The Shang slaves were the ones who did most of the economic function within the society which means trading, trading, growing crops, and making the trade items. The main sourer of pay or income was mostly farming and harvesting crops. The society had Artisans who had formed a whole other group of economics for the Shang although many of the Artisans had manufactured weapons ritual vessels, jewelry, and other objects of interest for the other civilizations to gain more money for their economy. The Shang joined in the silk trade later when Silk became the main export that they used to gain their money. The choices that they made were beneficial to these Shang because the trade within the Chinese history was always trading but what did they trade? Silk! Silk was the main export for the Chinese and their trading system silk is a big export and money gain within the Chinese society. At the time not all the civilizations had silk in their possession so as you can probably guess the amount of silk was phenomenal but it kept the civilizations who had silk rich. Information was gathered from " ." Shang Dynasty. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 May 2015.
ritual vessel: Flickr. Yahoo!, n.d. Web. 06 May 2015
rice farm:
Shang Dynasty silk:
rice farm:
Shang Dynasty silk: