Chapter 17 Section 3 Confucianism and Industrial East Asia

Asia was advanced in ancient times, but lagged behind in modern times.Before World War II, only Japan developed into a capitalist country in Asia, and other countries were reduced to colonies and semi-colonies.After World War II, Japan rose again from the ruins, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and other regions and countries also achieved economic take-off and entered the ranks of developed countries. They (known as the "Four Asian Tigers") together with Japan , forming "Industrial East Asia".Since the late 1970s, Industrial East Asia has been a hot topic, attracting the attention of international academic circles.People are studying how it came about.In addition to the support of Western developed countries such as the United States, such as loans, investment, and provision of technical equipment, etc., what are the internal causes?Many scholars have noticed that these countries and regions have Confucian traditions.

Frank Gibney, director of the Pacific Rim Institute of the United States, believes that the ingenious combination of Confucian ethics and modern American economic democracy is the secret of Japan's economic success.He called this Japanese economic form "Confucian capitalism."Eiichi Shibusawa, a famous Japanese entrepreneur, believes that adding calculations is a magic weapon for business management.It represents Confucian ethics, and the abacus represents the capitalist mode of operation.If you only focus on profit-making and lose benevolence, righteousness, loyalty and filial piety, you will not be able to run a business well.The formulation of these two people is not only applicable to Japan, but also to the "Four Little Dragons", the economy of the "Four Little Dragons", which is also a Confucian capitalist economy.In a capitalist society, the relationship between people is a contractual relationship between commodity owners. Although they are unequal in fact, they are equal in law. This is where capitalism is superior to feudalism. At this point Industrial East Asia was no different from Western Europe and North America.However, on issues such as how to adjust the relationship between people at all levels in society, especially in an enterprise, and how to cultivate people's consciousness of obeying authority and observing discipline, etc., the West mainly relies on administrative and legal means, as well as material rewards and punishments.However, in Japan and the "Asian Four Tigers" with a Confucian cultural background, a strong Confucian ethical color has been added to it.In Japan, as soon as employees enter the enterprise, they must receive ideological and moral education of being loyal to the enterprise and its leaders, while enterprise leaders treat their subordinates with love and courtesy as elders, and implement various forms of emotional investment, so that employees feel that the enterprise is like a family , Thanks to the "parents" and work hard.Japanese scholar Totsuo Morishima believes that "loyalty, filial piety, and obligations to the elders together form a trinity of values. This trinity of values ​​regulates the hierarchical relationship based on authority, blood ties, and respective ages within society." ".That is to say, Confucian moral concepts such as loyalty and filial piety are still at work in Japan, and they regulate the hierarchical relationships of superiors and inferiors, closeness, seniority, and young to achieve harmony.It should be pointed out that the hierarchy here is different from the hierarchy in the feudal era in principle, and the concepts of loyalty and filial piety here are not the same as loyalty and filial piety in the original sense of Confucianism, but only have the color of Confucian ethics.But precisely because of this color, its function of regulating interpersonal relations is different from that of purely administrative means. Compared with European and American workers, Japanese workers have greater labor enthusiasm and fewer strikes.This is said to be one of the reasons for the rise of Japanese industry.

In industrial East Asia, with the increase of industrialization and social wealth, people's material and cultural life has undergone tremendous changes.The increase in income, the improvement of housing conditions, the intensification of the temptation of money, and the proliferation of Western consumer culture have caused people to abandon traditional Confucian values, and there has been a wave of extreme individualism, hedonism, and utilitarianism, ignoring spiritual values ​​and moral life.As a result, many social diseases that plagued the West, such as crime, drug abuse, sexual liberation, family breakdown, moral decline, etc., also breed and spread here.The success of enterprise management is in stark contrast to the loss of control of social and cultural life.People of insight in the political and intellectual circles were worried and expressed the need to rebuild spiritual values.Against this background, the Xinmin Movement in South Korea, the Politeness Movement, the Respect for the Elderly Movement, the Chinese Language Promotion Movement, and the Confucian ethics propaganda movement in Singapore all followed one after another.The central content of these movements is to recall Confucian ethics back to real life.Some people try to reinterpret Confucian ethics and moral concepts with modern spirit.Both East and West are following their experiments.

With the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's reform and opening up policy, and the rise of industrial East Asia, European and American countries have greatly increased their interest in Confucianism. Colleges and universities have strengthened or established new departments of Sinology, and Chinese studies research institutions have also expanded and increased. Many scholars engaged in the research and teaching of Confucianism, and many academic monographs and papers were published.They do this not only to understand and deal with China and East Asia, but also to find a prescription for solving the West's own social problems.American scholar O'Brien believes that the problem in the West is that technology is advanced but ethics is backward. There are many ethical theories that encourage crime and war.The solution to the ethical backwardness of contemporary society and the key to maintaining world peace can be found in Confucius' teachings on benevolence and moderation. This opinion is quite representative among Western scholars.