Research On The Thought, Policies And Practices Of Stressing Agriculture And Restraining Commerce Of Early Western Han Dynasty

Thoughts of stressing agriculture and restraining commerce are the mainstream economicthought of Chinese feudal society. This article is to analyse the status of Jia Yi’ physiocracythoughts in his overall social conception and to explore the physiocracy Thought’ stagecharacteristics together with development substance of the Early Western Han Dynasty byinvestigating Jia Yi’ s Stressing Agriculture and Restraining Commerce thoughts putting forwardbackgrounds and reasons,policies’contents,practical situation.In the first part, the writer does a brief introduction about the proposal of Jia Yi’ s StressingAgriculture and Restraining Commerce thoughts and policies. In order to draw forth its idea andits proposal, the thoughts and the business policy conception of “attaching importance to farmingand restraint of business” were taken as the breakthrough point. Jiayi agreed with the balance ofthe thoughts and policy. His standpoint gradually formed accompanied by the successive birth of aseries of political papers such as discussion on the faults of Qin dynasty.The background of its birth and its status in the overall social conception were stated. Twomain questions were resolved in this chapter. First of all, it was about the background of its birth,and in my opinion Jiayi considered that the society was not harmonious, the politics was unstableand the economic was under imbalance. Secondly, its status belonged to the central part in thewhole society concept. The central part of its thought was the consolidation of central authoritywhich confirmed that its mainstream economic thought was to consolidate the central power.The specific thoughts, contents of measures and inner essence of its idea were expounded.This chapter could be divided into three parts. First of all, the putting-forward background of physiocracy and curb-business was explained respectively. Series of contents such as reserveeconomic thought, monetary unification thought and curb excessive thought were analyzed.Secondly, the specific measures of physiocracy and curb-business were systematicallysummarized. Deposit, drive people back to farming were its physiocracy measures. Curb excessive,forbiddance to money cast, adjustment of commodity circulation and the control of supply anddemand price were the curb-business measures. At last, its essence was researched. Its purposewas to strengthen the striving of business resources and business interests through the government.The situation of its perfection was analyzed. The process of its perfection consisted of twoaspects-ideological improvement and perfection of measures. The perfection of its ideologystemmed from the inheritance and promotion of Chao Cuo, Gongsun Hong, Dong Zhongshu,Zhangtang, Sang Hongyang and so on. The perfection of its ideology measures relied on Wenemperor, Jing emperor and Wu emperor who put agricultural measures into the practice in theform of letters.Finally, the implementation situation of its idea was studied in the paper. The idea of“attaching importance to farming and restraint of business”, the development and essence of policyin the early Western Han Dynasty were discussed. In the early Western Han Dynasty (fromemperor Gaozu to Wu), it showed specific characteristics of the transition from physiocracy tocurb-business. It also reflected that its essence was to intensify the political centralization of statepower.In a word, a study about the proposal, practice and improvement measures of its idea couldbring the convenience to make a better comprehension on business development condition andgovernment business policy in the early Western Han Dynasty. It also could provide an importantreference to understand the reason why agriculture was taken seriously and commercial businesswas inhibited in the beginning of the feudal state.