Study Of The Ethical Connotation Of The Doctrine Of People's Livelihood Proposed By Sun Yat-sen

Sun Yat-sen, a great patriot and also a pioneer of the democratic revolution, devoted his whole life to the cause of China's independence, democracy and prosperity. In the year 1840, the United Kingdom launched the first Opium War against China. From then on, China's sovereignty gradually became weakened. Foreign capitalist countries not only controlled China's economy, but also attempted to deprive China of its sovereignty. Under this kind of background, the corrupt Qing government sought compromise externally and eventually became a governing tool made use of by imperialists in exploiting the Chinese people. Under his leadership, his party and his colleagues overthrew the feudalism in China and opened a new leaf of history, thus creating conditions for the development of capitalism in China. In his 30-year-long revolutionary career, he, as a broadminded and persistent revolution teacher, gradually combined the anti-feudalist movement with the anti-colonist movement and integrated those revolutionary movements into the revolutionary trend home and abroad. Sun Yat-sen enjoyed a unique position in China's revolutionary history of modern times.Sun Yat-sen is not only a revolution practitioner but also a progressive thinker. If a country loses its independence, the people of the country will have no security. Sun Yat-sen, a great leader, led the famous 1911 Revolution and overthrew the feudalism, which had been practiced in China for more than 2000 years. Finally, a democratic republic was founded. Sun Yat-sen is a quite important figure in China's history not only because of his brilliant revolutionary achievements but also because of his outstanding accomplishments in theoretical studies. In modern China, there existed complex and acutecontradictions in society, which were reflected in Sun's doctrine of People's Livelihood. As a warrior for democracy, he regarded the task of realizing country's prosperity and people's high living standard as one of his lifelong causes. In the old democratic revolution phase, his People's Livelihood shook off the equalitarianism favored by the peasant class and the Prussian tendency favored by the reforming school. His doctrine, showing his broad eyesight, pushed the formation of a developmental approach that was acceptable to the democratic revolution guidelines and laid the foundation for the designing of a grand construction blueprint.He put forward his own opinions on various subjects of China such as politics, economy, military affairs, culture, education and ethics. Under the influence of traditional Chinese ideology and Christianism ideology, Sun's doctrine of People's Livelihood exhibits strong moral features. That is to say, Sun Yat-sen inherited the positive traditional cultural heritage of China and assimilated some capitalist ethic ideas as well. Furthermore, he combined theories with practice and made his theories possess explicit Chinese and Western characteristics.In his revolutionary practice, Sun Yat-sen formed his Three People's Principles, which fell into two sets: the old set (Nationalism, Democracy, the People's Livelihood) and the new set. (Unite with the Soviet Union, Unite with the Communist Party and Unite with the Working Class). His ethic thoughts were closely combined with his thought of the Three People's Principles, thus forming an ethic system with the thought of "the whole world as one community" as its core. While putting forward ethic theories, Sun Yat-sen also practiced his theories. He not only brought forth various ideas of people's livelihood, but also made a series of institutional arrangements for the realization of these ideas. For example, he advocated that the industryshould be developed for the development of economy, the land ownership should be averaged and the capital should be limited for the equitableness of society and social revolution should be facilitated for social ideals to be realized. Therefore, Sun's institutions carry ethic meanings themselves. It is worthy of being pointed out that the interaction between ethics and institutions can help transform theories into practice. In the new democratic revolutionary phase, Sun Yat-sen raised the doctrine of People's Livelihood to a higher level, with "land to the tiller" as the central slogan of land guidelines. The doctrine of People's Livelihood was revitalized because it was developed and reflected the historic trend. During the whole developmental process of the doctrine of People's Livelihood, land and capital were always the core issues of all problems.The moral principles requirements contained in the institution system of society decide the actual situation of social morality and reflect the civilization level of society. The primary task of the construction of institution ethic environment is that the basic moral principles of society should be integrated into the framework of institution construction and the moral requirements should be raised to institutional requirements. To judge whether the thoughts can shed light on the institutional arrangement of moral construction, we should judge whether the moral principles and requirements are progressive and whether they have widely accepted ethic spirit. Sun Yat-sen held that "People's Livelihood" was the end-result of the Three People's Principles and after the issues of Nationalism and Democracy had been settled People's Livelihood should set foot in the issue of economy development, as was done by socialists. He stressed man, the subject of history, and the importance of economy, which could make man survive. His theory is of great value and has profound influence. The theory and the practice of People'sLivelihood are a breakthrough of economic ethics and social ethics, thus starting a new era of ethic thoughts.In Sun Yat-sen's doctrine of People's Livelihood, the thought of economy construction occupies the most important position. He pointed out that people's livelihood was the original or basic driving force of society and history. This is the fundamental idea of the history conception of people's livelihood. In 1912, Sun Yat-sen said that people were rich or poor and livelihood was the main driving force. He repeatedly stated that people's livelihood represented "the living of the people, the existence of society, the livelihood of the people and the life of the public". Sun held that people's livelihood decided the development of productivity, the evolution of productive relationship, the reformation of social politics and the advance* of social morality. He also held that people's livelihood was not only the driving force of social change and development but also the original driving force of all activities of human beings. He raised the question of people's livelihood in his early revolutionary career and took the solution of the problem as the supre.me target of revolution.. He pointed out that the question of people's livelihood was actually the " question of people's daily necessities, the question of man's survival and only after the question had been solved would society advance. Therefore, to do whatever task, the reality that China was a country with a population of for hundred million should be kept in mind.Sun Yat-sen's ethic thought of People's Livelihood, which shows some materialism attributes, is a theoretical weapon used by progressive warriors. However, because the backward semi-colonialism and semi-feudalism society and the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie living in that kind of society are the historical conditions and the class basis of the formation of Sun's thoughts, his thoughts contain some elements of idealism and are a little bit crude.Anyhow, as an important composing part of progressive didacticism thought trend in modern China, Sun Yat-sen's thoughts have once played a quite critical role.The thought system of the Three People's Principles represents a new start of social politics and economic thought history in modern China, and the ethics of the doctrine of "People's Livelihood" also symbolizes a new stage of Chinese philosophy history. If the view that the worldview of reforming school philosophers is the conclusion of Chinese classic philosophy is acceptable, the ethic thought of People's Livelihood, although immature in many aspects, is the beginning of the philosophy of the bourgeoisie in modern China. His People's Livelihood, with many features of subjective socialism, could not be realized under the background of that time. Like many other progressive thoughts in history, the socioeconomic guidelines advocated by the revolutionary democratic school of the Chinese bourgeoisie show some historical and class limitations. Anyway, as the reflection of socioeconomic tendency and the representation of the will of the people to shake off poverty and backwardness, the doctrine of People's Livelihood is an economic guideline of epoch-making meaning in modern China.The aim of studying traditional ethic thoughts is to carry forward the cause pioneered by our predecessors and forge into the future rather than simply know the past. Zhu De-Sheng once said that the study of traditions is for people alive, not the dead. That is to say, the essence of traditions does not lie in the past but in the present. Traditions exist in our living style, and we might even say that traditions are a kind of living style. The thought of Sun extrudes people qua historicai principal ,revealing his care for the public, complying with the development of times. In order to provide more theoretical support for the contemporary political civilizationconstruction, we should sort out the traditional political ethic thoughts to distill the "cream" of those thoughts. Only by doing this can we build a solid theoretical foundation for the construction of political civilization.