Study Of Market Consumption In The Tang Dynasty

Consumption, a sector in the process of social production, was not clearly recognized in ancient China though it did play its role in economic life. The Tang Dynasty was an initiative and climatic period of the Chinese history. The social economy of Tang Dynasty was an agrarian and self-sufficient one but its development and booming of commodity economy is consensually acknowledged by scholars, with its marketization more and more conspicuous. This thesis tries to display one corner of the Tang society by way of looking into the market consumption, revealing the connection between market consumption and the development of commodity economy as well as social production of the Tang Dynasty. When analyzing the consumption status of different levels of the Tang society the author divides the market consumption into three types, that is, the type of poverty, the type of wealth and the type of luxury, with economic and consumption potence as its basis. Whichever period of the Tang Dynasty it is, the three types of consumption exist simultaneously in its society. Despite any historical period, consumption of the people is surely influenced by its social conditions, including political, economical and cultural factors. Such influence will naturally enter into the psychological conceptions of the people, resulting In specific consumptive pattern, consumptive substance, consumptive tendency and consumptive fashion. The same is true to the Tang Dynasty. It is the aspect of this thesis to investigate market consumption of the Tang Dynasty by means of observing the customary transition of the Tang society. Furthermore, the transition of consumption culture is a sign of social transmition. A general investigation of consumption of the Tang Dynasty clearly suggests that feudal class distinction is the main feature of its consumption pattern, that there is more and more over flowing luxurious consumption, especially in the late Tang Dynasty and that the more developed the society is the greater tendency of market consumption there is. And it is the reorganization of the political and social factors in the course of historical advancing and during the systematic transmtion of the Tang society that leads to this result.