Confucian marxism : : a reflection on religion and global justice / / by Weigang Chen.

• Superior document: Ideas, history, and modern china ; Volume 6
• Author: Chen, Weigang.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, 2013.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Ideas, history, and modern China ; v. 6.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (362 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Buttressed by an autocratic system, China’s colossal economic growth over the past decades seems to have had the paradoxical effect of undermining the foundation of Western domination but at the same time invigorating Eurocentricism. In particular, it highlights the current relevance of the central conviction of Weber’s Orient: the absence of civic roots in non-Western societies will create a kind of “uncivic” capitalist system in which one has no choice but to seek to compensate for instabilities through authoritarian institutions. Does this mean that the West may alone afford to harmonize political stability with the universalistic ideal of justice as the basic structure of society? If not, how then is it possible to develop a notion of the primacy of social justice that transcends the limits of liberal democracy? This book aims at addressing these timely questions by drawing on “Confucian Marxism”—a distinctive perspective on civil society.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: Religion, Civil Society, and the Challenge of Global Justice -- 1. Religion and the Problem of the “Social” -- 2. Class and Economic Interaction: Historical Materialism as a Theory of Liberal Modernity -- 3. Legitimation versus Theodicy: Weber’s Comparative Religion -- 4. Hegemony and Democracy -- 5. Class Consciousness or Ethical Hegemony? -- 6. The Confucian Turn: New Democracy and Ethical Hegemony -- 7. Communal Cults and World Religions -- 8. God’s Justice on Earth: Sittlichkeit versus the Ethical State -- 9. Public Hegemony and Sectlike Society (Part 1) -- 10. Public Hegemony and Sectlike Society (Part 2) -- Bibliography -- Index.