The Causes of Ancient Bureaucracy

The basic conditions for the emergence of ancient bureaucracy are: first, the emergence of centralization and absolute monarchy. When a society lacks clear centralization and absolute monarchy, political rule is bound to be closely related to consanguineous families and aristocratic identity systems. Political power is distributed according to status levels, and administrative agencies can only stay at a lower level, but cannot develop into independent separate institutions that specialize in performing various administrative functions. However, historically, centralization and absolute monarchy did not occur at the same time. In ancient China, kingship and autocracy appeared earlier, but centralization could not evolve with the development of politics and social economy. It was not until the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period that countries established local administrative systems, performance appraisal systems, accounting systems and official appointment and removal systems during the political reform movement that centralization was gradually formed. Second, the development of specialized administrative agencies and the departmentalization of administrative activities. Most of the ancient bureaucracies were transformed from aristocratic politics. Under aristocratic politics, administrative agencies are mixed in consanguineous families, political activities and non-political activities are mixed together, and the functions of officials overlap and the division of labor is unclear. Bureaucracy requires that "the functions of the people should not be delayed, and the order should not be chaotic", "ministers should keep their posts, and hundreds of officials should be long", and it is opposed to "concurrent officials" and "ultra vires". On the basis of the establishment of official posts, the departments of administration, supervision, finance, military affairs and performance appraisal management have become increasingly specialized. Third, establish the principle of talent selection. Bureaucracy emphasizes "universalism" in the selection of officials, advocates "officials have no personal relationship", "officials can be awarded according to their abilities" and "incompetent officials get something for nothing", and promotes officials strictly according to their merits. The decline of pro-expensive doctrine and the rise of functionalism ensure that the bureaucratic team can absorb outstanding talents from all walks of life, make the bureaucratic team constantly flow and update, and prevent bureaucratic aristocratization and aristocratization. The principle of selecting the best is one of the important social foundations of ancient bureaucracy. Fourth, the emergence of bureaucracy will inevitably lead to extensive differentiation in the social and economic fields. From the social field, it is necessary to break the patriarchal blood relationship, so that the ruled can get rid of the shackles of blood relationship and regional relationship and directly establish contact with the ruler. From the economic field, bureaucratic administration must be based on the disintegration of rural communes and family communes, which requires the emergence of independent private ownership of small farmers, the development of private property and the remarkable development of non-agricultural production departments and exchange departments. Because the collection and collection of taxes, corvees and military service is the premise of the implementation of its ruling policy. We can see that the ancient empire, which practiced bureaucratic rule, attached great importance to the cultivation of small-scale peasant economy.

The ancient bureaucracy is not only an administrative system, but also reflects certain social relations and class relations. Although bureaucrats at all levels under the bureaucratic system are not a class, they are attached to the state machine, which is a special organizational form of the state machine in a certain social form and has a strong class attribute. Bureaucracy embodies the interests of a certain class, such as the division of officials and the direction of operation. At the same time, the possession of bureaucratic power by ancient bureaucrats is also a sign of social class. The hierarchical affiliation of administrative power often reflects the dependence of personal relationship. The hereditary possession of economic status, cultural status and titles also strongly promoted the desire of bureaucrats for hereditary political power. The hereditary and aristocratic tendency of bureaucrats existed widely in ancient bureaucratic countries.

There are great political differences between ancient bureaucratic state rule and ancient non-bureaucratic state rule. First of all, the ancient non-bureaucratic countries lacked clear centralization, and political power was often hierarchical distribution; Bureaucratic countries have clear centralization, although the forms of centralization are not exactly the same. Secondly, in ancient non-bureaucratic countries, there was a strict hierarchy of status, patriarchal blood relationship restricted the distribution of political power, and the degree of social mobility was low; Although there was a hierarchy of status in ancient bureaucratic countries, it was not necessarily related to the distribution of political power and state administration. The mobility of the whole society has also been greatly improved. Third, the official position and power of ancient non-bureaucratic countries were largely hereditary. Monarchs and nobles enjoy authority, and nobles have more authority over their subjects than monarchs. In ancient bureaucratic countries, the monarch was the only orthodox authority, and bureaucratic political power came directly from the monarch. Official positions are generally non-hereditary, and power often just stops.

To sum up, ancient bureaucracy is an important aspect of the study of ancient political history and political system history, which has rich historical connotations. In ancient China, the bureaucratic administrative system was established as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. In the long historical process, its development scale and system construction are systematic and complete, and it occupies an important position in the ancient bureaucratic political system of the world.