| Commodity economy is one of the important contents of economic history research in the Song Dynasty,and rural market,as one of the main manifestations of commodity economy development in rural society,also constitutes an important part of economic history research.China’s commercial markets have a very early origin,and record of the rural market can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.In the Song Dynasty,with the prosperity of the commodity economy,the rural market developed rapidly.First,there is a close relationship between the rural market and the dominant production relationship in rural society,that is,the contractual tenancy system.The development of the competitive land tenancy market makes the connection mechanism between the principal and tenant under the contract tenancy system begin to transform from moral mutual assistance to market rationality.The majority of tenant farmers are also driven by market rationality and choose to carry out commercial agricultural operations on their land,but they also bear greater market risks and costs.At the same time,the contract tenancy system increased agricultural productivity and expanded the supply of commodities in the rural market.Under the contractual tenancy system,the flexibility of the landlord’s tenants and the seasonality of the busy farming make the tenant farmers’ homes under the pressure of rigid populations have to rely on servants to make a living,which objectively promotes the development of the rural labor market.From the perspective of regional characteristics,areas with a developed labor market tend to have a higher proportion of customers.However,the development of this labor market is more due to insufficient land ownership by small farmers in underdeveloped commodity economies,single agricultural business methods,and the low labor utilization rate of the family population,as well as natural environmental constraints and other factors jointly contributed to.Secondly,the development of the rural market has promoted the adjustment of the country’s rural social control system.As far as the rural grain market is concerned,the most important of the multiple forces that control the grain trade are the government and the rich.They both cooperated and competed against each other.The government relies on its economic and administrative coercive power to enter the market strongly;the rich people active in rural cities also use their familiarity with market conditions,wealth and geographic advantages to grow into a force.Under normal circumstances,the government will usually let the rich people seek profit from food.When there is an imbalance between supply and demand in the food market,the government will actively intervene in the market for the purpose of stabilizing the market and protecting the people’s livelihood,adopting market bidding,moral persuasion,and even coercive measures to force the rich to buy and sell food according to their own social goals,but most of them remain on the premise of not intensifying contradictions.At the same time,the government also used some incentives to alleviate conflicts and win over the rich.This fully shows that the rulers of the Song Dynasty have realized the importance of the wealthy class to the country and adopted a variety of combined methods,not only making full use of the wealth of the rich people to strengthen the country,but also supplemented by incentives and appeasement measures to protect the growth of the wealthy class.The prosperity of the commodity economy in the Song Dynasty promoted the development of the rural market.In order to maintain the order of the rural market and guarantee its own tax sources,the state has demonstrated the duality of encouraging both rural market trade and continuously strengthening market control.However,it is bound to take the actual situation of rural society as the starting point and take the rural market and rural society as the starting point.Close ties are the dimension of consideration when advancing normative measures.Finally,the development and promotion of the profit-seeking thought and contract spirit in the rural market injected new vitality into the rural society of the Song Dynasty and promoted a new change in the value of rural society.Taking the food market in rural society as an example,the wealthy groups are driven by the desire for profit and use seasonal and regional price differences to obtain huge profits.The “rich profits” also stimulated small farmers’ market-oriented commodity production.In order to earn “unrighteous wealth”,merchants and hawkers even sold fake and inferior products.The occurrence of these market behaviors will inevitably increase the cost of rural market operation and increase the national market.Difficulty of management.The spirit of contract is an important norm for building a good market order.The original trust and behavior ethics,customary laws,and the strengthening of people’s awareness of property rights in rural social and economic activities have laid a solid social foundation for the development of the spirit of contract.Taking the land market in rural society as an example,the strengthening of the spirit of contract makes the market Participants began to break through the shackles of their original identity and geographical consciousness,such as blood relationship,geography,and so on.This is obviously also a manifestation of the open flow of the rural market.In short,the rural market is a product of the development of the commodity economy and an organic part of the rural society.The development of the rural market has changed the production relations and life order of rural society to a certain extent,promoted the adjustment of the national rural social control system,and promoted the reshaping of rural social values. |
