much more is known about China and India for millennia
before the Common Era began.
By late in the third millennium and into the second mil-
lennium b.c.e., China already had well-established divisions
of labor. Cities were separated into sections where diff erent
economic functions dominated. Some areas were devoted
specifi cally to religious and ceremonial functions, but in in-
dustrial sectors skilled workers fabricated goods, both practi-
cal and decorative, out of such materials as clay, jade, bronze,
and bones. A merchant class was also well established, and
young men from the lower classes were able to enter this class
through apprenticeships.
A turning point in the economic growth of China was the
start of the Zhou Dynasty near the end of the second millen-
nium b.c.e. Farming was organized under a semifeudal system
not much diff erent from the feudal system that was to appear
in Europe centuries later. Th e fi rst ruler of the Zhou Dynasty
(ca. 1045–256 b.c.e.) was King Wu Wang, who claimed that his
authority was granted by God under the Mandate of Heaven, a
claim that future Chinese emperors were to invoke. Land was
owned by nobles, who doled it out to serfs in exchange for a
percentage of the harvest. Similarly, the means of production,
such as the smelting process that provided bronze for making
tools and weaponry, was directed by nobles. Most of the items
used in daily life were produced in individual households and
were therefore not subject to barter.
Th e vast majority of Chinese peasants during the Zhou
Dynasty were farmers or soldiers, but by the time the dynasty
ended in 256 b.c.e. China had also developed a complex
governmental bureaucracy. In this feudal society land was
controlled by a number of territorial princes, who collected
taxes from the peasants who did the actual farming on the
land. Th e transfer of wealth that taxes required spurred the
use of money for exchange, so that a distant centralized state
could reap the benefi ts of labor without being burdened with
amassing goods from all over its lands.
Th e later Qin Dynasty (221–207 b.c.e.) and Han Dynasty
(202 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) was a period of great prosperity. Many
people were employed by a large bureaucracy that controlled
the economic activities of China’s 36 districts. Labor became
more effi cient with the introduction of standardized weights
and measures, roads, and even axle widths for wheeled vehi-
cles. During the short-lived Qin Dynasty, hundreds of thou-
sands of laborers were used to construct the fi rst of China’s
great walls to keep out invaders and a massive mausoleum
for the emperor. During the Han Dynasty the country un-
derwent great economic expansion as well as an expansion
of trade and commerce along the so-called Silk Road, which
extended all the way to Europe. Th is expansion provided op-
portunities not only for merchants and traders but also for
the many thousands of craft workers that provided goods for
trade. Farm laborers were given better tools with the expan-
sion of the Chinese iron industry. Th ese processes continued
during the subsequent Th ree Kingdoms Period (220–263 c.e.)
and the Jin Dynasty (265–420 c.e.), though a series of mili-
tary crises and internal instability worsened the condition of
Chinese workers.
During the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu Di (140–87 b.c.e.)
designated Confucianism as China’s offi cial philosophy and
code of ethics of the state. Confucianism focused on three el-
ements that directly aff ected areas of employment and wages.
One was the teaching of moral precepts to the uneducated.
Th e second was the establishment of a clear social hierarchy.
Th e third was that those who held prominent social positions
must behave in a way that provided proper examples for the
rest of society. Th e social hierarchy Confucius had in mind
permitted movement through the ranks of society. By passing
an examination, a person could become a government offi -
cer, with the potential to gain wealth and honor. Initially, the
exam was off ered to those who were summoned to the capi-
tal because the emperor had heard of their moral excellence,
though over the centuries it became more open to anyone.Cowrie shells, the earliest form of money in China, Shang and Zhou dynasties, 16th to eighth centuries b.c.e. (© Th e Trustees of the British Museum)
employment and labor: Asia and the Pacific 429