An Elementary Study On The Credit Ethics Of Shanxi Merchants

Shanxi Merchants constituted a historical and commercial phenomenon through the Ming and Qing Dynasty. During their glorious five hundred years, Shanxi Merchants realized countless commercial miracles, accumulated enormous wealth and created a unique credit system. Their operational ideas, regulations and styles derived from both traditional Chinese culture and rich part of local culture, and thus formed distinctive Shanxi Merchants culture, which later became a prominent part of Shanxi culture.As undeniable as the historical limitations of Shanxi Merchants' credit ethics, the advanced portion of the ethics is still applicable in modern society. Facing the severe deficiency of credit in modern society, we are obligated to seek guidance in Shanxi Merchants' credit ethics. Through integrated analysis of profound literatures and references of current research on Shanxi Merchants, this article presents analysis of Shanxi Merchants' credit ethics in four aspects: its constitution, contentment, guarantee systems and value for modern society. Originally credit refers to certain requirements of individual behavior, which requires individuals to maintain faithful and keep promises in social intercourses and co operations. The concept "credit" is widely used in ethics, law and economics, and thus is defined differently in each subject. In ethics, credit refers to honesty and realizing promises, which is an embodiment of goodness, a virtue and basic behavior guidance. As far as this article concerns, Shanxi Merchants' credit ethics refers to their regulations of their business conduct and even business consciousness. These regulations were formulated during Shanxi Merchants' long-term business practice and derived from Chinese traditional culture and local culture. These regulations mainly included personality credit, professional individual credit, organizational credit and business intercourse credit of Shanxi Merchants, which together formed a unique credit system of Shanxi Merchants. With the guidance of this credit system, Shanxi Merchants were enabled to balance interest of different parties and obtain a reputation of trustworthiness. Shanxi Merchants' business conduct revealed and proved the ethics and moral guidance in business intercourses.It is hoped this article may provide beneficial reference for establishing credit ethics in modern market economy by primary exploration and research of Shanxi Merchants' credit ethics.