The Confucian Economic Ethics And The Market Economic Ethics

Economic Ethics is not only a practical issue in market economy construction, but also a forward one confronting the ethics and economics in today's academic circles. Forgery, hoodwinking or monopoly and the augmentation of hedonism and money worship, all those immoral behaviors emerging in the Chinese market fully reveal the urgent requirement for the economic ethics. Then how to surmount and remedy the existing problems and how to construct a sound and comprehensive system of socialist Market Economic Ethics turn to be a significant task for the academia.To construct the system of socialist Market Economic Ethics, the Confucian Economic Ethics should be integrated as an indispensable ideological source. Meanwhile, the contribution of the latter may be both advantageous and disadvantageous, hence the constructing of a system of socialist Market Economic Ethics is premised on the knowledge on the theoretical relationship between the two systems, the Confucian Economic Ethics and the Market Economic Ethics. Based on the above factors, the present thesis focuses mainly on the relationship of these two.Confucian Economic Ethics provides the very ethic or moral norms that people should abide by in business. It guarantees the smooth working and orderly movement of the economic activities and, at the same time, meets the demand to speed up the construction of spiritual civilization. Owing to its successive and accommodable nature and its self-identity and impact of economic ethics, Confucian Economic Ethics will be integrated as an essential foundation on which a healthy Market Economic Ethics canbe constructed. Furthermore, those immoral behaviors in Chinese economy call for the advocacy and development of the rational aspects of economic ethics. Consequently, under the conditions of constructing a system of socialist Market Economic Ethics and our great opening up, the research into this dimension is of theoretical and realistic value.Economic Ethics is defined as the overall summation of moral norms for managing and regularizing the interest relations in the process of people's participation in the economic activities, characteristic of its overlapping, operational, historic nature. It is also marked for its hierarchical structures in contents, duality in nature and evolvement in ideology. The constructing of Market Economic Ethics under discussion necessitates the combination of market economy, and when integrated with the market economy realities, it produces new demands for such principles as equality, impartiality and benevolence, etc.The Market Economic Ethics relates itself with Confucian Economic Ethics in the following three aspects: these two systems firstly conflict, then integrate with and finally supplement each other. Confucian Economic Ethics, to some extent, integrates with the Market Economic Ethics, and contribute positively to the construction of the latter. Therefore, in constructing the socialist Market Economic Ethics, Confucian Economic Ethics should be integrated critically by utilizing and developing the rational factors while checking and depriving the unconstructive factors. Those positive aspects also demand renovation and improvement.The possibility of contribution from Confucian Economic Ethics exists, so is its limitation, and measures are to be taken in constructing Market Economic Ethics. As regards its possibility, when approached from the perspectives of historic continuity and inheritance of social consciousness, the author asserts that Confucian Economic Ethics canmotivate the construction of the Market Economic Ethics if converted reasonably; methodologically, some chosen aspects of the renovated Confucian Economic Ethics can contribute to the construction of the Market Economic Ethics, if got rid of the stale and brought forth the fresh; and realistically, the reasonable existence of Confucian Economic Ethics can be fully verified by the dramatic economic augmentation of Japan and the Four Small Asian Dragons. In terms of limits, we should admit...