WI no Chinese Examinations?`

[AmericanCataphract]

Very simple. Share your thoughts and opinions on how Chinese society may have developed had there never been an Imperial civil service examination system. What might be the effects on politics, society, or economics, or any other field?

 

[ninebucks]

This is impossible to answer without knowing what they had instead.

 

[AmericanCataphract]

This is impossible to answer without knowing what they had instead.

Although part of the question is what they might be likely to have in its place, for now just assume a combination of inheritance at the local level and imperial appointment within the national administration. In that case, what do you think might have happened?

 

[YLi]

China never developed a real aristocracy because of the Civil Service examinations. You'd see more localism, instability and other events because of the lack of Civil Service exams. It would also have, for better or for worse, interfered with the continuity of Chinese civilization.

 

[tormsen]

That makes me wonder what it'd be like for another culture, say Rome, to have developed a civil service examination system.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

There is a chance there'd be a feudal type nobility instead.

 

[Guilherme Loureiro]

China never developed a real aristocracy because of the Civil Service examinations. You'd see more localism, instability and other events because of the lack of Civil Service exams. It would also have, for better or for worse, interfered with the continuity of Chinese civilization.

Hmm, wasn't a feudal aristocracy the Chinese elite before Qin Shi Huang? If so, we'd see a continuation of that, and possibly *China would be something like the HREGN, or India before the Raj.