Salt Monopoly in Ancient China

       In the early decades of the Han dynasty, the emperor Han Wudi instituted an empire-wide state monopoly of salt, concentrating its production, transport, and sale in official hands. The purpose of this salt monopoly, the first monopoly in Chinese History, was to secure his centralized feudal monarchy as well as to raise revenue for this vast empire.

       In the system of monopoly monopoly sales, the Han state restricted entry into the market, took ownership of all salt, and assumed command over production, which had been in the hands of small local producers. The producers of salt, often landless peasants drafted into salt production had to submit all salt had to be submitted to the state, which punished private production. After collecting the salt, the state transported the salt to all parts of the country and sold the salt at prices that  greatly exceeded the costs of production and distribution.

      The Han salt administration ran separate from and parallel to other central and local government administrations. The Office of Agricultural Supervision established salt offices around the country, controlled prices, and managed distribution.

      The salt monopoly does not exist today. Actually, the monopoly came under broad criticism upon Wudi's death. In 81 BC, a Salt Debate was called at court by Confucians and Legalists to deliberate over the continuation of the monopoly. On one side, the "literate and virtuous" Confucians sympathised with the common people and argued against the monopoly that placed such a burden on them. But in the context of a centralized bureaucratic state, neither the Confucians nor the merchants could stand up to bargain with the ruler. The Legalists, on the other hand, stressed the financial deficit and the absolute necessity of maintaining the salt monopoly as a prime revenue source. At that time the Legalists won because the land tax was insufficient to support the government. The salt monopoly continued down and was not ended until the turn of the twentieth century. As The trend towards privatization in 'modern China'  escalated in 20th Century, the salt monopoly gradually disappeared.

Activity 2 responce

1. How do incentives influence your study habits? Why do students so often ask, "Is this topic going to be on the test?" Why would it be unwise for an education-maximizing instructor to reply, 'No, it isn't'?

   

    Usually I study because I think it's the right thing to do as a student. However, when my schedule is too tight or when I study something that doesn't interest me at all, other incentives such as high grades become dominant. For example, I have been focusing on the college application these weeks, and I did not spend much time on school work. When writing college essays seems to be more important to me, the reason that I still finish homework and pay attention in class might be that I still need to maintain a good GPA for my transcript. At this point, I do not want to do extra exercise on my school work as I did in the past because I care more about the college essays.

 

      Incentives influence my study habits a lot. Because I want to keep ahead of others, I will study a lot even if I am not required to do so. If I am not good at Chemistry, I am willing to  study it first and make extra efforts on this subject because I really want my grades to improve. Additionally, I always like taking arts class because I love drawing and painting. In this case, my passion drives me to work hard on my art projects.

 

     Most students, including me, often ask "What topics are going to be on the test". As students, we really care about our test scores since getting good score motivates us to study hard. Because of that. we probably will study what we know for sure is going to be on the test.  For those materials we do not know whether they are going to appear on the test, we will not spend as much time. It an education-maximizing instructor answers "No, it isn't.", he's bascially telling the srudents not to spend time on this topic. For instance, when I took Mrs. Garcia's French class, she always gave us a review packet, which included everything that might be on the test. After finding out that I could save time if I only reviewed what's in the packet, I didn't go over other vocabularies in the textbook any more. So if the instructor wants the students to learn as much knowledge as they can, he should not tell them specifically what's going to be on the tests.