by Ying-shih Yü
widely shared by others as well.105
Wang Fuzhi’s point about the philanthropic spirit of the rich in times of
crisis was well taken. As shown earlier, Wang Gen was able to help famine re-
lief in his hometown twice, in 1523 and 1535, only with the huge contributions of
a rich merchant and a wealthy local family. His brief reference to the employ-
ment of the poor by the rich deserves to be examined a little further, however.
In this connection, allow me to begin with Lu Ji’s
(1515–1552) discussions of
308 r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t
“luxury” ( she
) as a social virtue. Though the son of distinguished scholar Lu
Shen
(1477–1544), who once held the prestigious position of director of the
Imperial Acad emy, Lu Ji himself never served in the government due to both
his poor health and repeated failures in metropolitan examinations. For a suc-
cession of four generations, from Lu Shen’s great- grand father to his eldest
brother, the Lus had been very much a merchant family. For his part, Lu Ji was
also entrusted, for most of his short life, with the management of family busi-
ness. Thus, his view of luxury to be briefl y sketched below may very well have
been growing out of the interpenetration of Confucian culture and business
culture in the sixteenth century.
In his essay, Lu Ji challenged the long- established orthodox view that frugality
( jian
) is an absolute virtue as opposed to luxury as an absolute vice. With an
analytical and critical mind, he broke the prob lem into two diff er ent levels, public
and private, and argued that luxury is a private vice but a public virtue, whereas
frugality is a private virtue but a public vice. In support of his argument, he cited
many examples to establish the following generalization: “In general, if a place
is accustomed to extravagance, then the people there will fi nd it easy to make a
living, and if a place is accustomed to frugality, then the people there will fi nd
it diffi
cult to make a living.” His examples for “extravagance” were Suzhou and
Hangzhou, and for “frugality,” Ningbo, Shaoxing, Jinhua, and Quzhou— all
the places familiar to him as a native of Shanghai. He then went on to explain
why luxury must be considered as a public virtue: “But what is generally re-
ferred to as extravagance is merely the fact that rich merchants and power ful
families spend much for their own houses, carts, horses, food, drink and cloth-
ing. When they are extravagant in meat and rice, farmers and cooks will share
the profi t; when they are extravagant in silk textiles, weavers and dealers will
share the profi t.”106 This explanation serves admirably well as a footnote to
Wang Fuzhi’s point about the employment of the poor by the rich.
It is very impor tant to note that Lu Ji’s new idea not only struck a sympa-
thetic chord with scholars of his own time but also continued to circulate in
subsequent centuries. For instance, a late sixteenth- century writer, Li Yuheng
, gave a synopsis of the essay without the author’s name, but with a note
saying that he had heard it from his elders.107 Li’s synopsis was quoted in full by
a Mongolian scholar named Fa- shi- shan
(1753–1813) with wholehearted
endorsement.108 The growing popularity of the idea of luxury as a way to pro-
vide employment was also enthusiastically embraced by another eighteenth-
century writer from Suzhou, Gu Gongxie
. In his notebook (preface
dated 1785), Gu expressed the idea in a diff er ent way, saying: “The extravagance
of thousands of people in one group (i.e., the rich) provides the job opportunities
for thousands of people in another group (i.e., the poor). If you try to change the
habit of extravagance of the former and force them to return to simplicity, then
you will inevitably run the risk of eliminating the job opportunities of the latter.”109
r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t 309
Gu was particularly known for his strong opposition to the prohibition of lux-
ury as a state policy, which, he argued, would surely result in unemployment
on a massive scale. By the middle of the eigh teenth century, I must emphati-
cally point out, these ideas were so widely spread that even the emperor had but
to accept the validity of the argument. In his imperial tour to the south, the
Qianlong Emperor (r. 1735–1799) was enormously impressed by the sumptuous
lifestyle enjoyed by the great salt merchants of Yangzhou. He wrote a poem on
the occasion, with a postscript that reads as follows:
I often say that when wealthy merchants spend their surplus money to
make up for the defi ciency of the poor, people trained in vari ous skills
and crafts will all be able to make their livings. This is a great benefi t to
society as a whole. It is indeed easy to impose prohibitions on their lavish
style of life involving all those singing and dancing entertainments.
However, since the rich are generally parsimonious, should we then forc-
ibly take away their personal wealth to feed the poor, which, after all, is
inconsistent with the Kingly Way?110
Clearly, Qianlong not only appreciated the long- term contribution of rich mer-
chants to social stability but also recognized luxury as a public virtue. What is
even more amazing is that the ending phrase of the postscript with regard to
the “Kingly Way” is completely identical to that of Huang Wan’s passage quoted
above. Thus, we see that two centuries later, even the emperor also came to the
realization that, after all, it was wrong for the state to play Robin Hood.
