ABSTRACT
To entice readers to open up their minds to what follows, I wish to introduce a viewpoint that was developed by the Chinese economist Sheng Hong in the past two decades (Sheng 2010). Until recently, Sheng Hong was Director of the Unirule Institute at Beijing, an autonomous think tank in economics. The Unirule Institute was established in 1993 by a number of leading Chinese intellectuals and economists under the leadership of Mao Yushi, himself originally an economist with a focus on the United States and, later, an influential voice in the Chinese public, who heralded the need to find a synthesis between economic growth and moral principles, both in his writings and in his many grassroots activities. The name of the institute is more expressive in Chinese, Tianze yanjiusuo. The use of tianze 天则 refers to the ‘principles of the heaven’ and is inspired by a citation from one of the oldest Confucian classics, the Shijing: tian sheng zheng min, you wu you li 天生烝民，有物有则, which roughly translates as ‘Heaven generates humankind, with matter and rules’, meaning that all human beings follow naturally endowed rules. The use of the term tianze in the title of an economics research institute signals the idea that there are natural principles according to which the economy operates, which should not be disturbed by external interventions, beyond the establishment of institutions, which are mainly seen as evolving endogenously. In this sense, the name of the institute reflects a liberal position in economic policy, with a special emphasis on the perspective of institutional economics. Even more so, the philosophical implications of the motto come close to the fundamental principles of the Scottish Enlightenment. In his works, Sheng Hong consistently strives to reconcile Chinese tradition
with modern economic development and modern economics. His recently published book makes accessible some of his papers that were published in the 1990s in influential journals such asDu shu (‘Reading’) andGuanli shijie (‘Management World’), so reaching a broad audience in the intellectual elites. In these papers, Sheng argues that classical Chinese thinking was not only compatible with modern economics, but even presaged it and exerted impact on it. Sheng boldly asserts that certain fundamental notions of modern economics stemmed from China, at least implicitly and indirectly, but certainly in terms of fundamental philosophical stances. I do not want to discuss the philological validity of these propositions, beyond
a few remarks below. What is important is that an influential Chinese scholar discusses in great detail the question of a possible synthesis between Chinese thinking and the Western tradition, especially with regard to basic notions such as the liberal economic order (for a related report and analysis on current Chinese views, see Barbalet 2011). Sheng proposes that this synthesis could reflect a transcultural exchange in a multicultural world, which would not assign the exclusive status of modernity to one of them. He calls this synthesis ‘ecumenical’. The word ‘ecumene’ is sometimes used in English translations of the Chinese tianxia天下, which Sheng refers to in his call for tianxia zhuyi, hence ‘ecumenical thinking/ecumenism’, which he confronts with ‘globalism’ shijie zhuyi. In
European history, the term ‘ecumene’ shows a similar vacillation of semantics as the Chinese tianxia, denoting the reach of human civilization in Greek times and the empire in Roman times. To avoid these semantic repercussions, and yet without stretching the argument, I would propose to translate tianxia zhuyi as ‘cosmopolitanism’, in the sense of current scholarly debates, especially in the context ofAdam Smith (Forman-Barzilai 2010; auspiciously, there is also a similar use of the term ‘cosmopolitanism’ in the context of Europe, see Beck 2009). This is because, in the etymology of the term, the word tianxia refers to two overlapping, but different meanings. Originally the term referred to the land that was controlled by the Chinese emperor, including the territories that were aligned to the empire via tribute relations. Later, the term turned more abstract and referred to the reach of human civilization. This is also the sense of the famous dictum tianxia wei gong 天下为公 in the calligraphy by Sun Yatsen, which became part of the staple of catchwords in the global green movement (there, implying that ‘the Earth belongs to all’). Sheng uses the term in this broader sense, so that we can say that tianxia zhuyi is the idea of a global civilization that encompasses a diversity of cultures. In fact, this interpretation matches with the historical evolution of the Chinese empire, which was a multiethnic body politic based on certain universal civilizational principles and artifacts such as the Chinese script (Schmidt-Glintzer 1997). It is essential to recognize why Sheng makes that distinction. He claims that
globalism, which he considers to be a Western term, is actually violating basic principles of economic liberalism in opting for trade liberalization but containing international migration. So, globalism is a conceptual framework which still builds on the conception of the nation state and hence economic nationalism. Sheng argues that Chinese traditional culture was embracing cosmopolitanism, but had to develop into nationalism to fence off Western nationalisms. He distinguishes betweenWestern ‘expansionary nationalism’ and Chinese ‘defensive nationalism’, and is worried about the legacy of the latter for the future development of China. According to him, the tension between traditional cosmopolitanism and nationalism left China in an awkward position, and the only solution would be the realization of cosmopolitanism of a truly global scale, which he hopes will happen with the rise of China. With such grand views on secular trends, Sheng stands in the tradition of influential Chinese thinkers of the late and early twentieth century: For example, the Confucian intellectual Liang Shuming (who experienced the first decade of Chinese economic reforms and who passed away in 1988) had argued in the 1920s that China could only survive if the world were to be ‘sinicized’ in cultural terms, which would also help to overcome the many deficits of Western culture that were so obvious to Chinese intellectuals after the tragedy of World War I (Alitto 1979). Ideas about the transition from the ‘nation state’ to a new political order based on culture and civilization continue to flourish among Chinese intellectuals until today (see, for example, 21 shiji jingji daobao 2004). In this context, Sheng also discusses economics. The bridge between economic
