The formation Mechanism and dynastic Periodic Law of traditional Agricultural Society

The inherent dynamic mechanism of the traditional agricultural society is the agglomeration and diffusion of agricultural labor force, and their mutual promotion and restriction jointly form the central and peripheral structure of the village and the city. The village and the city have similar functions as aggregates. The village has the functions of elder education, intrusion prevention and exchange. The function of the town in the traditional agricultural society is only the enlarged version of the village. The surplus labor in traditional Chinese society is often stripped out of the reproduction system, and the "positive feedback mechanism" shown by the interaction between land agglomeration and farmers' loss of land has become the inherent law of the prosperity and disintegration of the dynasty. Only when the capital of the new mode of production dominates the world, the logic of accumulating land is gradually replaced by accumulated capital, and this cycle is broken.

1. Village, Acropolis-the central and peripheral structure of farmland

People in the agricultural society, "according to the traditional way, work purely with physical strength, and people's understanding of the world is conditional on the dependence of season, soil properties and water quantity." The rhythm of life is formed by these accidental events. [1] people in this society rely heavily on natural resources. Among them, in this agricultural civilized society, the most important means of production is land, which is distributed separately. The location and resource endowments of different lands have different effects on production. Assuming that the distribution of land resources is balanced, the question we want to ask is why people should gather to form villages even if the distribution of land resources is balanced. The simple agglomeration of population in space has the following three advantages: first, the formation of a village cluster is conducive to saving land resources and sharing the public facilities of the village, that is, the agglomeration of the village can make use of externalities relative to scattered living. Second, it is conducive to the daily exchange among village members, the dissemination of knowledge and experience and technology, and the exchange of products, that is, the agglomeration of villages is conducive to the creation and spillover of knowledge and technology, promote the division of labor and thus promote exchange; third, conducive to the protection of the safety of village members and the fruits of their labor, villagers gather in the village, they can build fortifications and jointly deal with the invading enemy. It is more economical for the population to be concentrated in the village than scattered on the surrounding land. This phenomenon has been similarly verified in the African animal world. Many animals in the African prairie appear in clusters, while animals that live in large geographical differences are more likely to live alone.

An important condition for the evolution of human civilization is to maintain population reproduction and material and cultural reproduction. How can we maintain or even expand reproduction? Its basic logic is that every member of a village should strive to maximize the production of surplus labor, and maximize the transformation of surplus labor into materials for reproduction, with the development of productive forces, it is also necessary to transform surplus labor into means of reproduction as quickly as possible through mergers and alliances. Under the domination of this logic, if there is no external resistance, with the development of productive forces, the population of the village continues to expand, the disposable land and labor tools of the village are also expanding, the ability to protect the safety of village members and the fruits of surplus labor is also gradually expanded, and the gathering capacity of the village is increasing, but with the increase of population, the land dominated by the village may not be able to support so many people. The diffusion force of the village may play a role, and the new village is generated one by one around the old village. Agglomeration produces self-inhibition, which is expressed by the rise of land rent, while the rise of land rent has the effect of restraining demand and crowding out. The population needs to move out, which is closely related to the transportation conditions. The old village gradually became a center, forming a distribution pattern at the outer level of the village center, which is also the natural and ideal state of the city, but this is only one of the models. it is also possible that old villages decline because of the challenges of various nature and other tribes, and new settlement centers are established.

Where villages gather, that is, the problem of village generation path, is closely related to the principle of site selection. The main generation paths of the village are as follows: high-quality resources, water, special capacity, church, planning and so on. This is mainly because in the era of agricultural civilization, on the one hand, the distribution of land resources is not uniform, such as favorable water sources, mineral deposits and other data are not uniform; on the other hand, in the process of production, people gradually changed from natural division of labor to social division of labor, and village agglomeration may be accelerated. As far as the location of the village is concerned, because the water source is the necessity of agricultural production and daily life, in general, the location of the village is close to rivers and lakes. For example, the Chinese civilization is also known as the great river civilization, and the distribution of the big river is not uniform. People often gather on both sides of the big river for reclamation. The great river brings fertile natural power to people, but it also brings people floods. In order to deal with disasters, it is necessary to cooperate. There are two ways of traditional social cooperation: one is the cooperation of family ethical relations, and the other is the cooperation of upper and lower command system. This large-scale social cooperation accelerates the agglomeration of villages. Dayu flood control is not only a village or even a tribe thing, but requires the union of many tribes. With the increase of surplus labor, it is profitable to seize other people's surplus labor, tribal crusades, village agglomeration speed is faster, and even form a higher level of Acropolis, cities. The basic logic is that larger villages slowly gobble up smaller villages, or let smaller villages succumb to them, and a larger village becomes a city, and the city may no longer produce, but specifically ask for the surplus labor of other villages, and build walls to defend the surplus labor. The city then has two main functions: one is the ruling function, the other is the defense function. Of course, the emergence of cities and towns also meets the development requirements of the exchange of human surplus products, and provides a market platform for the exchange. A large number of villages are scattered around it, becoming the satellite distribution of the Acropolis. The city is gradually divided into different levels, and the distribution of the city has an isometric pattern.

Thus it can be seen that the agglomeration and diffusion power of agricultural civilization is mainly reflected in the use of land. If some people master the means of land production through plunder, merger and other means, they may gather labor force on the land for production, or gather them around the landowners as dependents to form manors. In this way, a large number of manors surround the farmland, and the city is surrounded by the countryside, which is what Marx called the countryside to dominate the city. The formation of cities in the agricultural era has a variety of paths, mainly from spontaneous agglomeration to artificial agglomeration, which explains the distribution of agricultural civilization in Acropolis villages.

The assumptions and reasoning made from the agglomeration and diffusion forces of spatial economy have been partially verified by historical experience. As far as European prehistory is concerned, "for most of the time and most of the region, most of the residents lived in independent farms or small villages rebuilt by nuclear or extended families". The homes of these prehistoric Europeans usually had vegetable gardens suitable for growing food in their homes, fields outside their homes, and pastures further away. Some towns and fortresses also have fields, however, in some core settlements, houses are mostly surrounded by side walls, and all fields are placed outside the settlement "[2]. Tu Neng-Huan's theory, from a more micro level, is more in line with the manors of medieval Europe. These typical manors are a closed system, and the system is like a complex cobweb. [3] "the typical medieval (planned) village form was a radiant village (in the Elbe-Salle area), and the manor ring was located in an open place, a village by the side of the road (along the road). A village centered on a square (at a fork in the road, with a pond or a square), or-especially in the colonial areas of eastern Germany-a farm next to the forest The cultivated land extends from the farm to the hinterland. A circular village (like a ring) has gardens, arable land, uncultivated land, grasslands, reclaimed forests and virgin forests "[4]. Of course, the Tu Neng ring is a typical distribution on the homogeneous plain, and the distribution of many villages is closely related to the geographical environment, for example, along the river.