The Laws And Economics Of Confucianism

Zhang argues that property institutions in preindustrial China and England were a cause of China's lagging development in preindustrial times.

Tying together cultural history, legal history, and institutional economics, The Laws and Economics of Confucianism: Kinship and Property in Pre-Industrial China and England offers a novel argument as to why Chinese and English pre-industrial economic development went down different paths. The dominance of Neo-Confucian social hierarchies in Late Imperial and Republican China, under which advanced age and generational seniority were the primary determinants of sociopolitical status, allowed many poor but senior individuals to possess status and political authority highly disproportionate to their wealth. In comparison, landed wealth was a fairly strict prerequisite for high status and authority in the far more 'individualist' society of early modern England, essentially excluding low-income individuals from secular positions of prestige and leadership. Zhang argues that this social difference had major consequences for property institutions and agricultural production.

Shows how cultural factors have influenced the development of competition law in China, Japan and Korea.

This volume shows the influence of the Sage's teachings over the course of Chinese history--on state ideology, the civil service examination system, imperial government, the family, and social relations--and the fate of Confucianism in China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as China developed alongside a modernizing West and Japan. Some Chinese intellectuals attempted to reform the Confucian tradition to address new needs; others argued for jettisoning it altogether in favor of Western ideas and technology; still others condemned it angrily, arguing that Confucius and his legacy were responsible for China's feudal, ''backward'' conditions in the twentieth century and launching campaigns to eradicate its influences. Yet Chinese continue to turn to the teachings of Confucianism for guidance in their daily lives.

While Confucian ideals continue to inspire thinkers and political actors, discussions of concrete Confucian practices and institutions appropriate for the modern era have been conspicuously absent from the literature thus far. This volume represents the most cutting edge effort to spell out in meticulous detail the relevance of Confucianism for the contemporary world. The contributors to this book--internationally renowned philosophers, lawyers, historians, and social scientists--argue for feasible and desirable Confucian policies and institutions as they attempt to draw out the political, economic, and legal implications of Confucianism for the modern world.

This book is part of a broad study about Confucianism and its implications for modernisation of the Confucian regions (covering Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore). The purpose of this book is to compare the ethical, social and economical principles advocated by Adam Smith and Confucius. Adam Smith is the most influential thinker in developed economies in modern times. Confucius was the most influential thinker in the Confucian regions before the West became influential in these regions. The book shows that it is important to compare the two great thinkers in order to understand whether or not Westernisation of the Confucian regions is sustainable and whether or not there will be 'clashes of civilisations' between the Confucian regions and the West.

Qiao demonstrates how an impersonal and unbounded market can operate without legal protection or enforcement of property and contract rights.