liberalism and cosmopolitanism, Chinese style, is built when the fact is recognized that, according to Sheng, China actually played an important role in shaping modern economic thought. In this, he refers to the work by Quenays, Despotisme
de la Chine, well aware of the fact that Adam Smith did not see China in the same light. Smith already manifests the incipient change in the perception of China during the later stage of the Enlightenment. Whereas the early thinkers saw China as a model government, already in Smith we see the emphasis on relative decline (for example, Smith 1976: 111ff.). In Smith, this was related to the paramount policy issue with which Smith himself was also concerned, namely the liberalization of foreign trade. Smith recognized the high level of economic productivity China had achieved, but also argued that with different institutions that level could have been surpassed. China was stuck in a stationary situation, simply because it could rely on a large internal market. In contrast, Quesnay emphasized the benevolent despotism of China, which was open to economic activity, and so contributed to prosperity. He realized that Chinese practice was close to the physiocratic analysis of the economic process, and exploited China as a model (Priddat 2001: 87ff.). After all, his nickname was the ‘Confucius of Europe’. Quesnay’s viewpoints reflected a broad tendency in the Enlightenment to see China as a model for good government that Europe should emulate (for a survey, see Mungello 1999: 87ff.). Sheng does not claim that there was a Chinese impact in the details, but saw a
strong relevance of the Chinese notion of a natural order on physiocratic thought and, in this respect, also on Adam Smith, as far as the laissez-faire doctrine is concerned.With the stylized picture of China that was crafted in the early Enlightenment, certain fundamental notions emerged of a natural process in the economy that should not be disturbed by strong interventions of government. The hypothesis that European economic thinking was influenced by China has been confirmed recently in attempts to write a global intellectual history (Hobson 2004). As today, this worked mainly via the example of China (and much less via the transfer of specific intellectual contributions), which was not only reported in many influential Jesuit texts and compilations of geographic knowledge, but was also visually present in millions of pieces of Chinese porcellain depicting the Eastern Arcadia. The Chinese doctrine of wu wei无为 was a conceptual centerpiece of physiocratic movements and was presumably put into practice for the first time in the newly established Swiss federation, in a transformation which was achieved, among others, by the influential writer of Staatsromane (novels of government) Albrecht von Haller in extending the wu wei principle to commerce (Gerlach 2005). So, we have evidence of a diffuse, yet broad impact of Chinese ideas on economics, and even on policies on the eve of European industrialization. In his argument, Sheng concentrates on specific concepts in modern economics,
which he traces back to classical Chinese thought in theWarring States period, and puts together a syncretic view of different authors, reaching from Master Kong to Lao Zi. In this, he makes a very strong claim, namely that classical Chinese thought already presaged many concepts of modern institutional economics. He starts from one point that certainly deserves attention: This is the concept of the limits of knowledge, which is especially strong in Daoist thought, and which he interprets also as a precursor of the Scottish views on the limitations to human constructivist rationality. Further, he points out that the early thinkers already emphasized the
importance of property rights in a peaceful society, and that government has the responsibility to protect them. Differences among people are essential for society, which Sheng interprets as an early indication of the division of labour, and, indeed, in classical conceptions the notion of universal cooperation based on reciprocity looms large. The government is obliged to prepare the preconditions for that, and, at the same time, has to refrain from claiming too many resources from the people. By these means, the government would contribute to maintaining the natural order of society. So, Sheng concludes that there is much common ground between classical Chinese thought and modern economics, which he sees as a precondition for China and Chinese economists becoming a force of transforming globalism into cosmopolitanism in the future. Sheng Hong’s viewpoint certainly highlights important and neglected points in
the interpretation of the classical literature, but it also seems to blur the semantical boundaries between the traditional views on inequalitity and distinctiveness in social hierarchies and the modern notion of diversity in the division of labour and the marketplace. He also downplays the distinctions between physiocratic thinking, both Chinese and European style, and modern economics. In our context, these issues are not as important as the more basic point: In principle, it is possible to create a reconciliation between institutional, which means, ultimately, Smithian economics and classical Chinese thought. In a creative, if not provocative argument, Sheng shows the way how a ‘third culture’ in economics might look like, which would reflect a truly cosmopolitan perspective on fundamental principles and values underlying economics as a science and a political doctrine.
