Four Occupations

The Four Occupations, known in Chinese as shi nong gong shang, was an occupational classification system used in ancient and imperial China by Confucian and Legalist scholars, dividing the population into four idealized categories: the shi (originally warrior nobles, later scholar-officials), the nong (peasant farmers), the gong (artisans and craftsmen), and the shang (merchants and traders). The classification originated in ancient China during the late Zhou dynasty, becoming central to the fengjian social order of roughly 1046 to 256 BC, and comparable systems were later adopted with local adaptations throughout the wider Chinese cultural sphere, including Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Ryukyu Kingdom. Contrary to a common misconception, the four occupations were not strict socioeconomic classes: wealth and social standing did not correspond neatly to the categories, and membership was not hereditary, though the ranking order, scholars first, then farmers, then artisans, then merchants, reflected an ideology valuing perceived usefulness to society over wealth, with merchants ranked lowest as economically disruptive despite frequently being wealthier than those above them. The formal four-tier scheme also excluded other social groups present in premodern Chinese society, including soldiers, clergy, eunuchs, entertainers, and slaves.