Reading Response #2

Reading Response #2

When reading this section, the most intriguing section to me was the collapse of empires. In previous history classes that I have taken, I have always learned about how and why empires are created, but never learned about how or why they fall. With the way the world makes advancements in technology, that is a big factor in the fall of empires. When empires continue to grow rapidly, it seems at times that they get complacent. In order to begin an empire, that country must be ahead (or at the top) of the curve in relation to technology. When a nation is in control and has an empire, they often believe that implementing new ideas may be a bad thing; however, changes always need to be made. Change isn’t always a bad thing; subtle changes need to be made to keep up with the times, especially to maintain an empire.

            A downfall to a few empires was that the rich simply got too rich and cost the government money because of it. The book states, “The growth of large landowning families with huge estates enabled them to avoid paying taxes.” Inside of an empire, you want families to own land and be successful, that is what helps create a successful empire. But when families own too much land, have too many workers, and make a mass amount of money off of their land, at times it can cost the government tax dollars. This is evidence of an empire simply getting too big and not being able to keep up with everything they have created.

When reading about Legalism in China, I couldn’t help but relate legalism to our current school system in the United States. The theory behind legalism is just as much a scare tactic as much as it is a reward system. If the reward for doing something good is high enough, then people will do it. If the punishment for doing something bad is too high, then people will not commit that crime. I like to relate things back to high school, since I work at a local high school, and “legalism” is something that is an ongoing struggle. We struggle with things like how much to punish a student for what he has done, and then ask ourselves, is everyone doing that? Does the entire school deserve that punishment? Obviously it was much different in China, because they are working with an entire nation, and not just 900 young men. The theory in China was to promote certain professions, such as farmers and soldiers while giving less value to artisans, merchants and scholars. This doesn’t sound like a bad idea at first glance, but it arises a few issues when you really start to think about it. The first issue is that nobody would want to make less money, or be less valued, so why would they become something such as an artisan? They wouldn’t. So then professions such as an artisan would be in higher demand and would then have to be highly paid. The other problem that first comes to mind is that the middle class would eventually be completely eliminated. It is not necessarily a bad thing to eliminate the middle class, but when you push most of the middle class into the lower class, are you still considered an empire? Not with most of the people in your country poverty stricken.