The Religious Ethic and Mercantile Spirit in Early Modern China / / Ying-shih Yü.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Yü, Ying-shih,
• MitwirkendeR: Kwong, Yim-tze,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2021]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Why did modern capitalism not arise in late imperial China? One famous answer comes from Max Weber, whose The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism gave a canonical analysis of religious and cultural factors in early modern European economic development. In The Religions of China, Weber contended that China lacked the crucial religious impetus to capitalist growth that Protestantism gave Europe.The preeminent historian Ying-shih Yü offers a magisterial examination of religious and cultural influences in the development of China’s early modern economy, both complement and counterpoint to Weber’s inquiry. The Religious Ethic and Mercantile Spirit in Early Modern China investigates how evolving forms of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism created and promulgated their own concepts of the work ethic from the late seventh century into the Qing dynasty. The book traces how religious leaders developed the spiritual significance of labor and how merchants adopted this religious work ethic, raising their status in Chinese society. However, Yü argues, China’s early modern mercantile spirit was restricted by the imperial bureaucratic priority on social order. He challenges Marxists who championed China’s “sprouts of capitalism” during the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries as well as other modern scholars who credit Confucianism with producing dramatic economic growth in East Asian countries. Yü rejects the premise that China needed an early capitalist stage of development; moreover, the East Asian capitalism that flourished in the later half of the twentieth century was essentially part of the spread of global capitalism.Now available in English translation, this landmark work has been greatly influential among scholars in East Asia since its publication in Chinese in 1987.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- EDITORIAL NOTE -- EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION -- INTRODUCTION -- PART I THE INNER- WORLDLY REORIENTATION OF CHINESE RELIGIONS -- 1. New Chan (Japanese pronunciation, Zen) Buddhism -- 2. New Religious Daoism -- PART II NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CONFUCIAN ETHIC -- 3. The Rise of New Confucianism and the Influence of Chan Buddhism -- 4. Establishing the “World of Heaven’s Principles”: The “Other World” of New Confucianism -- 5. “Seriousness Pervading Activity and Tranquility”: The Spiritual Temper of Inner- Worldly Engagement 77 -- 6. “Regarding the World as One’s Responsibility”: The Inner- Worldly Asceticism of New Confucianism -- 7. Similarities and Differences Between Zhu Xi and Lu Xiangshan: The Social Significance of the Division in New Confucianism -- PART III THE SPIRITUAL CONFIGURATION OF CHINESE MERCHANTS -- 8. Ming and Qing Confucians’ View of “Securing a Livelihood” -- 9. A New Theory of the Four Categories of People: Changes in the Relationship Between Scholars and Merchant -- 10. Merchants and Confucian Learning -- 11. The Mercantile Ethic -- 12. “The Way of Business” -- CONCLUSION -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index