exterminate the human nature of the evil, as long as you succeed, all all the evil deeds, there will be someone for you to whitewash or even become a glorious deed.

Looking at the kings and queens of Chinese history, how many of them are not flowing with other people's blood on their hands? The entire feudal history of China is a history of blood and flesh of murder and cannibalism!

In such a mutual fraud beasts rampant in the predatory society, the basic human nature can be buried, that trustworthy to speak of the spirit of the contract, it is tantamount to asking for death!

The upper class is so, civil nature is not good to go - although more or less better!

So our contract is often manifested as black and white and signed and sealed (fingerprints), is to prevent the other side of the day do not keep promises to renege, (although the West has since developed into this way).

There is no basis for mutual trust between people, let alone cooperation*** to win, so we spend a lot of energy and time fighting and infighting - even within a group!

The spirit of contract is a layer that we still lack, although there is a basic contractual limit!

Four: the spirit of scientific empirical evidence: I'm sorry, in our case, it is the "strange technology".

"Strange skills and tricks" is the best evidence that the ancient Chinese discriminated against technology.

In Chinese history, there was only limited technology, not science!

Officials, they are in ten years of study in addition to literacy in the study of almost useless books, science and technology knowledge, occasionally a few intellectuals may be interested in going to the technical workers to ask for some technical problems, but generally also be criticized by the people to the "strange skills and tricks, do not feel at ease to read the book of the sages in order to get the merit of but to care about that thing!

The scholarly laborers were criticized for being "unprofessional, not studying for a career, but caring about that stuff".

Shi, agriculture, industry and commerce, labor (skilled workers) in front of the merchants, that is because there are aspects have to use them, such as for the emperor to build palaces and tombs, war with a variety of weaponry, as well as folk bridge paving, etc., but from the rankings can also be seen, they are discriminated against a class of people. In contrast, the status of science and technology personnel in Western Europe, no less than the status of officials in China.

With the whole society discriminated against, China's technology maintains a state of slow accumulation, while science, on the other hand, is almost completely blank.

Science and technology are based on scientific theories, which are gradually transformed into practical technology, and the development of modern science and technology confirms this path.

While China's history, there is arithmetic, but no math, there are Tian Gong Kai Wu and other explanations of how to realize some of the technology, but never involved in the underlying principles behind these technologies, we are keen on the concrete things we can access, but can not go to the abstraction of the underlying principles and form a system.

One of the things that people like to fantasize about is that they were the first to discover the Pythagorean Theorem: in fact, we only discovered the Pythagorean Three-String Four-String Five, which is the established data, and the theorem of axa + bxb = cxc is one billion and eighty million miles away.

We lack not only science, but positivism and spirituality.

A hilarious example is the Boxer Rebellion of the late Qing Dynasty, which claimed to be invulnerable to swords and spears, and at the time, local officials at all levels, from princes and nobles to even emperors, were so convinced that they even approached the head of the Boxer Rebellion.

When the head said that they could break the foreigners' musket, so many readers and intellectuals only one person proposed to verify the scene with a musket, the results of this immediately was buckled on the hat of treason and dare not speak! The result is the later eight allied forces into the capital!

This is 1900 years, so many of us readers intellectuals and even dignitaries are this virtue, our more distant history is how, really dare not imagine!

Fifth: the final conclusion.

Lacking the four necessary conditions, the traditional feudal society of China can never develop into a capitalist society on its own, no matter how developed our economy is and how prosperous our industry and commerce are, it is impossible! Four necessary conditions are lacking, the traditional feudal society of China could never have developed into a capitalist society on its own, no matter how developed our economy and how prosperous our industry and commerce!

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