Confucian Business Ethics and the Economy

Summary of the reading "Confucian Business Ethics and the Economy"

• Confucian ethics refer to the development of personal ethics and the character of a virtuous person in the area of business ethics. However, in the aspect of macro level, Confucius also enough knowledge about the public administration and the market institutions.

• The focus of Confucianism is personal moral development and self- cultivation in the society.

• Confucians consider that developing from the education of personal lives, regulation of families, management of the states and then the world should be peaceful. The first two are considered more in western literature, but the later two does not have so much attentions.

• Classical Confucians in an agrarian economy
In an agrarian economy, which has a typically small scale, we can also find the attitude of Classical Confucians in commercial activities for a kind people or government to operate business.

• Neo-Confucians in the commercialized economy
The Neo- Confucians is a revival of Confucian. They developed a wide range of humanist version, which combined individual self-cultivation with social ethics and moral metaphysics in the past development of philosophy. Zhu Xi has the most influence among the Neo- Confucians.

• The Confucian Reformists’ political economy facing Western challenges
After the mid nineteen century, China was affected by some humiliating defeats from Western countries and Japan. It is obvious that the condition for China to survive is a reform. Some people support a new moral role to do the business, and then save the country. However, scholars have different opinion on planning the appropriate role of government.
Kang Youwei encouraged that the government monopoly should be replaced by private companies in the modernizing progress.


• The modern New Confucians in the global economy
In the modern age, people have more opportunities to expose to Western culture and society. The Modern New...