The Social Structure of Qing China. Part 1: State and Taxpaying Peasantry in the “Сlass-State” System

Abstract

The article follows up on the series of general theoretical works by Oleg E. Nepomnin (1935-2020) published in previous issues of the Oriental Courier. [Непомнин, 2019, 2020, 2021a, 2021b]. Oleg E. Nepomnin, a specialist in Chinese studies and Orientalism, was one of the most prominent theorists of Oriental societies. The author adheres to the concept of “class-state” which was formed in traditional China and determined all spheres of Chinese society, and in the Qing era. Society was built on an integral combination of grassroots or “small” “universal” collectivity: the Great Empire, the state. Such a system was characterized by the weakness of horizontal ties of class, class, social stratum, stratum, with the dominance of vertical ties. Its basis was the “primary unit — supreme power” link. The absorption of everyone in traditional China by the “personal” micro-community and the cellularity of society led to the underdevelopment and internal fragmentation of estates and social groups in the face of the all-powerful state of the eastern despotism. In medieval China the “class-state” was a major economic phenomenon. It was large-scale both in terms of the impact of officialdom on the economic life of the country and in a narrower sense. “Class-state” had its own sub-sector of public land tenure. In addition to this, the bureaucracy’s immediate sphere of domination included a second huge subsector — the tax-paying peasant lands. In the North and Manchuria, the economic system was predominantly “state” with the increased role of taxes and officials, while in the South and Central China it was predominantly private and “rental” with the special role of land rent and debt bondage. The “class-state” by means of the bureaucracy and the shenshi class ensured the integrity and unity of both regions. The “class-state” received annually in the form of taxes, duties and other taxation 40 % of the entire mass of real and “conditional” grain withdrawn from the village — over 13 % of China’s total production. About 52 % of this amount was rent-taxes on the taxed peasants, more than 38 % were levied on the private rented sector, and more than 9 % — on the government-dependent farmers.