Chapter 5 ( society & Inequality)

        Compare to India, the social hierarchy in China seems a lot more simple. They only have three classes which are elite officials, peasants, and merchants. There is no fixed status for people who are living in this kind of social hierarchy levels. Anyone can move to a different level if he/she got the necessary thing-wealth. For example, a wealthy peasant can become an official or merchant. As the book says that: “most officials came from wealthy families, and in China wealth meant land. When the Qin dynasty unified China by 210 B.C.E, most land was held by small-scale peasant farmers.” (220) It seems like in China,  once you have enough land, you will have the wealth and power. When you have the wealth and power you can move up to a better position. During the classical period of time in China, “the vast majority of its population considered of peasants, living in small households representing two or three generations.”(221)  So of these peasant families have more than enough land to become elite officials, some of them are able to live in a comfortable life, the rest of them are barely surviving. Even though the poor peasants were oppressed in China but “they were also honored and celebrated in the official ideology of the state.”(221) There are many poems from famous poets by the time used to appreciate the important works that done by the peasants.
        In contrast, in India, the Caste System uses a  completely different way to evaluate people's social status. From top to the bottom, there are priests, warriors, merchants, peasants, and outcasts. Once you born into any of these classes, your identity will stick with you in your entire life. There is no transformation can be made in this lifetime. From what we have known so far, the Caste system is the most stabilizing system that the human civilization has ever have. Also, the peasants have lower social status in India compare to in China.