Chapter 24 Section 2 Commodity Monopoly System

"The benefits of mountains and seas should be guarded and not lost." The state monopolizes the main resource-based commodities, and "Changping collects and disperses, focusing on people's food"-the state manages grain trade, stabilizes grain prices, and "provinces inspect stores, Corruption must be reprimanded"--the state will ban illegal profiteers through administrative management, which can be called the three pillars of the state's business management system. The monopoly of major commodities is a method of financial management. It is related to emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business. It is a part of the policy of suppressing business, but there are differences. After the policy of suppressing business was shelved, commodity monopoly is still widely used as an important system. carry out.

Commodity monopoly originated from Guan Zhong's "official mountains and seas" policy in the Spring and Autumn Period - salt and iron monopoly. At this time, the policy of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business had not yet emerged.The "Yishanze" of Shang Yang's policy of suppressing business is imitated from Guan Zhong's salt and iron monopoly.Sang Hongyang's "cage, salt and iron" is a direct successor to the methods of Guan Zhong and Shang Yang.After the Han Dynasty, it was common for iron to be taxed, and what insisted on monopoly was salt; in the late Tang Dynasty, tea and wine were included in the scope of monopoly.In the Song Dynasty, in addition to salt, tea, and wine as the main monopoly commodities, vinegar, aromatic herbs, and alum were also monopolized.In the Yuan Dynasty, the monopoly of salt, tea, wine and vinegar was controlled even more than in the Song Dynasty, and iron was also included in the official business.During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the monopoly of wine was withdrawn and private ownership was opened; the monopoly of tea has become increasingly relaxed (only stricter than that of Yima tea on the border), and the taxation is not heavy, and finally the monopoly was abolished; iron was allowed to be mined, smelted and sold by the people in the early Ming Dynasty, It is taxed; the only thing that has been practicing monopoly and refuses to let go is salt.

The monopoly system is a combination of finance and commerce. Its early implementers believed that obtaining fiscal revenue from industrial and commercial operations was better than mandatory tax increases that directly increased the burden on farmers. "Without a place in the people, go to their pressure."Concerning taxation (monopoly), you buy and sell, there is no registration in form, and it is invisible and unknown to people. It is a more sophisticated method of financial management (see "Guanzi Haiwang"), which is different from pure financial accumulation.The monopoly began with salt and iron; whichever is necessary for life and production, "taxed because of the urgency of the people" ("Xin Tang Shu·Shi Huo Zhi"), has a wide range of sales, and a little increase in price can increase a lot. big tax revenue.Since Sang Hongyang, the monopoly of wine has been added. Unlike salt, wine is a luxury consumer product, and it is taxed because the people are popular, creating another principle for choosing monopoly products.The price increase of salt and wine is a kind of "hidden tax", but it is necessary to truly "see the shape of what is given, but not the reason for taking it away" ("Guanzi · National Storage"), "people don't know what is expensive", "people don't complain", The key is to be cautious in the selection, that is, the price increase should be appropriate and not too much. Guan Zhong, Sang Hongyang, and Liu Yan all pay attention to this point.

