One thing that I find interesting about this is that "samurai lived in dignified but extreme poverty" but never really did anything to threaten the state and take its riches for themselves for hundreds of years, despite all of them being crammed together with lots of opportunity to organize an enormous rebellion right in the city where the king lived.
Perhaps they didn't think of it as poverty. Anyway, great read.
They very much understood their situation. That was the means of control. Their incomes were directly defined by agricultural productivity, and their expenses largely controlled by the shogun. Daimyo couldn't meaningfully communicate with each other, easily intermarry, or form alliances. They were forced to maintain huge retinues and lavish estates, and the shogun could bankrupt them or kill their family at any point.
The shogunate needed to do some balancing along the way (including the introduction of metallic currency), but the government had enough levers to keep the samurai in line, right up until they couldn't.
I suspect that, in reality, it is the indignity of poverty which motivates people to take up arms against each other. So long as dignity is retained, poverty may be emotionally bearable (perhaps to the point of actual starvation, when dignity becomes unsustainable).
That's pretty wise. I never considered that. During the very late part of the edo period China had the Taiping Rebellion, the deadliest religious civil war in human history by some meansures.
I've read that it was caused by a very complicated mix of things, one of which was resentment of the northern Manchu ethnic group which ruled China, combined with terrible floods and famine. Perhaps that's a case where lack of dignity helped cause war. People were starving, but in addition they felt disgruntled. I have a 1000 page book on that which I've been meaning to read for a year, so I'm sure I'll look back on this analysis and cringe when I finally get around to it.
One thing that I find interesting about this is that "samurai lived in dignified but extreme poverty" but never really did anything to threaten the state and take its riches for themselves for hundreds of years, despite all of them being crammed together with lots of opportunity to organize an enormous rebellion right in the city where the king lived.
Perhaps they didn't think of it as poverty. Anyway, great read.
They very much understood their situation. That was the means of control. Their incomes were directly defined by agricultural productivity, and their expenses largely controlled by the shogun. Daimyo couldn't meaningfully communicate with each other, easily intermarry, or form alliances. They were forced to maintain huge retinues and lavish estates, and the shogun could bankrupt them or kill their family at any point.
The shogunate needed to do some balancing along the way (including the introduction of metallic currency), but the government had enough levers to keep the samurai in line, right up until they couldn't.
I suspect that, in reality, it is the indignity of poverty which motivates people to take up arms against each other. So long as dignity is retained, poverty may be emotionally bearable (perhaps to the point of actual starvation, when dignity becomes unsustainable).
That's pretty wise. I never considered that. During the very late part of the edo period China had the Taiping Rebellion, the deadliest religious civil war in human history by some meansures.
I've read that it was caused by a very complicated mix of things, one of which was resentment of the northern Manchu ethnic group which ruled China, combined with terrible floods and famine. Perhaps that's a case where lack of dignity helped cause war. People were starving, but in addition they felt disgruntled. I have a 1000 page book on that which I've been meaning to read for a year, so I'm sure I'll look back on this analysis and cringe when I finally get around to it.
so interesting to read about the weird gate system for tracking the citizens. insane diagram.
Fascinating. Currently imagining a futuristic version of that and mixing it with some cyberpunk happening under the shadow of the big brother.