Research On Hired Labor During The Tang Dynasty

Employment is very old.In ancient China,the practice of hired labor appeared as early as the late Spring and Autumn times when the existing literature recorded the labor form of employment.The form of employment is associated with private ownership.With the demise of the well-field system in the late Spring and Autumn times,the private ownership of land appeared.Land is the means of production in the ancient agricultural society.The public and private property of the land determines the mode of production reflected by the form of labor.After the Warring States period,China had traditionally been a small agricultural production mode with family as a unit,which was a typical small agricultural economy.Small agricultural economy was not a completely closed natural economy.Especially in the feudal era of China,when commodity production and exchange were interspersed among them,the economy also presented the attribute of commodity economy.The employment of labor is the embodiment of the commodity economy,and of course,it has to be branded with the feudal society.Therefore,the employment labor during the Tang Dynasty was still the form of employment under the feudal system,and it was not able to be equal to the employment labor of the capitalist mode.The increased popularity of the form of employment demonstrates the development of the production and exchange of commodities during the middle and late Tang Dynasty.This economic phenomenon,as well as the economic behavior of employment,can be explained in a reasonable way through the modern economics theory.Labor,just like land and capital,is regarded as one of the factors of production in modern economics theory.The allocation of labor resources to market is also followed by the principle of economic efficiency.Under the constraints of private property rights and market competition,the popularity of the form of employment shows that the mode of production is efficient during the Tang Dynasty.And at that time there were slave labor,forced labor and farmers self employment form.From the economic efficiency,the efficiency of labor forms is the same.Only after changing the local constraint conditions,the employment labor shows higher efficiency.The theory of employment labor derived from the general equilibrium principle of economics has also been proved.Although a condition of employment labor theory hypothesis is not so strict with property rights constraints and market competition under the capitalist mode of production,the employment labor theory is properly applied since the feudal commodity economy also has the attribute of market.The equal-field system was implemented from the Northern Wei Dynasty and Northern Zhou Dynasty to Sui Dynasty and Tang Dynasty.As the land system was changing,the basic spirit of the system was consistent.The history of the northern and Southern Dynasties is a period of turmoil and division.Although the Sui Dynasty reunified the country,the Tang Dynasty began to enter the construction period.At that time the feudal state land resources were rich and there was a vast territory with a sparse population.Human resources were shortage.The spirit of the legislation of the system is to achieve "people do their best,land does its best".So the state of the land was granted to people,but people were engaged in the production and bear the feudal state taxes and corvee.However this system is not the average distribution of land.In addition,the feudal state had a large number of state-owned land to grant to people,and there was also private ownership of land which was formed in history and in reality.In other words,the system of land property not only included land ownership but also private property rights.So the equal-field system is a mixed land ownership system.Different forms of land ownership correspond to different modes of production.In the mixed land ownership,there are legacy in the history of labor,forced labor and farmers slaves self employment,as well as sporadic employment form.The peasants needed not go out to make a living because they worked in their own land.The farmer labor form was the main form of labor in the early Tang dynasty.The slave labor was the result of the war since the southern and Northern dynasties.The country’s main labor way was the feudal corvee labor.Fragmentary employment is partly derived from the country’s agricultural production,partly from the production needs of private owners,but the form of employment is not common.As long as the peasants cost labor,the land will have excess output,the marginal productivity of labor and land are increased because of a vast territory with a sparse population.There was not much different between the several forms of labor economic efficiency since the proportion of people is not tight.Therefore,the form of labor under the mixed ownership of land is coexisting in many forms.Public and private property rights coexisting system remained just for a few decades and tended to corrupt.Public land was gradually replaced by private land,followed by a large private land.To the middle of the Tang Dynasty,this system basically has ceased.The Zu-Yong-Diao system and other tax system supporting the equal-field system also lost the economic basis of its existence.The feudal state finance was unable to make ends meet,and the government’s military service system had to be replaced by the employment system.In addition,because of land sale,merger and concentration,the farmers who lost land became "free" workers and they had to be employed to make a living.From the government to the folk,the employment of labor was becoming more and more common.On the one hand,in order to ensure the operation of the state machine,the feudal government launched the Two-Tax law.It completely recognized the legality of the land’s private ownership and established the private property right system of the land.On the other hand,with the increase of population and long peaceful time,marginal productivity of labor has been unable to improve so that universal employment form conformed to this trend.The relative freedom of the workers made it possible to attach to the property rights of his labor force.Under the conditions of the market,the market plays a role in the allocation of labor resources as the workers can use and dispose their own labor according to the economic principles.The Two-Tax law