Until very recently, merchants have been greatly looked down upon. This change has probably been devoloped by desperation (Cultural Revolution) and the obvious success of Chinese nearly everywhere outside of their hands, especially when close to western merchant trading (AKA 3 Little Dragons).
If China had ever realized and instituted this, and to be honest Western Nations had a checkered pattern of success in this area too, it would fit the engine to have a successful colonial mentality closer to that post 1400's Western Europe. Other posters have mentioned this with previous
AH threads.
In Europe, the Dutch eventually smothered with taxes their wildly
successful Dutch East Indies, Spain spent more than even the golden
goose of Latin America could provide, and Norway/Denmark starved and
withered Iceland/Greenland with an exclusive monopoly that did nearly
nothing for the locals. Yet the end result was enough free trade was
going on that technology and capitalism exploded colonialization. There
was not a single Adam Smith type philospher in China AFAIK.
Confucius and others had considerable amount of meritocracy, which is
a start, but this was reserved for bureaucracy rather than general
business. He personally hated merchants, I recall, though respected
in a way the business accumen of one of his followers, Zigong, in
futures and upper level genteel, good talking, smooth trading. Confucius's
favorite, though, was a Tolstoy type character named Yan Hui who
was always impoverished and died young from the same.
Certainly later proponents took the purist and generally governmental
approach. This must change if the colonial mentality flowered beyond
the stunted level it took.
I personally see no other way for colonialization easily taking hold
of China, though other aspects would have helped.
"Confucianism despised merchants. In the hierarchy of Chinese traditional society
built by Confucianism merchants were placed at the bottom. Confucians regarded
the merchants as selfish, always placing profit making first."
If China had ever realized and instituted this, and to be honest Western Nations had a checkered pattern of success in this area too, it would fit the engine to have a successful colonial mentality closer to that post 1400's Western Europe. Other posters have mentioned this with previous
AH threads.
In Europe, the Dutch eventually smothered with taxes their wildly
successful Dutch East Indies, Spain spent more than even the golden
goose of Latin America could provide, and Norway/Denmark starved and
withered Iceland/Greenland with an exclusive monopoly that did nearly
nothing for the locals. Yet the end result was enough free trade was
going on that technology and capitalism exploded colonialization. There
was not a single Adam Smith type philospher in China AFAIK.
Confucius and others had considerable amount of meritocracy, which is
a start, but this was reserved for bureaucracy rather than general
business. He personally hated merchants, I recall, though respected
in a way the business accumen of one of his followers, Zigong, in
futures and upper level genteel, good talking, smooth trading. Confucius's
favorite, though, was a Tolstoy type character named Yan Hui who
was always impoverished and died young from the same.
Certainly later proponents took the purist and generally governmental
approach. This must change if the colonial mentality flowered beyond
the stunted level it took.
I personally see no other way for colonialization easily taking hold
of China, though other aspects would have helped.
"Confucianism despised merchants. In the hierarchy of Chinese traditional society
built by Confucianism merchants were placed at the bottom. Confucians regarded
the merchants as selfish, always placing profit making first."
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