What are the differences between the political systems of Chinese and Western feudal countries?

Feudal autocracy has become an inherent term to describe an authoritarian, ignorant and corrupt system as well as its social phenomena and values. People also attribute China's backwardness in modern times to "feudal autocracy."

However, if you comb through history a little and pay attention to the discussions of serious historians in modern times, you will find that the concept of "feudal autocracy" is simply a joke. People may have never realized, or consciously ignored, one of the most basic historical facts: "feudalism" and "autocracy" are two completely opposite things.

The word "feudal" is not a modern invention, but has existed since ancient times. What kind of system existed during the Xia and Shang Dynasties can be debated, but after the Zhou people destroyed the Shang Dynasty, they clearly carried out at least two large-scale "feudal land and country building" activities, which was China's "feudal system." Although the princes, large and small, who were entrusted by the emperor had necessary obligations to the Zhou royal family, they enjoyed quite complete management rights over their fiefdoms, while the emperor of Zhou had little power to intervene in the internal affairs of the princes.

By the Warring States Period, this feudal system gradually fell into crisis. The princes merged to form the Seven Kingdoms, and all began to establish an autocratic system of royal power. When Qin destroyed the six kingdoms, Qin Shihuang clearly established supreme power for himself based on Legalist theory and resolutely rejected the feudal system. For local management, the "county system" is adopted.

Therefore, in traditional Chinese political discourse, "feudal" and "prefectures and counties" are two completely different political arrangements. Sages during the Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Ming and Qing dynasties have been discussing the pros and cons of "feudalism" and "prefectures and counties". Such discussions make people think that feudalism and counties are just two different arrangements between the central and local governments. But in fact, if you carefully explore the relevant discussions, you will find that feudalism and counties are actually two completely different political systems.

This point will become clearer once compared with Western history. At the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese scholars began to understand Western history and translate Western historical works. In the process, they discovered that the social, political and economic institutional arrangements of Western Europe in the Middle Ages were very similar to those of the Western Zhou Dynasty, so they naturally translated the concept of "feudalism" used by Western scholars to describe that period of Western Europe into "feudalism" as mentioned by ancient Chinese sages. system".

Essentially speaking, the feudal system was a decentralized polycentric governance order, both in China and the West. In Western Europe, every lord thought he was a small king, but the king was just the lord with the most territory. The same is true for Zhou's feudal system. Otherwise, the Zhou royal family would not be able to watch the princes annexing each other and be helpless.

The wonderful thing is that after the collapse of feudal order, Western Europe also entered the era of royal autocracy, similar to the imperial autocracy of Qin after the collapse of Zhou's feudal system. The word used to describe this system in Western Europe is absolutism. Its main purpose is to abolish the power of feudal lords and centralize power in the hands of the king, who directly rules his subjects. This era of autocracy lasted from the 16th and 17th centuries to the 18th century. "I am the country" said by King Louis XIV of France was the motto of this autocratic system, and no king in the feudal era dared to imagine such a reality.

Therefore, whether in China or Western Europe, feudalism and autocracy are two political systems that are in consecutive historical periods and are completely opposite in nature. Politics under the feudal order could not be autocratic, at least not as autocratic as the emperor under the later autocratic regime. You can't imagine that the Emperor of Zhou could drag Duke Zhou or Marquis of Qi to the Meridian Gate for a spanking. In turn, a typical autocratic regime must consciously reject feudal elements and strive to concentrate power in the hands of the emperor.

Unfortunately, since the mid-20th century, historians have arbitrarily interpreted the meaning of the word "feudal" and simply called the autocratic regime that replaced it a feudal society. Huge conceptual confusion.

Such conceptual confusion will of course prevent people from accurately understanding history. For example, since feudalism and autocracy are confused, what is the difference between the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Qin Dynasty?

Conceptual confusion leads to value confusion. For example, many people criticize organizational structures such as families, clans, and guilds. Because, it is said that these are feudal factors, but the real autocracy has been lightly let go. Many historians even applauded the efforts of autocratic emperors to destroy the polycentric governance order of society and establish a centralized dictatorship, while completely ignoring it. These so-called feudal factors are actually a refuge from authoritarian power.

So, no matter what your value judgment is on feudalism and autocracy, at least stop talking about the concept of "feudal autocracy". The term "feudal autocracy" is both a slander against feudalism and a beautification of autocracy.