ABSTRACT
Karl W. Deutsch’s approach to the problem of normative theory is more explicit. Americans could hardly develop an adequate normative theory with which to evaluate modernization patterns in the Republic of China (ROC) and the People’s Republic of China. Chinese Marxism appears as an option in conflict with a reasonable view of China’s normative course. The basic choice has been between socialism and the ROC mix of a state sector, a private sector, and a kind of “industrial policy” with which to guide the private sector. The chapter argues that in S. N. Eisenstadt’s view of modernization, the ability of a civilization to “transform” itself, going “beyond” its inherited “premises,” is regarded as a self-evident good. Scholars have increasingly recognized that Chinese modernization patterns have been significantly influenced by the Confucian tradition, both consciously and unconsciously. The ambivalence of the Humean or Weberian scholars is obvious.
