Moseley Jane - Call to order: a miscellany of useful hierarchies, systems, and classifications

The social order in Japan during the Tokugawa or Edo period (16031867) under the shogunate founded by Tokugawa Ieyasu was structured around a rigid four-tier class system and was based on Confucian ideas. It was intended to create social harmony and stability, organizing society in part according to the contribution made by each level to the greater whole in a shi-no-ko-sho structure. Social mobility was extremely limited. The emperor and his family held the highest status, but the emperor wielded little actual power, relying heavily on the daimyos, the powerful nobles who were given land in return for their support. The most powerful daimyo became the shogun, governing the army and the country in general. During this period, the shoguns of the Tokugawa clan brought the daimyos under control.

The hierarchy was as follows, outside which were aristocrats, monastics, and outcasts.

Paid for by their daimyo to control the latters domain, they were soldiers, government administrators, tax collectors, and generally wielders of great power, despite making up only a small percentage of the population.

The farmers fed and sustained the people and so were next in line of importance as vital members of society. This class embraced wealthy village heads, poorer tenant farmers, and those who owned no land at all.

As manufacturers of useful products for society, using materials produced by others but for utilitarian purposes, the artisans were next in the order. Some artisans had rich patrons while others scraped out a living making simple baskets.

Seen as the producers of nothing but instead as profiteers from the work of others, merchants had the lowest social status. Some members of this class would have their own stores while others sold goods on the streets.

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During the Edo period the Japanese people were forbidden to travel abroad, and anyone who did so was not allowed to return. The result was a country that was virtually completely closed to the outside world until America made robust overtures in the 1850s.

At the bottom of the social order were the BURAKUMIN , which means hamlet or village people. Their occupations were considered impure or associated with death or waste (butchers, tanners, undertakers, executioners). They were stigmatized as a result. Also known as eta (or much filth), they could be killed by members of the samurai if they had committed a crime. Other people lived outside this system entirely and were known as hinin. As nonpersons, they survived by begging, and this section of society included beggars, prostitutes, and actors. The caste system was abolished in 1871 along with the feudal system.

Egyptian society was structured rather like their famous pyramids. This social pyramid saw power held by a few at the apex, with the rest of the population descending in order of social status toward the slaves at the base. In the sky above was the pantheon of Egyptian gods led by Ra. The pharaohs were intermediaries between the gods and the people; they were the supreme leaders, exercising absolute power over their subjects. Class mobility was rare.