The so-called "budding capitalism" means that in some handicraft workshops, factory owners hire employees with free status to produce for the needs of the market. To put it bluntly, it is the emergence of employment relations, and it is a large-scale emergence. Marx's theory of "five social forms" holds that there are five necessary forms of human society, namely primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society and capitalist society. According to this law and the definition of "capitalist sprout", it is not difficult for us to explore the capitalist sprout in Song Dynasty with a highly developed feudal economy. In the Song Dynasty, drinking tea became a social atmosphere, and making tea was a typical "labor-intensive" industry. We might as well explore the answer through this little tea.
The profit of tea trade in Song Dynasty was extremely high, and people called it: "Those who go into business in the sea don't treasure jewelry, but rhinoceros;" Business is on the ground, not precious salt and iron, but precious tea. " In feudal times, salt and iron trade was generally monopolized by the state, and tea trade could be compared with salt and iron, and the profit rate could be imagined. "Every tea official has been underestimated and revalued. The welfare of county officials is very generous. Merchants turned to the northwest and scattered them in the righteous land, which was especially beneficial. " Driven by interests, the tea industry in Song Dynasty formed a complete industrial chain. Tea farmers who produce tea will sell tea to small tea merchants who collect tea, and the small tea merchants will sell it to big tea merchants. Fan Chengda's Pastoral Miscellanies in Late Spring in Southern Song Dynasty restored the scene of small tea merchants picking tea in the field;
Butterfly has entered cauliflower, and no guests have come to Tianjia for a long time. The chicken flew over the fence and the dog barked until it knew that a businessman had come to buy tea.
The tea market was so hot that the central government of Song Dynasty tried to intervene. For example, during the reign of Zongshen (1067- 1085), the imperial court conducted experiments in Sichuan, and tea was monopolized by the government like salt and iron. In the seventh year of Xining (1074), the Sichuan tea market had the following trading scenarios:
Tea garden households, many people pay 30,000 to 50,000 kilograms a year, and the less is one or two hundred kilograms. From the second year onwards, guests will be left to allocate money, or make tea seedlings, or lend money, or prepare grain and rice, or hire labor. Since last spring, we have taken them one after another, taking advantage of time to compete with each other and sell the goods at the same time.
Commodities in any era must meet the relationship between supply and demand. Although they are all tea leaves, the tastes of tea leaves are not the same, and good tea that is more popular in the market is naturally more sought after. For example, wax tea, a specialty of Fujian Jianzhou, is startled by spring thunder every year, and the seller has to bear it. Or save money in advance, or tea talents compete for money, so tea in Guyuan is often insufficient. "Behind such a prosperous tea market, the only way for landlords with tea gardens to expand production is to hire more labor, so the most basic employment relationship in the embryonic period of capitalism emerged.
Due to the obvious defects in the strategic defense to the north, the south has always been the economic center of the Song Dynasty, especially after the "Jingkang", the Southern Song Dynasty court, which was on the south side, could only manage the south wholeheartedly. The terrain in the southeast of China is mainly hilly, and the cultivated land area is very limited. In an environment with a large population and few land, a group of landless peasants were forced to be liberated from the land. In addition, the Southern Song Dynasty court abolished the tenancy regulations, which created a possessive relationship between employers and farm labourers. From this perspective, these farmers who lost their land are essentially the same as those who lost their land because of the "enclosure movement" in Britain.
Then why didn't the emergence of employment relationship in the embryonic period of capitalism make the Song Dynasty complete the transition from feudal society to capitalist society? The main reasons are nothing more than the following:
1, restriction and plunder by the imperial court
Judging from the development of western capitalism, what it needs is to reduce government intervention. However, it was difficult to do this in any feudal dynasty in ancient China. The long-term confrontation between the Song Dynasty and the northern regime, whether war or peace, will affect the domestic economic situation. If we can maintain a long-term and stable friendly relationship with the northern regime, the export of tea will further promote the development of this industry and bring comprehensive effects. In addition to excessive intervention, in the Song Dynasty, bureaucrats exploited wealthy businessmen. For example, as soon as the traitor Cai Jing came to power, he let the merchants who started selling tea "beg in court", which was enough to dampen the development of the whole industry.
2. The transformation from the "bourgeoisie" to the bureaucratic class.
In the feudal dynasty based on the small-scale peasant economy, the merchant class was the last one. Dajia, a wealthy businessman, after saving a large sum of money, expects future generations not to carry forward the past, but to let them enter the official career. These wealthy businessmen could have been transformed into the early "bourgeoisie", but they turned to the bureaucratic class on their own initiative and did not jump out of the shackles of feudal thought.
3, the external environment is not allowed.
Regardless of the Northern Song Dynasty or the Southern Song Dynasty, Liao, Jin, Xixia, Mongolia and other regimes existed in the north for a long time and fought against the Song Dynasty many times. The germination of capitalism needs a long-term and stable external environment, which the Song Dynasty could not provide. It was not until the middle and late Ming Dynasty that the textile industry in the south of the Yangtze River appeared as a "capitalist sprout" recognized by later academic circles. The short-lived "bud" of tea industry in Song Dynasty is still controversial in academic circles.
Although the "seed of capitalism" in the Song Dynasty was only a flash in the pan and ended in failure, it is undeniable that the economic development in the Song Dynasty was a peak in China's feudal period. Associated with economic development, there is also the cultural prosperity of the Song Dynasty. After all, five of the "Eight Masters of Tang and Song Dynasties" lived in the Song Dynasty. Indeed, some of the history of the Song Dynasty is somewhat wronged in our view, and the excessive repression of military commanders has also been criticized by later generations, but it is also a dynasty that really exists in history. Whether we like it or not, it will not change because of us. After all, history is a thing of the past, so treat it rationally!