The Dawn of Civilization —— On Economic Development and the Revival of China Culture As we all know, China is one of the four ancient civilizations. There were 1 000 years before the industrial revolution, and China's cultural achievements were at the peak of all civilizations in the world at that time. However, after the industrial revolution, China's international status declined sharply and became a relatively backward country. From the Opium War to the present 160 years, intellectuals in China have been discussing how to revive China culture and the Chinese nation. Cultural Shock and Cultural Self-consistency To discuss Chinese culture and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, we should first explore the reasons for the sharp decline of China after the Industrial Revolution. For a long time, many scholars at home and abroad attributed China's backwardness to the conservatism and stubbornness of Confucian culture in China, and proposed to overthrow Kongjiadian, believing that the influence of Confucian culture must be completely eradicated in order to revive China. This statement lasted until1980s. What is the relationship between China culture and China's modernization? To answer this question, we must first understand what culture is. Different scholars have different definitions of culture. Personally, I prefer the definition of Fei Xiaotong's teacher Malinowski. He divided culture into three levels: first, the level of utensils, that is, tools for production and life; Second, the organizational level, including social, economic and political organizations; The third is the spiritual level, that is, people's ethics and values. The division of these three levels is actually similar to the discussion of economic base and superstructure. Accordingly, the instruments and tools of production and life are the economic foundation, and the organization, ethics and values are the superstructure. A cultural body will form a self-consistent entity with its economic base and superstructure without the impact of foreign culture. For example, in primitive society, the means of production was stone, the mode of production was hunting, and the level of productivity was very low. Its social organization is a commune, and its ethics and values are open. Such superstructure, or social organization and value standard, is conducive to giving full play to economies of scale in hunting and overcoming the risks brought by low productivity level and not storing food to everyone's survival, so it conforms to extremely low productivity level. Later, the level of productivity improved, from hunting to farming, from using stones as tools to using bronzes as tools, and the organization mode entered the clan society with the family as the unit, and ethics and values changed from public ownership to private ownership. This change can be attributed to the improvement of productivity. Under the farming production mode, as long as everyone works hard, the future production and harvest can be expected. Therefore, the clan social organization with the family as the unit and the value ethics of private ownership are conducive to improving everyone's enthusiasm for production. Without the impact of foreign culture, every cultural body should be a self-consistent entity in terms of objects, organization and value, and there is no distinction between advanced and backward. Only when one cultural body collides with another cultural body can there be a distinction between advanced and backward. So, what is the decision of being advanced and backward? In the field of superstructure, especially in the field of value ethics, it is difficult to say which is better or worse. For example, in the primitive capitalist society, * * * is exclusive, or in the private farming society, everyone is responsible for himself. Which is better? It's really hard to say The most important criterion for dividing human civilization into advanced civilization and backward civilization is the economic foundation, that is, the level of productive forces. China's culture has changed from the most advanced in the world to relatively backward in the world. It is precisely because after the industrial revolution in the18th century, the invention of western utensils advanced by leaps and bounds, and the economic base rose rapidly, while the economic base of China at that time was lagging behind. Therefore, to talk about the revival of Chinese culture, we must first analyze whether China's economic base can catch up with western countries and whether China's productivity level can catch up with developed countries. As an economist, I am quite optimistic about the possibility of improving the productivity level in China, that is, the economic base. Because, in the long run, the most important thing to improve the level of productivity or economic base is to have continuous technological innovation. Countries at different stages of development have different ways of technological innovation. For those countries with advanced technology in the west, the way of technological innovation can only be self-invention. For China, a country with a relatively backward economic base, there are two ways of technological innovation: one is self-invention, and the other is to use the technological gap with developed countries to introduce technology to achieve innovation. Which way is better? From an economic point of view, the only criterion of quality is which cost is lower and which benefit is higher. After World War II, the Japanese miracle and the Asian "Four Little Dragons" miracle appeared, and its The Secret Behind lies in these countries and regions, which can make better use of the technological gap with developed countries, introduce technology at a very low cost and realize technological innovation. With the rapid innovation of technology, the whole economic base will develop rapidly, and the gap with developed countries will also narrow. China's experience before and after the 1979 reform proved this point: before 1979, China advocated self-reliance, invented its own technology and competed with developed countries in the most advanced technology, but the performance of economic development was not high; After 1979, China began to acquire technological innovation mainly by introducing technology, just