A Comparative Study Of The Relationship Between Politics And Business Ethics Between China And The UK In Modern Times

As a collection of values such as politics,economy and ethics,the ethical relationship between politics and commerce deeply reflects and restricts the process of human civilization.China and Britain are the representative countries of Eastern and Western civilizations,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to examine the ethical relationship between politics and commerce of them in modern times from the perspective of comparison,which helps to study the history and direct contemporary and even future civilizations.There were once Mercantilism thoughts and practices in modern times of China and Britain respectively,which to great extent took on the historical task of leading their social transformations from ancient times to modern times.In this period,the ethical relationship between politics and commerce showed different transitional characteristics.From the perspective of ethics,this dissertation makes a comparative analysis of the vocational virtue of bureaucrats and merchants,the ethical essence of the political and commercial system,the interaction rules between the politics and commerce and case analysis of modern China and Britain.And it then furtherly analyzes its ethical characteristics and historical role in detail,which provides useful reference for the research and practice of the ethical relationship between politics and commerce in the new era.Firstly,the vocational virtue of bureaucrats and merchants in modern China and Britain,which emphasizes on the moral tendency of self-discipline is the intrinsic virtue ethics that constitutes the ethical relationship between politics and commerce.After thousands of years of complicated historical precipitation,China and Britain had possessed two different kinds of ethical cultures.The vocational virtue of bureaucrats and merchants in modern China and Britain manifested their own unique qualities.The bureaucrats in the late Qing Dynasty showed the value pattern of competing for profits with merchants under the guidance of the official standard thought,while the modern Britain bureaucrats showed the value orientation of mutual benefit with merchants under the influence of the spirit of contract and constitutional tradition.From the analysis of the moral character of the merchant class,it mainly embodied the spirit of“gentry merchant” in the late Qing Dynasty and the spirit of “professional merchant” in modern Britain.Because of the domination of Confucian ethics in the late Qing Dynasty with regard to the cultural foundation of vocational moral of the bureaucrats and merchants in modern China and Britain,the concept of justice and interests had a strong tendency of thinking about justice when facing interests.Under the influence of Protestant ethics,Britain embodied a new concept of the unity of justice and interests and concept of Calling.Secondly,the institutional ethics plays an intermediary role between the inner virtue of bureaucrats and merchants and their external interaction rules,which highlights the heteronomy of institutional ethics.From the perspective of institutional ethics,the political tradition of the autocratic system of imperial power in the late Qing Dynasty shaped the characteristics of its feudal commodity economy.Merchants were still strongly attached to the feudal government and its bureaucratic stratum for lacking of their subject rights.In contrast,in the structure of multiple political forces in modern Britain,the King must comply with the constitutional tradition of “the King under the law”,showing the characteristics of contractual commodity economy type,and the advantages of the subject rights of merchants made them maintain relative independent when interacted with government and officials.From the aspect of commercial norms,the ancient Chinese merchants were lacked of commercial law until the late Qing Dynasty.When the government promulgated a commercial law,the commercial norms was mainly transplanted from west,and the government had the dominant power to establish the system of commercial norms.In the middle ages,the British merchants had relatively developed customary laws,and the commercial norms evolved spontaneously according to commercial activities of the merchants.The merchants were the main strength and played an important role in the modernization of modern commercial law.In the ethics of commercial organization,the government in the late Qing Dynasty supervised commercial enterprises so strictly that it was characterized by the rule of “politics oriented” in the operation of enterprises.Then it formed the tendency of bureaucratization of enterprises' management and the polarization of the coexistence of helping and sapping merchants,which outlined the strong color of substantive rationality.The chartered corporations of British had the dual attributes of economy and politics,high autonomy and exclusiveness,which made it characterized by strong formal rationality.Thirdly,the ethical rule of the interaction between politics and commerce is the externalization of virtue ethics and institutional ethics,and it is an ethical state between selfdiscipline and heteronomy.In the ethical rules of interaction between politics and commerce in modern China and Britain,there was a kind of dependent ethical relationship between bureaucrats and merchants in the late Qing Dynasty that mainly followed the rule of “politics comes first”,then the dependence and adhesion of merchants on bureaucrats became the political guarantee of their business operation,and the merchants' political absence became a normal state.While there was an independent interactive ethical relationship between bureaucrats and merchants in modern Britain,which presented a tendency of merchants' politicization,and the relationship between the monarchs and merchants showed direct transaction in forms.At the same time,the direct participation in politics of merchants particularly led to the integration of the bureaucrats and merchants.Moreover,the bribery and lobbying outside the court and other ways were also taken by merchants to indirectly intervene in the political decision-making.From a comparative perspective,in the late Qing Dynasty,authoritarian dominance was the main ethical rule in the interaction between bureaucrats and merchants,and merchants lacked independent political personality.While in modern Britain,“interests come first” was the guidance,and merchants were able to maintain a relatively independent political personality.Meanwhile,there was a phenomenon of class mobility between aristocracy and merchants in modern China and Britain.In the late Qing Dynasty,it was mainly reflected in the convection between aristocracy and merchants,while in modern Britain,it mainly focused on the one-way flow that from merchants to aristocracy.And this phenomenon had a profound impact on the nature and development of the ethical relationship between politics and commerce for both of them.Fourthly,the dissertation chooses two typical cases to support the analysis and comparison.This chapter aims at observing their operating mechanism and prominent characteristics of the ethical relationship between politics and commerce from the micro level through the analysis and comparison of China Merchants Steamship Navigation Company in the late Qing Dynasty and Levant Company in modern Britain.As the first joint-stock company in the modern history of China,China Merchants Steamship Navigation Company was operated under the franchise of the central government in the late Qing Dynasty.The company adopted joint-stock mode of operation by government-supervising and merchant-managing,and the government also provided with different kinds of supports,such as policy and capital,etc.In the interaction between politics and commerce,bureaucrats had obvious value orientation of competing for interests with merchants because of their political logic.Therefore,the management of the company was controlled by the bureaucrats,which made the government's power was much stronger than the merchants' power,furtherly leading to the bureaucratization of the management with blackmail from the government.Comparatively speaking,as a typical chartered company in the early modern Britain,the Levant Company enjoyed a legal status as a franchised by the King,and it also acquired the monopoly right of trade from Britain to the Mediterranean region.The main value orientation was mutual benefit in the interaction between politics and commerce,and the royal family or the government provided strong supports for Levant Company in national policy while the company also undertook the corresponding obligations.In general,merchants were the company's actual owners and managers,which enabled the company to operate independently,and the company's rights and responsibilities were relatively clear.Finally,it can be seen that the ethical dilemma of the ethical relationship between politics and commerce in the late Qing Dynasty lies in its dominant characteristics of the politicization of business ethics through comparative analysis,which has a particularly profound impact on the Republic of China.On the other hand,the ethical relationship between politics and commerce in modern Britain is a polarization phenomenon of ethics in essence,which is characterized by the commercialization of political ethics.It not only lays the foundation for its great success in business,but also provides unlimited kinetic energy for the arrival of the Industrial Revolution and bourgeois revolution in Britain.Obviously,it is not a benign type for each of the ethical relationship between politics and commerce in modern China and Britain.Through the historical mirror of the ethical relationship between politics and commerce in modern China and Britain,it has a positive significance for the study and practice of the construction of new type of ethical relationship between politics and commerce for the contemporary era.Specifically,it is better to focus on the ethical relationship between the state and the market in pursuit of public good,the government and enterprise in pursuit of justice,and the official and entrepreneur in pursuit of professional good.