The Financial Predicament Of Western Jin Dynasty And The Crisis And Way Out Of Chinese Traditional Governance

The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee put forward the reform direction of "finance is the foundation and important pillar of national governance".The traditional financial theory research in China is facing an unprecedented task of renewal and development.The research directions that need to be adjusted and strengthened are mainly shown in the following three aspects:first,the research on the internal mechanism of the relationship between "finance" and"state";The second is to study the legal principle of the relationship between tax and property rights;The third is the research on the relationship between tax power(financial power)and special interest groups.The answer to these three theoretical questions is not only an important task for the basic theoretical research of real finance,but also needs to find the experience and wisdom with historical depth from the long-term evolution of the system and the ideological history,because historical research is an important channel to theoretical innovation.After more than 40 years of reform and opening up,China’s finance discipline has made remarkable achievements,but there is also a tendency towards technicalization and instrumentalization.In the recent "new liberal arts" movement,the major task of discipline reconstruction and renewal has been put forward to finance discipline.In the future,the development of finance discipline will be organically integrated with other disciplines,and will no longer be limited to the field of economics,Methodology is no longer just the embodiment of the characteristics of policy tools,but will develop into a highly comprehensive "new finance" to meet the needs of the development of the new era.This significant change is receiving more and more attention from the academic community.By using the historical narrative method and the basic method of modern state theory,this paper focuses on the fiscal and taxation reform and the practice of state governance of the Western Jin Dynasty in the middle ancient times of China.By combing and summarizing the existing research results at home and abroad,it lays a solid academic foundation for the Research of the topic,Through the analysis and argumentation of this complicated and innovative history,this paper confirms the fundamental proposition of "finance is the foundation and important pillar of national governance",in order to provide some new ideas for the innovation and development of China’s modern financial theory.In the writing of the history of Chinese finance and taxation,it can be found that the reform of financial system and the design and implementation of financial policies in the Western Jin Dynasty were the first practical activities of bringing finance into national governance in Chinese history.This important historical period,which accounts for half of the Twenty-Four Histories of ancient China,is faced with some problems different from those of the previous dynasties,such as the diversification of social classes and social consciousness,the increasingly complicated income distribution relationship among various interest groups,and how to effectively govern the diversified social structure of the state,And how to make the land system and tax system adapt to the changed economic and social conditions,etc.Studying the history of Finance and taxation in the Western Jin Dynasty can provide some useful historical experience for the current theoretical research of Finance in China,and can give us some unexpected enlightenment from the implementation of national governance and the promotion of economic and social development in ancient society.In the history of our country,the Wei,Jin,southern and Northern dynasties belong to the period of great division,which is also an important historical period that inherits from the Qin and Han Dynasties and starts from the Sui and Tang Dynasties.The Western Jin Dynasty was a short unified dynasty in the middle of the period,but there were some important institutional changes and innovations such as the system of occupying land and the system of teaching land.The evolution of the financial system in the Western Jin Dynasty was closely related to the changes of the national political situation.In order to cope with the diversified social structure,the Western Jin Dynasty brought finance into the national governance system and made many improvements and innovations in the land and tax systems,which contrasted with the unified "National rule" of the Qin and Han Dynasties,The period of Wei,Jin,southern and Northern Dynasties became the most close to the pattern of diversified "national governance" in Chinese history.This paper gives a more careful definition of the concepts closely related to the theme,such as aristocratic families,financial difficulties,and national governance.There are many kinds of appellations for the aristocratic families in the period of Wei,Jin,southern and Northern Dynasties in the academic circles,such as the gentry,the clan,the aristocracy,the aristocracy,the aristocracy,the aristocratic family,the aristocratic family,the powerful family and so on.Although these appellations have similar meanings,they have different scopes of application and different periods of application in the official history documents of our country.In order to standardize the research and conform to the history,this paper defines the concepts of "aristocratic