Historical evolution of the capital accumulation system, distribution regulation mechanism and stakeholders’ relationships
| Feudal society | Capitalist society | |
|---|---|---|
| Accumulation system | By utilizing political and economic means to annex land to compel laborers to provide forced or compulsory work or service, and collect rent in kind, rent in the form of labor and additional rent in the form of corvée. Laborers could only obtain the minimum subsistence necessary for survival | Employ legal measures to convert more agricultural land into industrial and commercial land. By artificially controlling the pace of land development, a larger industrial land pipeline is maintained for exploitation. Monopoly capital is used to extract economic surpluses from consumers and small and medium businesses forcibly |
| Regulation mechanism | Building palaces, waging wars, implementing water infrastructure projects, providing relief, so as to maintain centralized power | Expand public spending, encourage the working class to spend tomorrow’s money to alleviate the contradiction of insufficient effective demand, and coordinate conflicts between capital and labor, and between civil society and spatial dimensions to mitigate class antagonism |
| Stakeholder relationships | Relationships among landowners, land operators and laborers were sharply antagonistic, with heavy personal dependence of laborers on landowners | Relationships between landowners, land operators and laborers are still antagonistic, though laborers’ personal dependence on landowners has been fundamentally eliminated |
| Limitations | The existence of landlords and high rents hindered the process of primitive accumulation. The sprouts of capitalism in China’s feudal society struggled to evolve spontaneously into a capitalist society | Restrictions of private land ownership hinder spatial capital accumulation and capital circulation, leading to periodic economic crises |
| Feudal society | Capitalist society | |
|---|---|---|
| Accumulation system | By utilizing political and economic means to annex land to compel laborers to provide forced or compulsory work or service, and collect rent in kind, rent in the form of labor and additional rent in the form of corvée. Laborers could only obtain the minimum subsistence necessary for survival | Employ legal measures to convert more agricultural land into industrial and commercial land. By artificially controlling the pace of land development, a larger industrial land pipeline is maintained for exploitation. Monopoly capital is used to extract economic surpluses from consumers and small and medium businesses forcibly |
| Regulation mechanism | Building palaces, waging wars, implementing water infrastructure projects, providing relief, so as to maintain centralized power | Expand public spending, encourage the working class to spend tomorrow’s money to alleviate the contradiction of insufficient effective demand, and coordinate conflicts between capital and labor, and between civil society and spatial dimensions to mitigate class antagonism |
| Stakeholder relationships | Relationships among landowners, land operators and laborers were sharply antagonistic, with heavy personal dependence of laborers on landowners | Relationships between landowners, land operators and laborers are still antagonistic, though laborers’ personal dependence on landowners has been fundamentally eliminated |
| Limitations | The existence of landlords and high rents hindered the process of primitive accumulation. The sprouts of capitalism in China’s feudal society struggled to evolve spontaneously into a capitalist society | Restrictions of private land ownership hinder spatial capital accumulation and capital circulation, leading to periodic economic crises |
Source(s): Authors’ own work