The shift of emphasis in the polarity of “frugality versus luxury” was but
one of the indications that Confucian social thought was undergoing a funda-
mental re orientation. A similar change also happened to other Confucian po-
larities such as “li (
, princi ple) versus qi (
, material force),” “li ( ) versus yu
( , desire),” “ti ( , substance) versus yong ( , function),” “gong ( , common
good) versus si ( , self- interest),” “yi ( , righ teousness) versus li ( , profi table-
ness),” etc. Since here we are concerned with only the social aspects of Confu-
cian thinking, in what follows I shall briefl y mention the last two polarities.
The prob lem of “common good vs. self- interest” has been much studied by
modern scholars.111 Generally speaking, it had long been established in the
Confucian tradition that self- interest ( si) must at all times be subordinate to
common good ( gong). However, this received view was being seriously ques-
tioned during the Ming- Qing transition. Vari ous revisions were proposed by
scholars such as Li Zhi, Chen Que
(1604–1677), Huang Zongxi, and Gu
Yanwu (1613–1682).112 Among them, Li Zhi’s advocacy of “self- interest” as being
inherent in the mind/heart ( xin ) of every individual person has been singled
out by modern historians as the starting point of the new discourse.113 Yet in
my own research, I have discovered that the revision had its beginning in the
310 r e
or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t
fi rst half of the sixteenth century and, moreover, the person who expressed it
earlier than all the great names listed above happened to be a scholar- turned-
merchant from Jiangxi named Yu Xie
(1496–1583). Sometime during his
middle life, Yu made a very in ter est ing remark, as follows: “The common good
can be established only if self- interest is realized in the fi rst place. In this alone
consists the benevolence of the sages.”114 This remark may well be taken as the
beginning of a wholly new conception of “common good versus self- interest.”
Generally speaking, in trying to redefi ne the relationship between gong and si,
all later scholars also took Yu’s new line of thinking without necessarily know-
ing about his remark. Allow me to take the following formulation of Gu Yanwu
as an example:
It is natu ral and normal for every one in the world to be concerned
about his own family and cherish his own children. The Son of Heaven
may care for his subjects, but he cannot possibly do better than they
can for themselves. This has been the case even before the Three Dy-
nasties (i.e., Xia, Shang, and Zhou). What the [ancient] sage [kings] did
was to transform self- interest of every individual person into a common
good for all, with his own person serving as the key link. In this way, a
universal order was established. . . . Therefore, what is self- interest to
every individual person in the world is common good to the Son of
Heaven.115
A few words of clarifi cation may be in order. First, the main gist of the argu-
ment is that “self- interest” ( si) and “common good” ( gong) are not opposed to
each other as traditionally assumed. On the contrary, gong and si necessarily
imply each other. Second, to show that this is the case, Gu Yanwu also broke the
whole prob lem of “self- interest vs. common good” into two levels, public and pri-
vate, exactly as Lu Ji did with that of “frugality vs. luxury.” At the private level, it is
very much human nature for every individual person to pursue his self- interest.
Here he reminds us of Li Zhi, whom he other wise bitterly denounced. At the
public level, however, there must also be a common good above all individual
self- interest. He established this point by appealing to his historical imagina-
tion concerning the origin of government. The earliest sage- kings created a
public order through governmental institutions to make sure that self- interest
of all people would be fulfi lled. This is his defi nition of “common good,” which
must always remain the exclusive concern of the government and those who
serve in it. Thus, his “Son of Heaven” must be understood as a reference to the
state as a whole, not the individual person of an emperor. Third, in his famous
Rizhi lu
(Rec ord of Daily Knowledge), he further sharpened his point, say-
ing, “with all self- interest in the world combined, the common good is thus
formed.”116 Taken together, it seems clear that in Gu’s new formulation, the com-
mon good is conceived as but the sum total of all individual self- interest and
r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t 311
therefore depends entirely on the latter for its very existence. In other words,
the self- interests of all people are prior to the common good logically as well as
temporally.
“Righ teousness versus profi tableness” is one of the oldest Confucian polari-
ties traceable to Confucius and Mencius. In Song Confucianism, both Zhu Xi
and Lu Xiangshan considered the former an absolutely positive value and the
latter absolutely negative; the two were irreconcilable opposites. Over the centu-
ries, a deep- rooted prejudice against merchants was also gradually formed
among the educated elite, linking their occupation one- sidedly to “profi table-
ness,” as if they knew or cared nothing about “righ teousness.” From the early
sixteenth century on, however, many a scholar- turned- merchant began to de-
molish this groundless assumption. Earlier in this section, we have noted
Wang Xian’s remark about “scholars and merchants pursuing diff er ent occupa-
tions but sharing the same mind” in Li Mengyang’s epitaph dated 1523. With
this remark, he actually meant to say that the moral sense of a merchant is exactly
the same as that of a scholar. The Confucian moral princi ple of “righ teousness
versus profi tableness” is therefore equally applicable to both occupational groups.