family" and "financial dilemma" to distinguish them from other appellations.This paper expounds the meaning of financial difficulties and financial difficulties in different contexts.The reason for the financial dilemma in the Western Jin Dynasty was the emergence of special interest class,namely aristocratic families.The aristocratic families are independent of the imperial power,and they can control the public opinion and even balance the imperial power by virtue of the political and economic strength of the aristocratic families.This special class not only ignored the national decrees and regulations,but also competed with the emperor for the right of political discourse.It also competed with the emperor for financial resources by annexing land to shade the population.At that time,the emperor did not have the strength to establish a highly centralized imperial ruling order like that in the Qin and Han Dynasties,and the society was no longer just a simple distinction between the ruler and the ruled.The main body of the society began to become pluralistic.Since the pre Qin period,the relatively single traditional governance mode of the supreme ruler and the people directly faced,It has been unable to coordinate the relationship between various stakeholders in reality,so the concept of national governance comes into being.In order to better understand the concept of state governance that existed in ancient China,this paper defines the concept of "state governance",and makes a comparative analysis with the concept of unified "state governance".It holds that the social subject of state governance is unitary,and generally does not need to consider the issue of interest coordination,It only needs to consider the will of the rulers themselves,while national governance is much more complex,characterized by mutual tolerance,negotiation,compromise and cooperation with other social subjects.In other words,there were some qualitative changes in Chinese traditional society around the Western Jin Dynasty.Marx’s state theory is an important theoretical basis of this paper.In addition,it also draws on the main ideas of North’s state theory.Marx’s state theory emphasizes that "tax is the economic basis of the government machine",affirms that the depth of tax affects the value of the country’s political and economic development,but also points out that the country is predatory and needs to be constrained by the system,and points out that tax is "the golden chain used to restrain and kill the autocratic monarchy".North’s theory of state is mainly concerned with the definition and protection of property rights,emphasizing the exchangeability,legitimacy and legitimacy of tax sources.The Western Jin Dynasty made clear the property rights arrangement of land,population and other financial resources to a certain extent,which was a practical exploration of North’s state theory across time and space.The Western Jin Dynasty also paid attention to the use of land system and financial system arrangement to restrict the interest subjects and mobilize the enthusiasm of all parties.The exploration and efforts to realize the effective governance of the country in the Western Jin Dynasty provided valuable historical experience for reference,and naturally there were many lessons of failure.Both success and failure are precious historical and cultural heritages."Input as output" is one of the ancient financial principles in China.In the early period of the Western Jin Dynasty,he made great efforts to govern the country,pursued the wind of thrift,accumulated grain eastward to prepare for the attack of Wu,and issued the Jin Law,which showed the idea of national governance in the form of law,promoted the stable development of economy and society,and finally had the financial strength to realize the national unification.After the reunification of the whole country,the Western Jin Dynasty continued to take finance as the basis and tool of national governance,reconstructed the land system and financial system,reduced the army at the same time,promoted the emergence of stable financial order and system,made some achievements in the system reform,and the economic and social development showed a prosperous situation for a while.However,the Western Jin Dynasty did not carry out the principle of living within the limits of income to the end.After the reunification of the country,Chengping soon became arrogant and extravagant.In order to maintain the operation of the state machinery,Emperor Wu of Jin sold his officials in exchange for a temporary financial revenue.The consequences not only caused the problem of redundant officials and staff,but also increased the heavy burden on the taxpayers.Because of the implementation of the system of"quality officials occupying land and shade",the two major tax sources of land and population were directly reduced,which brought great hidden dangers to the financial security and political stability of the country.China’s traditional thought of national governance includes the thought of "great unity",ethical system and social governance.Among them,the thought of "great unification" has always occupied an important position" "Great unification" is the theoretical basis of national orthodoxy and the legitimacy of secular power.Unification is the trend of historical development and the guarantee of social stability.In terms of ethical system,the traditional state governance in China is mainly influenced by Confucianism.The patriarchal society based on blood