Bernd
09/26/2020 (Sat) 16:23:09
No.40333
del
09/26/2020 (Sat) 16:23:09
No.40333
del
>>40304
I edited out a chapter from A Companion to Chinese History, the topic of which exactly what we are talking about. The title: Was Medieval China Medieval. Here, both the chapter (for easier access) and the book itself.
The author of the chapter - Charles Holcombe - shows that by the half of the Tang era such changes went through in the empire's economy, society, administration etc. that it hardly can call it feudalism, and even before that it is questionable because the situation wasn't the entirely the same as the classical European example of feudalism. He cites some precursors of his idea but it seems from his work that it is kinda novel (the book was published in 2017).
Now maybe it's counterproductive from my part to present this work, but it really shows that the "norm" - if we can call that - is to consider medieval China a feudal state. And even he doesn't go as far to outright claim that it wasn't, and he also doesn't really give a name for the phenomenon.
I like - for example - how he points out the Eurocentrism in creating models and trying to fit that onto everything on the globe, despite I really think feudalism isn't a wrong term to use for at least parts of China's history.
>maybe your idea of feudalism is something completely different
How many definition of feudalism can be?
>could almost be attributed to anything even the current times we live in.
This is a definite no. More later probably. I have to add however there might be things which could be described as feudalistic. For example the communist regime on the Hungary (and fair chance in any other Eastern Block countries) treated the positions of the bureaucracy, the offices of the state machinery (part of which were state owned companies) as their feudal domains since they handed these positions over to their trusted men, who also handed lower positions their cadres, creating a chains of vassals who owed with unconditional servitude towards their lords, and were unquestionable rulers over their subjects. And below the whole thing were the workers toiling for life as serfs (who also owed with robot - free work, they just called it communist Saturday).
If any of you guys could produce feudalistic examples from our day and age that would be fun I think.
I edited out a chapter from A Companion to Chinese History, the topic of which exactly what we are talking about. The title: Was Medieval China Medieval. Here, both the chapter (for easier access) and the book itself.
The author of the chapter - Charles Holcombe - shows that by the half of the Tang era such changes went through in the empire's economy, society, administration etc. that it hardly can call it feudalism, and even before that it is questionable because the situation wasn't the entirely the same as the classical European example of feudalism. He cites some precursors of his idea but it seems from his work that it is kinda novel (the book was published in 2017).
Now maybe it's counterproductive from my part to present this work, but it really shows that the "norm" - if we can call that - is to consider medieval China a feudal state. And even he doesn't go as far to outright claim that it wasn't, and he also doesn't really give a name for the phenomenon.
I like - for example - how he points out the Eurocentrism in creating models and trying to fit that onto everything on the globe, despite I really think feudalism isn't a wrong term to use for at least parts of China's history.
>maybe your idea of feudalism is something completely different
How many definition of feudalism can be?
>could almost be attributed to anything even the current times we live in.
This is a definite no. More later probably. I have to add however there might be things which could be described as feudalistic. For example the communist regime on the Hungary (and fair chance in any other Eastern Block countries) treated the positions of the bureaucracy, the offices of the state machinery (part of which were state owned companies) as their feudal domains since they handed these positions over to their trusted men, who also handed lower positions their cadres, creating a chains of vassals who owed with unconditional servitude towards their lords, and were unquestionable rulers over their subjects. And below the whole thing were the workers toiling for life as serfs (who also owed with robot - free work, they just called it communist Saturday).
If any of you guys could produce feudalistic examples from our day and age that would be fun I think.