Distribution Justice in Chinese History: Practice and Thought

As a great country of agriculture, China historically produced the practice and ideas of justice in distribution with “equality” as the representative thought. The characteristics of agricultural China decided that the justice of distribution must at the same time meet the needs of both “family (village)” community and “state” community. In practice, the ancient Chinese distribution concerning land and tax aimed at the birth of a big political community, and maintaining the stability and mutual aid of the village community. As for the ideas, the Confucian idea of “afraid not poverty but inequality” paid attention to the fact of the justice in distribution which could be existed only in a community including “family” and “state” (instead of “land under heaven”), and fully concerned the difficult problem in distribution in village community. It is important to analyze the justice in distribution in Chinese tradition for an exchange in this topic in China-West academic dialogue, while it is also of theoretical significance for the practice of justice in distribution both in China and in the whole world.