Tradition
Agriculturalism
Overview
Agriculturalism, also known as the School of Agrarianism, the School of Agronomists, the School of Tillers, and in Chinese as the Nongjia (simplified Chinese: 农家; traditional Chinese: 農家), was an early agrarian Chinese philosophy that advocated peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism.
The Agriculturalists believed that Chinese society should be modeled around that of the early sage king Shennong, a folk hero who was portrayed in Chinese literature as "working in the fields, along with everyone else, and consulting with everyone else when any decision had to be reached." They encouraged farming and agriculture and taught farming and cultivation techniques, as they believed that agricultural development was the key to a stable and prosperous society.
Agriculturalism was suppressed during the Qin dynasty and most original texts are now lost. However, concepts originally associated with Agriculturalism have influenced Confucianism and Legalism, as well as Chinese philosophy as a whole. Agriculturalism has at times been viewed as the essence of the Chinese identity.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
23 These agricultural Scythians occupy the region which extends Eastwards for a distance of three days' journey, 24 reaching to a river which is called Panticapes, and Northwards for a distance of eleven days' sail up the Borysthenes. Then immediately beyond these begins the desert 25 and extends for a great distance; and on the other side of the desert dwell the Androphagoi, 26 a race apart by themselves and having…
Herodotus, The History of Herodotus — Volume 1
States what Agriculturalism is.
The warrior-class attains a perfect separation from classes devoted to the cultivation of the soil or other occupations regarded as servile. And there arises a priesthood that is defined in its rank, its functions, its privileges. This sharpness of definition, growing both greater and more variously exemplified as societies advance to maturity, is extremest in those that have reached their full development or are…
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
States what Agriculturalism is.
But this class again sub-divided itself into different fractions. There were, firstly, the more wealthy farmers, what is called in Germany _Gross_ and _Mittel-Bauern_, proprietors of more or less extensive farms, and each of them commanding the services of several agricultural laborers. This class, placed between the large untaxed feudal landowners, and the smaller peasantry and farm laborers, for obvious reasons…
Friedrich Engels, Revolution and Counter-Revolution
States what Agriculturalism is.
Related ideas
- Egalitarianism
- Agrarianism
- Book of Han
- Spring and Autumn period
- Warring States period
- Mozi
- Mencius
- Mohism
- Legalism (Chinese philosophy)
- Paris
- Burning of books and burying of scholars
- Hundred Schools of Thought
- Floruit
- Taoism
- Utopia
- Qin dynasty
- François Quesnay
- Confucianism
- Chinese philosophy
- Agriculture
- Yang Zhu
- Division of labour
- Europe
- Physiocracy
Place in the tradition
Part of Outline of philosophy.
Narrower topics:
- Agrarianism
- Agriculture
- Book of Han
- Burning of books and burying of scholars
- Division of labour
- Egalitarianism
- Europe
- Floruit
- François Quesnay
- Mencius
- Mozi
- Paris
- Qin dynasty
- Spring and Autumn period
- Utopia
- Warring States period
- Yang Zhu
- Physiocracy
- Yiwenzhi
- Teng (state)
- Xu Xing (philosopher)
- Agrarian system
- Zhonghua minzu