Tradition And Changes

From the end of the Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the Republic of China, the peasants' idea of market gradually formed and strengthened with the development of North China's rural commodity economy. On the other hand, the traditional and conservative force of habit existed indomitably, and the conservative consciousness was still present in the peasants' minds and played an important role. Determined by these, the change of North China's peasants' economic points of view was a complicated process, whose conspicuous features were tradition and changes. The complexity of peasants' idea was clearly embodied in their activities such as production, consumption etc. and the reasons which formed the complexity were in many sides. The evolution of North China's peasants' idea in modern times, like a mirror, generally reflected the social and economic life at that time.