Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional virtues - Historical evolution of landlords

Historical evolution of landlords

Landlord was just an academic concept at first, and later, as a representative of the old times, it was pushed to the front of criticism in the New Culture Movement. This is determined by the respective historical responsibilities of the bourgeoisie and later socialists. Marxist philosophy specifically expounds the relationship between production relations and means of production. After the transition from slavery to feudalism, landlords, as a new ruling class, played a role in promoting historical development. Landlords are associated with patriarchal clan system, and emphasize the importance of morality compared with slavery. At this time, two completely different feudal social characteristics appeared in the East and the West. Western feudal society emphasized theology but not the importance of human beings, which led to violent feudalism that deprived humanity and could not promote the development of productive forces, and was quickly overthrown. In China, the rulers constantly use Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism as the supreme code of the country. These theories all emphasize people's actions, whether they are promising or inaction, and emphasize people's initiative. In this process, landlords played a role in maintaining the moral system, and many landlords were also clan leaders. These clan leaders are sometimes very ruthless in the face of morality, and even attack their parents and children. The poor inheritance of feudal landlords in China is the reason why the so-called "three generations are not rich". This is due to the poor resistance of ancient China people to natural and man-made disasters. For example, after the Qing army invaded Jiangnan, many landlords and gentry who resisted the Qing army were turned into slaves, and their descendants needed to be pardoned before they could return. After returning, they belong to the bottom of society. And anyone with talent can become this class, such as Zhu Yuanzhang.

It is because of this moral system that the landlord class has more assets than ordinary people and enjoys the privilege of class leader. In the face of privilege, there is a lack of restraint on human nature. Leading some landlords to oppress the village. At the same time, this kind of landlord will also be criticized by the feudal social system. In China's classical novels, this kind of landlord will be strongly criticized. The number of landlords at any stage in China is amazing. The vast majority of these landlords belong to the bottom landlords. They accumulate wealth through thrift (which also creates the impression that landlords are stingy, typically Zhou Pipi) and buy land on a large scale after accumulating wealth. China's traditional idea is that everything is for future generations. So most rich landlords lead a hard life and then save money to buy land for future generations. This process is full of risks. Any disease or natural disaster may make their efforts go to waste and become tenant farmers. It was because of illness that Lu Xun's father fell into poverty.

It is precisely because of the high degree of hardship in this process that when the landlord has enough land, people start to hire others, and at this time, the treatment given to employees is also relatively poor. Of course, most landlords don't eat well by themselves. In order to accumulate wealth again, they eat with employees. However, some landlords began to rely on employees to enjoy their land. In feudal society, when the land output was very low, most people were "sitting in the open space" and had to transfer their land to others and become tenant farmers themselves.

This is just the life of the bottom landlords, and few bottom landlords can become big landlords by their own efforts. Children of dynasty rulers and hereditary princes, as well as children of corrupt officials, can be properly called big landlords. What is particularly emphasized here is that ancient officials have no privileges after leaving office. According to historical records, many officials almost became poor peasants after leaving office.

Privilege is more important to those who become landlords by privilege or graft, and their morality will become very low. They bully small landlords, and usually acquire a lot of land through looting or forced purchase at low prices, which leads to very serious land annexation. At one time, less than 5% of the landlord class owned no less than 50% of the land. When this merger reaches a certain level, educated but bankrupt small landlords will rise up against the destitute, which is the peasant uprising in the history of China. A truly destitute class is incapable of going to school or becoming an uprising leader. Once the uprising occurs, some weak big landlords will flock to overthrow the current ruling class in the name of suppressing civil violence. In this process, the insurgents are essentially overthrowing forces, and many forces are at war with the ruling class. In the end, after one party won, it was called the new ruling class, and the privileges of the old ruling class were cut off. At this time, in order to show their morality and justice, the new ruling class will vigorously promote the people-friendly policy, such as the rule of chastity. But after a long time, some people in the privileged class look down on morality, which leads to a new cycle.