beginning in 780 is the symbol of the generalized employment in the Tang Dynasty.It is a kind of assets tax including land and house taxes.The Two-Tax law had changed the Zu-Yong-Diao system in the early Tang Dynasty.The implementation of the Two-Tax law not only ensured the financial income of the feudal state,but also allocated two times to the social wealth,and made the people relatively free and had a profound influence on the later generations.It straightened out the tax reform for Song Dynasty,Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty in the economic history and tax history of ancient China.The Yi-Tiao-Bian tax law of the Ming Dynasty and the Tan-Ding-Ru-Mu tax law of the Qing Dynasty came down in one continuous line with The Two-Tax law.It is worth noting that the transformation of tax system has promoted the transformation of production mode.The generalization of wage labor in the Tang Dynasty was spread under this circumstance.The development of economy,the prosperity of market and the free migration of population had brought about the urbanization in the Tang Dynasty.Urbanization had profoundly affected the generalization of the employment in the long run.There was more than one hundred year from the early Tang Dynasty to the rebellion of An and Shi.The Tang Dynasty society basically was in the peace period.The development of the feudal economy had laid the foundation for the implementation of the equal-field system.All cities had been developed from the capital Chang’an to the local county cities during this period.In addition,the civil and market towns had been formed spontaneously.The urbanization of the Tang Dynasty is an important manifestation as the ancient city’s political and military functions were transformed into economic function.Since the expansion of the market and the refinement of the division of labor,the cities needed a large number of labor population to fill.The annexation and centralization of the land objectively provided the manpower conditions for the urbanization of the Tang Dynasty.The peasants,that is to say,became free workers because they had less land or lost the land.All the peasants entering the city had to be employed to make a living though the prosperity of the market provided them with the material conditions for their livelihood.As a result,the employment form was becoming more and more common during the middle and late Tang Dynasty.Because the population increased substantially during the peaceful period,the supply for hired laborers had exceeded the demand for them.It means that there were people to sell themselves into slavery to survive.But this is the choice of the market.Slave labor had been declining in the Tang Dynasty so that the literature recorded little,even though the society remained the good and low system.The demise of slave labor reflects the progress of society.In terms of economics,labor market is the alternative according to the allocation of labor resources and employment labor mode of production is more efficient in the economy.A large increase in population made the land unbearable at that time and the marginal productivity of labor could not be promoted.The owners of the land and other production materials,along with workers,must make decisions and choices according to the economic principles under the conditions of market competition.Slave labor productivity was low and the raised maids cost high.Because supply for labor exceeded demand for them,owners would choose to hire labor rather than bought slaves.In accordance with the principle of the economic efficiency,it was the choice of the market to choose hired labor instead of slaves labor.Of course,the progress of the society and the idea that raising maids is immoral had led people to liberate slaves.So it also contributed to the demise of slavery during the Tang Dynasty.The popularity of the form of employment was also proved in the practice of the contract of employment during the Tang Dynasty.The employment contract stipulates the rights and obligations of the employers and the employees.For the contractual relationship the employers and the employees are equal,although the two sides are not equal in terms of their economic relations.But the act of contract embodies the behavior of the market.Under the conditions of the market,both the employers and the servants are making rational decisions according to the economic principles,considering the factors such as cost,risk and income.Therefore,the theory of employment labor can be regarded as one of the theories of contract.The contract theory holds that different contractual arrangements do not mean the different efficiency in the use of resources.As a special resource,the efficiency of labor resources is the same in the process of market allocation of resources,no matter in the form of wage labor or non wage labor.In reality,because of the different constraints of labor resources,the efficiency of the use of labor resources often shows differences.The employment contract is the result of game between the employers and the employees.They all have achieved the maximization of interests under the existing constraints.It means that the economy has reached a general equilibrium.The theory of employment labor derived from the principle of general equilibrium can make a reasonable explanation of generalization of wage labor in the Tang Dynasty,which is the value performance of the employment labor theory.Although the economic form was mainly small-scale peasant economy not a complete natural economy during the Tang Dynasty which was in the feudal period,the commodity production and exchange were still developing and the property of the feudal commodity economy was more obvious.Because of the existence of the market,the allocation of labor resources is regulated by the market.The Two-Tax law objectively relaxed the control of personal freedom so that the people naturally arranged the property right by themselves according to the economic principle because the property right of the labor force was realized.But the wage labor in the Tang Dynasty is not equal to that in the capitalist society which is the two way of production.Even so,the Two-Tax law and the mode of production of wage labor had a historical impact on later generations.Today the great practice of China’s ongoing socialist market economy can still be drawn from this economic and historical phenomenon.