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Comment by Morromist | Hacker News Reader

One thing that I find interesting about this is that "samurai lived in dignified but extreme poverty" but never really did anything to threaten the state and take its riches for themselves for hundreds of years, despite all of them being crammed together with lots of opportunity to organize an enormous rebellion right in the city where the king lived.

Perhaps they didn't think of it as poverty. Anyway, great read.

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I suspect that, in reality, it is the indignity of poverty which motivates people to take up arms against each other. So long as dignity is retained, poverty may be emotionally bearable (perhaps to the point of actual starvation, when dignity becomes unsustainable).

That's pretty wise. I never considered that. During the very late part of the edo period China had the Taiping Rebellion, the deadliest religious civil war in human history by some meansures.

I've read that it was caused by a very complicated mix of things, one of which was resentment of the northern Manchu ethnic group which ruled China, combined with terrible floods and famine. Perhaps that's a case where lack of dignity helped cause war. People were starving, but in addition they felt disgruntled. I have a 1000 page book on that which I've been meaning to read for a year, so I'm sure I'll look back on this analysis and cringe when I finally get around to it.

Don't leave us hanging! Please mention the book's name and author so others like myself can mean to read it too.

I'm just half joking, I suffer from a large historical blindspot for that part of the world and I'm trying to collect a list of books to read over the next two years to address this perceived (by myself only) issue.

These are not 1000 page books (but combined they can be):

- God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (more about the Taiping and their leader)

- Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (more about the west's actions)

I just saw this book on Amazon and haven't read so might be a good read to round out the history: Struggle for Empire: The Battles of General Zuo Zongtang (Qing statesman and army officer, General Tso's chicken was named after him!)

Overall, I would say good English material on this conflict is a bit thin. I would recommend reading more about the Qing dynasty, Opium wars, first Sino Japanese war, Boxer Rebellion, Xinhai Revolution. /r/askhistorians always have good books recommendation.

Its by Augustus F. Lindley and called Ti-ping tien-kwoh; the history of the Ti-ping revolution Volume I and II. And its actually 955 pages. Its an account written by one of the generals fighting for the rebels, who was also a British guy. Its part history part memoir. Kind of a weird book.

I suspect those other books people mentioned are probably better if you want a good understanding of the war that's not one sided and written in 1866. But its one of the very few contemporally written first-person works available.

Edit: you can find it on Project Gutenburg for free if you want to take a look at it. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39180/39180-h/39180-h.htm

It makes sense. Otherwise people would never become monks in certain sects, because there’s an innate indignity to poverty but subsuming yourself to a higher purpose negates the indignity.

Pain without suffering vs suffering without pain. Now everyone have smartphones but dignity feels like it's getting lower.

They very much understood their situation. That was the means of control. Their incomes were directly defined by agricultural productivity, and their expenses largely controlled by the shogun. Daimyo couldn't meaningfully communicate with each other, easily intermarry, or form alliances. They were forced to maintain huge retinues and lavish estates, and the shogun could bankrupt them or kill their family at any point.

The shogunate needed to do some balancing along the way (including the introduction of metallic currency), but the government had enough levers to keep the samurai in line, right up until they couldn't.

To add on to this, the wives and heirs of daimyo had to live semi-permanently in the capital, which gave the shogun a powerful leverage over his subordinates. Any murmuring of an uprising would result in his family (and heirs) being killed. Nor was there freedom of movement across domains; this had to be granted by the shogun, preventing daimyo from easily communicating and organising.

Approximately 50-75% of a daimyo's budget went towards maintenance and boarding costs for when they were in attendance at the shogun's court. "Commerce" was considered a lowly profession not befitting a proud samurai. Most of their wealth was obtained through their right to collect agricultural taxes, which was granted to them by the daimyo.

While the samurai were a caste descended from warriors, after hundreds of years of peace they had largely become "sword-wearing bureaucrats". They weren't all that competent or experienced in warfare. They carried swords and practiced martial arts, but this was just as much a LARP (to use a modern phrase): a means of connecting to their martial heritage.

My interpretation of the revolutions is that they happen only when the government as such becomes weak and is unable to perform the constant suppression. They do not happen just because the conditions are bad.

Bad condition themselves are not enough, revolution requires people to think at least some of them can actually gain something.

That could be. I'm thinking of the Chu–Han Contention and the Warlord Era in China as times that it was probably the case - In both cases goverment control collapsed and there was not just one rebellion but a whole bunch that all sprang up at once and then proceeded to fight eachother! Arguably some of that happened during the Russian Revolution too.

Looking at rebellions and revolutions in Europe (just because I know european history better than asian history), they tend to start when someone (not necessarily the poor) feel than the upper class/the king is not doing what it's supposed to be doing. It's not a cash grab, and in a lot of revolt what the rich have and don't deserve is not taken and distributed, but rather destroyed to show that it's about punishing traitors of the social contract, not robbing them.

"and in a lot of revolt what the rich have and don't deserve is not taken and distributed, but rather destroyed to show that it's about punishing traitors of the social contract, not robbing them"

Or that those who revolt often lack coordination and a plan and can carry only so much with their hands and then rather destroy what they cannot carry to harm "the enemy"?

It was likely the kind of poverty where they never had any money, always had debt, but never were in any danger of starvation due to their status. It was just enough to keep them from rebellion but a lot of personal trouble to keep them from too much personal ambition as well.

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