The early sales and purchases all took the form of civil system (or official system), official income, official movement, and official sales, which can be called direct monopoly, complete monopoly, or simply official sales method, such as the salt and iron monopoly of Guan Zhong, Shang Yang, and Sang Hongyang. That is.When he arrived at Liu Yan, in view of the problems existing in the official sale law (the government set up a large number of agencies, the personnel expenditure was large; the requisition of boats and labor for transportation, it was too laborious for the people; the households were scattered, making it difficult to sell to the countryside), reforms were carried out, and the salt monopoly In China, the indirect monopoly and partial monopoly system of civil system, government revenue, commercial transportation, and commercial sales were implemented. Because the salt was resold to merchants on the spot, and then distributed by the merchants to various places, it was also called on-site monopoly.From Shang Yang, Sang Hongyang to Liu Yan, the monopoly of commodities was linked to the policy of suppressing business to varying degrees, and the wealthy businessmen were completely or mostly excluded from the operation of salt, iron or table salt. , must be the people who eat salt" (referring to Liu Yan).This is the characteristic of the monopoly system in the early stage of feudal society.Entering the middle period of feudal society—Song Dynasty, commodity monopoly was greatly promoted, but private businessmen were no longer excluded, and private businessmen were allowed to participate in more and more occasions. Commercial sales and official sales went hand in hand. Beyond official sales, there are many loose and flexible forms to figure out (such as the rush to buy system, sharing salt, wine, and tea money on top of the two taxes or house tax, and opening Chinese law, entering Chinese law, etc.).Officials and businessmen share profits, and the monopoly system is implemented by giant businessmen, which has been decoupled from the policy of suppressing business. Monopoly income tends to go less to officials and more to private individuals.In the late Ming and Qing dynasties, at the end of the feudal society, the government further released monopoly commodities to franchised merchants and entrusted them with their operations (purchase, transportation, and sales) to reap their profits.In fact, this practice was implemented as early as the end of the Northern Song Dynasty in the tea monopoly (officials do not receive tea, but take net profits), but it was implemented later in the salt industry.For example, the "guidelines" of salt, which was implemented at the end of Wanli and widely adopted in the Qing Dynasty, was more artificially handed over to merchants: officials did not collect salt, but it was made by the people, merchants, merchants, and merchants.This is another updated form of monopoly system, which can be called "business monopoly system" or "entrusted monopoly system".The content of hereditary exclusive merchants and their respective leading circles is not found in tea monopoly, and it belongs to the advanced form of merchant monopoly system.Co-benefits between officials and businessmen ("business" refers to regular tax merchants, hereditary privileged merchants), but this kind of commodity monopoly policy that excludes legitimate merchants' operations has completely lost the original intention of the policy of restricting wealthy businessmen and wealthy people.

As a method of financial management, the monopoly system is applied under different conditions and serves different policies, and different results will be obtained.If the political power was in the hands of the emerging class or progressive class (group) at that time, and it served progressive policies (such as the policy of suppressing business), there was a limit to "taking it from the people" (reasonable price increases, appropriate taxation), and income A considerable part of the money is "used for the people" to provide economic guarantees for the unification of the country, for the just cause of consolidating border defense and supporting national self-defense wars, and for public welfare undertakings such as building water conservancy and famine relief; at the same time, the monopoly system centralizes power in In the central government, the administration of officials is relatively clean, and attention is paid to punishing corruption and illegal activities. In this way, the advantages of the monopoly system mainly outweigh the disadvantages, which is understandable.The monopoly policies implemented by Guan Zhong, Shang Yang, Sang Hongyang, Liu Yan and others can be included in this category.On the contrary, the political power is in the hands of conservative and decadent forces or rich and powerful monopoly groups. Political corruption and declining rulers do not raise enough taxes to farmers, and they add commodity monopoly, which is simply used as a way to collect money and make money. High prices and heavy taxes , Take it without restraint, and refuse to do more things that benefit the people.In each period, either in the name of centralization, to seek the benefits of the rich and powerful, the monopoly income is mainly used for the extravagant consumption of the ruling group; Deceitful officials cheat from it in order to get rich; or they secretly collude with profiteers to divide the money between officials and businessmen, so as to openly give up monopoly rights to wealthy businessmen and allow them to monopolize their world business; in this case, the positive effect of the monopoly system will disappear. And become a search tool.Monopoly products are inferior in quality and high in price, with low input and high output, forced production, rigid apportionment, exploitation and extortion, full of evils, and small producers and consumers, as well as legitimate business operators, have suffered greatly.Wang Mang's salt wine monopoly, Cai Jing's salt tea monopoly in the late Tang Dynasty and the late Northern Song Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty monopoly, and Ming and Qing salt in the Ming and Qing Dynasties belong to the latter type.In short, the evaluation of the effect of the monopoly system depends on whether the relationship between finance and business, the relationship between giving and taking, has been correctly handled.The specific situation should be analyzed in detail, and one size fits all and absolutes cannot be made.