The Ching Catholics’ View Of Wealth

The view of wealth is the general view and opinion of wealth, whichincludes the patterns of wealth determination, wealth acquisition, wealthuse, wealth distribution and wealth consumption, as well as the relatedrights and obligations. It plays an important role in guiding, coordinating,and integrating the economic behaviors of people. With the developmentof market economy in China, the social material wealth increasessignificantly and people’s living level rises gradually too. Accordingly,many adverse social phenomena such as money worship, hedonism, andegoism have emerged, which partly affect the steady development ofmarket economy and social harmony.The Hengwang village, located in Jiangping town, Dongxing city,Guangxi, is a habitation of the Ching Catholics. For long times, theCatholics there have been engaging in vegetable growing and sea ‘doing’.Since the1990s, more and more Ching Catholics started to engage inbuilding, small business, migratory work, transport, etc. They enjoy agood and prosperous life. And, it’s tranquil and peaceful in all respects.Local people there believe that the Catholics’ view of wealth plays animportant role in the local social stability. Thus, the influence onformation of view of wealth caused by catholic belief is analyzed aftercomprehensive field investigations into both the economic life andreligious life of the local Catholics. Meanwhile, the positive significanceto the local social and economic development generated by the very view of wealth is also elaborated.The conclusions show that, the Catholics’ view of wealth inHengwang village is dually affected by practice rationality and culturalrationality. This kind of view of wealth has features in indifferencetowards material wealth and pursuit of spiritual wealth. It makes theChing Catholics satisfied with plain living, and partly maintains thestability and development of the local society.