“A State Is Powerful if Its People Are Being Put to [Good] Use”

Abstract

People of ancient Chinese states appear to have been asymmetrically dependent on their lords since the fourth century BCE for three reasons: because they were ranked according to merit; because they could be sentenced to forced or convict labor; and because they were seen as and managed like a resource by their landlords. Instead of describing such states as all-encompassing slave societies based on state slavery, this article argues that it is more useful to examine structures of dependency and to identify the organizing principles on which they were based. In ancient China, such principles were formulated in the fourth and third centuries BCE as part of an emerging reflection on principles of “laws and procedures” (fashu 法術). Early Chinese “specialists in laws and procedures” (fashu zhi shi 法術之士), as they called themselves, were not only familiar with concepts such as division of labor, economic cycles, supply and demand, incentives, or contrarian investment, but they also thought about resources and their management. The article explores this subject primarily through the economic thought of Shang jun shu 商君書 (The Documents Pertaining to the Lord of Shang), a collection of treatises dating from about 360 to 210 BCE on radical administrative reforms designed to increase the productivity and efficiency of subjects in the fields of agriculture and warfare.