Professor Andrew Meyer

The Warring States, one of the things that happens is a very profound social revolution.

All the way down to the end of the Warring States, really until the end of the Qin Dynasty in 210 BC, so even beyond the Warring States, this society is led by a titled aristocracy.

So this aristocracy that resembles the hereditary aristocracy of medieval Europe, they are in control.

By the time that the Qin dynasty falls, that aristocracy is gone.

they never come back.

That's enormously consequential, right?

If you think about how different Europe would be, meritocracy over aristocracy.

And it's not that the notion of aristocracy and hereditary authority and hereditary status disappear completely.

That's not true.

People still think of birth and pedigree and whatever.

But the empire that succeeds the Qin, the Han Empire, it's founded by a farmer.

The first emperor of the Han, Liu Bang, he's born a common farmer, and that poses absolutely no impediment to his exercise of control or his founding a dynasty that lasts for 400 years.

That's only possible because of the Warring States.

And those energies that are unleashed by that revolution resonate in China down to the present day.

The other consequence I'll rush to talk about, you know, part of that revolution

One of the questions that gets deliberated and that gets struggled over throughout the warring states is, what should the role of educated people be in government?

And the consensus that emerges from the warring states is largely that

No government can be legitimate that does not somehow institutionalize a way of sharing power with the educated.

There are lots of different ways that that can happen, and that leaves lots of room for disagreement.

But down to the present day, and I think if you look at the way the People's Republic of China