like the "four little dragons" of Japan and Asia. In the following 25 years, China achieved an annual economic growth of 9.3%. Continue to take the road of introducing technology, can China maintain rapid economic growth in the next decade, twenty years, thirty years or even longer, and make China's productivity level close to that of developed countries? I am also optimistic about this. According to various comparisons, including life expectancy, infant mortality, the proportion of agriculture and a series of economic and social development indicators, the overall economic development level of China in 2000 was approximately equivalent to that of Japanese 1960. As we all know, it took 28 years for Japan's per capita income to catch up with 1960 1988. Although I am not overly optimistic that the per capita income of China will catch up with that of the United States from 2000 to 2030, I fully believe that China, whose per capita income is 3% of that of the United States, will achieve rapid economic growth by introducing technology, and its per capita income may reach 20% of that of the United States by 2030. Judging from the experience of Japan and the "Four Little Dragons" in Asia, the RMB is likely to appreciate by then. According to the extent of appreciation, China's per capita income is likely to be 30% or even 40% of that of the United States. If China's per capita income reaches 20% of that of the United States and China's population is five times that of the United States in 2030, China's overall economic strength will be equivalent to that of the United States. If China's per capita income can reach 30% of that of the United States, China's economy will be 50% higher than that of the United States. If its per capita income reaches 40% of that of the United States, China's economy will be twice as large as that of the United States. Of course, to turn these potential technological possibilities into economic reality, we must rely on reform and opening up, maintain political stability, improve the level of education and industry, and constantly absorb foreign technology and management. Only by doing this can we realize the above expectations. The modernization of China culture is not only the modernization of the economic base, but also the modernization of the superstructure adapted to the modern economic base. What needs further analysis is whether the existing superstructure based on Confucian culture in China, such as ethics and values, will become an obstacle to improving the productivity level, or whether the superstructure in China will be innovated and adjusted accordingly if the productivity level in China can be improved, and become a new internally self-consistent cultural entity? After the May 4th Movement, most scholars attributed China's backwardness to the conservatism and stubbornness of Confucian culture in China. They criticized Confucian culture and thought that the representative of Confucian culture was stubborn, conservative and backward, because what Confucius said was "not full of words" and he did not innovate. This understanding is not comprehensive. Confucius was called "the sage at that time" because the "benevolence" advocated by Confucius would have different forms of expression in different environments and conditions, and his ideas kept pace with the times. His "narration without action" is selective, and he will creatively sort out and interpret the past laws and regulations system according to the needs of the times. Not only Confucius, but also Mencius, the second representative of Confucianism. Mencius inherited Confucius' thought, "Confucius said benevolent government, Mencius said justice." Confucius said, "If you set yourself up, you will achieve greatness" and "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you". Confucius' "benevolence" is the moral concern of "treating others as yourself". Mencius' "righteousness" means "righteousness is appropriate" and "righteousness is the right way for people", which is also the code of conduct that people should follow, although the standard of judgment still lies in people's own hearts. Therefore, Mencius said that "although thousands of people go, I am afraid of it." But compared with Confucius, Mencius' "righteousness" emphasizes people's responsibility to society, and his theory reflects the reality of social chaos at the end of the Warring States Period. Later, Confucian culture continued to develop, and in the Song and Ming Dynasties, the social and economic foundation changed, and it was also impacted by Indian Buddhism. Facing the impact of Indian culture, China's Confucian culture did not shrink back, but digested and carried forward Buddhist thought and expanded the scope of China's Confucian culture. Confucian scholars not only emphasize people's responsibility to society, but also increase the exploration of people's ultimate value. Although the military strength of the Song Dynasty was not strong, the economy reached a new peak. Confucian philosophy in the Song Dynasty was called Neo-Confucianism, and the "Four Books" annotated by the Master of Neo-Confucianism became the standard textbook for the imperial examination, but China's culture did not stop there. "Mind learning" appeared in the Ming Dynasty, and the difference between Neo-Confucianism and Mind learning can be reflected from the different understanding of "learning from things" in the book "University". Zhu believes that "knowing through things" is "materialism", that is, looking for truth behind everything. Wang Yangming, on the other hand, thinks that "understanding things and understanding reason" means "to conscience", that is, to remove the material desire that blinds everyone's conscience and restore everyone's innate conscience. Wang Yangming's "theory of mind" adapted to the requirements of ideological liberation of the emerging bourgeoisie after the germination of capitalism in the middle of Ming Dynasty. Therefore, as a superstructure, Confucian culture has the ability to constantly adjust and innovate with the different times and environments, and it is not as stubborn, conservative and unchangeable as many scholars think. In fact, this can also be proved by the ability of Japanese and Asian "Four Little Dragons" to realize modernization on the basis of Confucian culture.