is combined with the state society,and the patriarchy is combined with the monarchy.In terms of social governance,China’s traditional state governance mainly implements the rule of virtue and the rule of law.In the period of Western Jin Dynasty,the traditional state governance mode has met crisis and challenge since the Western Zhou Dynasty,especially in the Qin and Han Dynasties.After a long period of turmoil and disputes,the pattern of "great unity" was broken,the Confucian filial piety culture advocated by Confucianism was impacted in the turbulent times,and the traditional family and country were challenged.Cao Wei is no longer there,but the aristocratic family is still there and on the temple platform.The Confucianist thought of restraining the rule of virtue is weak,and the rule of virtue has lost its binding force to a great extent.In the process of national governance,the Western Jin Dynasty followed the historical trend,actively explored the way out for development,promulgated the Jin Law,and gradually formed a governance model of rule of law as the main,supplemented by rule of virtue.The state governance of the Western Jin Dynasty made some achievements because the policy ideas were in line with the direction of historical development.One of the rare prosperous times in Chinese history-"the rule of Taikang" appeared,which became a beautiful scenery during the turbulent period of nearly 400 years in the Wei,Jin,southern and Northern Dynasties.There are many reasons for the financial difficulties in the Western Jin Dynasty,the most fundamental reason is the existence of special interest groups-aristocratic families.Clan politics emerged in the Cao Wei period and formed in the Western Jin Dynasty,which is the characteristics of the times in the Wei,Jin,southern and Northern Dynasties,and opened a pattern of clan politics.The aristocratic families plundered land,population and other financial resources by virtue of their political and economic privileges,and became important tax payers in the country.In addition to the special interest groups,the cost of the deviation from the traditional principle of"input is output" was also an important reason for the financial dilemma of the Western Jin Dynasty.The poor implementation of the principle of living within our means in the Western Jin Dynasty and the total deviation from this principle in the later period led to the failure of national governance as a whole and the political turmoil of the country.Through research,this paper believes that the practice of state governance in the Western Jin Dynasty is a mixed success and failure practice to solve the problem of how to achieve stable governance in a pluralistic society in the history of our country.The state governance thought of the Western Jin Dynasty promoted the social governance to the national level and took diversified governance measures.Among them,finance was regarded as an important tool of state governance and coordinated the interests of the three major social subjects,namely,the emperor,the aristocratic families and the people.On the contrary,at the beginning of the war in the late years of the Western Jin Dynasty,there were a large number of national warehouses,so it can be said that the Western Jin Dynasty was a successful attempt of financial governance.However,the Western Jin Dynasty perished for a short time.The root cause of its extinction was the failure of political governance,and there was a big problem in the other pole of national governance.It was the emperor and his ruling group that failed to deal with the balance among the aristocratic family,the royal family and the relatives,which eventually led to the overall failure.National governance belongs to the concept of meta governance,and political governance is subordinate to the concept of national governance.Therefore,we can not deny national governance completely because of the failure of political governance,just as we can not deny that the corrupt apple is not an apple.The idea of pluralistic state governance and the positive factors of institutional construction in the Western Jin Dynasty did not perish because of the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty,but continued to later generations,which provided important historical experience and laid a solid institutional foundation for the institutional reform in the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Sui and Tang Dynasties.The Western Jin Dynasty took finance as an important tool of national governance,designed and implemented a more complex policy in clarifying property rights than that in the Qin and Han Dynasties,which not only effectively balanced the interests of all parties,but also played an important role in improving the national financial situation and realizing the harmonious development of society.The lessons of the failure of the reform and governance in the Western Jin Dynasty also show that if we can’t build a strong national machine to ensure the sustainability of various financial and economic goals,the diversified pattern of interests and the soft constraints of power will also ruin the achievements of the reform and interrupt the normal development.The practice of state governance in the Western Jin Dynasty has profoundly confirmed that finance is the foundation and important pillar of state governance.It has important reference significance for the current theory and practice of new finance in China,and it is a subject that needs continuous and in-depth research.