Artisans were the skilled workers and makers of handicraft goods during the Edo period. They were labeled a separate class, beneath the samurai and farmers, but above the merchants. According to official Confucian ideology, artisans were valued because they created something with their labor, but they were not as highly valued as farmers in the agriculture-based economy. In practice, however, artisans were more highly valued than their official social position. The ruling samurai class was an urban class which relied more on the produce of artisans than on the food produced by the peasant farmers. As a result, many official policies were more beneficial to artisans than to farmers.