In the marketplace, as he explic itly stated it, “profi t is regulated by the princi ple
of righ teousness” ( li yi yi zhi
) as well. Possibly infl uenced by Li’s epitaph,
Han Bangqi also expressed a very similar view. In an epitaph for his merchant-
student, he fi rst pointed out that all occupations, high or low, pure or turbid,
stand between “righ teousness” at one end and “profi tableness” at the other.
Then he went on to contrast the scholar class with the merchant class: When a
scholar is thinking only of offi
cial career or fame, the notion of “profi tableness”
is already creeping into all of his studies. On the other hand, when a merchant
is always honest in the market, the princi ple of righ teousness is already pervad-
ing all of his business transactions. The distinction between profi tableness and
righ teousness, he therefore concluded, lies not in the nature of one’s occupa-
tion, but in the state of one’s mind.117
The new intellectual interest of merchants and scholars in the polarity of
righ teousness versus profi tableness eventually led to a revision of considerable
importance. In this regard, allow me to introduce a cogent formulation given by
Gu Xiancheng, leader of the Donglin school. In an epitaph he wrote for a mer-
chant who died in 1604, Gu constructed two opposing views. One was that
righ teousness and profi tableness are completely separated and always at war
with each other. Needless to say, this is the traditional view that dominated the
Confucian thinking since, especially, the Song dynasty. The other is that the two
are united and mutually complimentary. In the latter case, “righ teousness regu-
lates profi tableness while profi tableness assists righ teousness.” This, of course,
is a new conception that began to evolve since the early sixteenth century. He
dismissed the fi rst view as erroneous and praised the deceased merchant for his
success in practicing the second one in his lifetime.118 With his strong merchant
background, it was only natu ral that he should take such a liberal interpretation
312 r e or i e n tat ion of c on f uc i a n so c i a l t hou gh t
of this polarity when applied specifi cally to a merchant. From this time on, Gu’s
second view gradually gained currency. Thus, in 1715, when Imperial Censor
Zhang Degui
wrote an essay to the stone monument in commemora-
tion of the founding of the Cantonese merchant association in the capital, he
went to considerable length to make the point that “righ teousness” and “profi t-
ableness” are only “apparently opposite”; in real ity, they often “depend
on each
other” for full realization and are therefore inseparable. Taking the merchant
association as his living example, he argued that it kills two birds with the
same stone: promoting the well- being of the merchant community as a whole
through mutual support and at the same time helping every individual mem-
ber of the association to conduct his business dealings in the local market of
the capital. Insofar as communal well- being is concerned, the princi ple of righ-
teousness is fulfi lled, and insofar as each individual member’s business is con-
cerned, the princi ple of profi tableness is also realized. This is how Zhang the
imperial censor interpreted the mutual complementarity of “righ teousness”
and “profi tableness.”119
To sum up, as in cases of “frugality vs. luxury” and “common good vs. self-
interest,” the relationship between “righ teousness” and “profi tableness” was
also transformed from antithetical to synthetical. This change, however, need
not surprise us once we realize that Confucian social thinking during the
Ming- Qing transition was by and large characterized by a tendency toward re-
laxation of moral absolutism.
As I have argued elsewhere, re orientation of Confucian social and po liti cal
thinking since the sixteenth century eventually helped to create a frame of
mind that made China more readily receptive to certain types of Western
values and ideas.120 The following three instances will, hopefully, suffi
ce to
bear my point out.
First, Chinese despotism did not meet any open, large- scale and systematic
criticism until the fi nal years of the Qing dynasty. As po liti cal reformists advo-
cating the British type of constitutional monarchy, both Tan Sitong
(1865–1898) and Liang Qichao
(1873–1929) denounced the despotic
“sovereign” ( jun
) since the Qin unifi cation in the worst pos si ble terms. How-
ever, a careful reading of both men’s texts shows right away that they were but
elaborations of the views developed in the hitherto unpublished Mingyi daifang
lu
(A Plan for the Prince) by Huang Zongxi, a fi ne product of the
Ming- Qing intellectual transition.121 On the other hand, the revolutionist reader
Sun Yat- sen, who took the American republic as his model, also presented a