"Wealthy Class"and Country Social Assistance Of The Southern Song Dynasty

During Tang and Song dynasties,along with the transformation of the land property right institution and the prosperity of the commodity economy,the wealthy class came into being-a social group with strong economic strength but without any political privilege.In the Southern Song Dynasty,under the combined effect of subjective and objective factors,the wealthy class was widely into the country social assistance activities based on its own wealth and possession,which has a profound influence for the development of the grassroots society of Southern Song Dynasty and the comprehensive development of following philanthropy.But at this stage,although the discussion of the relationship between "wealthy class" and country social assistance of the Southern Song Dynasty is involved in the related works of the academic circles,but they are relatively simple and scattered,and lack of comprehensive and systematic discussion and specialized research.In view of this,the author has a holistic research and grasp for the interaction of "wealthy class" and country social assistance of the Southern Song Dynasty based on the understanding of "wealthy class",from dynamic mechanism,main performance,outstanding feature,influence,evaluation and other aspects,with a respect to contribution to the study for philanthropy and social assistance of Southern Song Dynasty.The full text is divided into seven parts:The introduction part mainly summarizes the reason and significance of the topic,research status of the academic circles,definition of related concepts and the main innovation of the article.The first chapter introduces the basic situation of wealthy class from two aspects: "origin and composition" and "characteristics and status".The wealthy class rise from Tang and Song dynasties land property rights change(not fix land system,not restrain merge)and the prosperity of commodity economy,they are mainly including country wealthy family,city wealthy family and industry wealthy family based on household rank system.Although they don't have political privilege,but become the main contributors of state taxes and the main participants in primary-level social management relies on their vast property and better cultural cultivation,playing an important role in the economic and political life of the Song Dynasty.The second chapter focuses on specific situations of wealthy class participate in country social assistance activities in the Southern Song Dynasty.Sorting out the wealthy class main performances in country social assistance from disaster and aridity relief,poverty alleviation,weak compassionate and suffering solving and public engineering construction,aim to outline the full view for wealthy people ‘s "rural help” in the Southern Song Dynasty.The third chapter mainly analyzes reasons and driving forces of wealthy class participate in country social assistance activities from the aspects of ideology,state government,local society and wealthy class themselves.The fourth chapter summarizes the characteristics of the wealthy class participate in country social assistance activities.Whether from assistance contents,structure forms,participation ways or geographical distributions,which show obviously contradictory attributes,and this is the special reflection for this particular period-Southern and Northern Song Dynasties as a turning point of ancient China social assistance.The fifth chapter overall evaluates the wealthy class' "country social assistance" mainly from development of local society,development of following folk rescue system and for "voice" of wealthy people;and also analyzing and rethinking some existing questions in order to provide some reference for the contemporary public Charity.The conclusion part affirms the wealthy class as one of the core strength for country social assistance of the Southern Song Dynasty;they are solid cooperator for the development of government's social assistance.And the extensive "rural help" is also the best and most sensible choice for wealthy people to seek their own development under background of the Southern Song Dynasty's state power fully downward.