However, in order to cater to the political attempts of emperors, the so-called successors of Confucius thought deliberately misinterpreted Confucius' original intention, reduced the status of businessmen to the edge of society, and turned the ranking of scholars, farmers, workers and businessmen into social knowledge.
Businessmen "live on their knees" because the political ecology presupposes two original sins: one is not to be dishonest, not to be business, and not to meet the moral requirements; Second, businessmen have boundless selfish desires, which is not conducive to social stability.
In the process of satisfying selfish desires, businessmen will gradually realize the importance of individual private rights, and the opportunity to protect private rights will bring about actions of safeguarding rights and decentralization, which is contradictory to the public power, centralization and monopoly supremacy of rulers.
When a business owner is still worried about eating, you ask him what entrepreneurship is, and his answer is estimated to be: it is a flashy thing. If you want to know what entrepreneurship is, I'm afraid you have to knock on the door of Jobs' home in heaven and ask him humbly. Jobs once said that he lived to change the world. The world really changed because of his spirit, spirit, spirit. Is this entrepreneurship?
There is a line in the movie "Let Bullets Fly", which reflects the living conditions of entrepreneurs today. Xue Manzi, an investor, also said that businessmen in China "are basically on their knees now". An entrepreneur friend once said with some concern that local officials are always hungry, hungry, hungry and hungry for his growing enterprise. If the officials are not satisfied, this friend may go bankrupt at any time. To this end, a friend's lover entered the church and sought God's protection. Entrepreneurs are in such an unsafe political ecology. Can God save them?
Looking back at the history of China, we can see that the most important figures in the whole political ecology are looking at businessmen doing business with condescending eyes, which makes them shudder.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period more than 2,000 years ago, although the society was divided, the thought of a hundred schools of thought contended was free, and there was no unified theory to restrain people's spiritual pursuit. Therefore, doing business is a very common thing. Zi Gong, a disciple of Confucius, is a man who does a good job in business. Confucius, as a mentor, on the one hand, was happy that Zigong had the ability to do business, on the other hand, he put forward high moral requirements for him: wealth and courtesy, wealth and harmony. In layman's terms, the first edition of China's history explains entrepreneurship in a rich, polite and appropriate way.
In the eyes of Confucius, "a gentleman loves money and takes it wisely" is understandable. Later generations, the so-called successors of Confucius thought deliberately misinterpreted Confucius' original intention in order to cater to the political attempts of the royal family, relegated the status of businessmen to the edge of society, and the ranking of scholars, farmers and businessmen became social knowledge. Scholar, study, take part in the imperial examination, and then be an official is the first choice; Farming, farming, working at sunrise, resting at sunset, living in the countryside is the second choice; Industry, processing, smelting and inventing small-scale production technology in daily life are the third choice; Business, business, business, adjusting the surplus and deficiency of small days is the fourth choice. Over time, even a master of Neo-Confucianism like Zhu despises businessmen. He once said that the role of businessmen is to eat and dress, and anything else is harmful. In this situation, businessmen can only be small businessmen, can only do small business, and can only "kneel" to survive.
Businessmen "live on their knees" because political ecology presupposes two original sins: First, they do not commit adultery, do not engage in business, and do not meet moral requirements. Under the guidance of Confucianism, the "discrimination between righteousness and benefit" for more than two thousand years has evolved into "righteousness comes first, benefit is righteousness", as Dong Zhongshu said, "being headstrong is not for its own benefit, knowing its actions is not for its merits", and Zhu said, "regardless of interests, only look at right and wrong" and "regardless of interests, only look at nature". Confucianism raised the moral value position of "righteousness", thus belittling the proper position of "benefit". This kind of praise and criticism is further distorted in the process of secularization, so that the hat of "forgetting profit for profit" is buckled on the head of businessmen. With such negative social authentication, businessmen must seek a way to survive. One of the contingencies is to put on the hat of "Confucian businessman" or "red-topped businessman" to offset the negative impact. Hu Xueyan and Sheng Xuanhuai in the late Qing Dynasty, as well as merchants from Huizhou, Shanxi, Huai and Fujian are typical examples.
Second, businessmen have boundless selfish desires, which is not conducive to social stability. Since the Qin and Han dynasties, the unified centralization has established a hierarchical system serving autocratic kings, with the principle of building a country through agriculture becoming the mainstream and everyone becoming an ideal social model. Therefore, in order to make a living, businessmen are framed to do business in a very narrow circle. As Xunzi said, "There is a world above, a country below, and a field below, and I am willing to feed its people." But businessmen are always not satisfied with the status quo, not satisfied with food and clothing, and their sense of smell is always very sensitive. They buy cheap and sell expensive, and use the east and the west. With the help of land and water transportation, they can always make a certain profit and occupy a certain wealth position, thus forming a unique lifestyle of the merchant class. In the ruler's view, if this lifestyle of businessmen is imitated by many people, then there will be no race in the farmland, the etiquette order and hierarchical order of the whole society will be chaotic, and the society will not be stable. From this, we can see a contradiction: in the process of satisfying selfish desires, businessmen will gradually realize the importance of individual private rights, and the opportunity to protect private rights will bring about actions of safeguarding rights and separating powers, which is contradictory to the supremacy of public rights, centralization and exclusive rights of rulers. Therefore, businessmen who are "as rich as an enemy" either "hide in the city" or buy officials with money and bribe officials with money, so as not to be eradicated by the rulers in the name of maintaining stability.
Although the political status of businessmen has been improved, as a scholar, it is always difficult to compare with the "scholar" class. /kloc-in the 6th century, China's commercial economy was unprecedentedly active. The thinker Wang Yangming also affirmed the status and value of businessmen for the first time and wrote a tomb for a businessman named Fang Lin. /kloc-in the 0/7th century, the merchant class began to worship Bai Gui, Zi Gong and Tao Zhu (Fan Li), and the merchant himself began a journey of seeking roots in history. In the 9th century, Shen Yao, an official of the Qing Dynasty, also called businessmen heroes in his articles. At the beginning of the 20th century, many industrialists in the Republic of China began their difficult experiences in the China War. The best evaluation of the role of businessmen in these periods is "the soul of scholars, for businessmen." Even though the soul of a businessman is no different from that of a scholar, a businessman is still a businessman and cannot enjoy the treatment of a scholar. It can be seen that the status of Chinese businessmen under the traditional political ecology is incomparable to that of scholars.
Although the status of businessmen has improved, they have been put in the cold as soon as they encounter a harsh political atmosphere. The upgraded version of the above two original sins later appeared in the socialist "Cultural Revolution" period. Instigated by the illusory ideology, the inhuman class struggle has degraded businessmen to the point where they can't see more. Doing business, having money and being rich have become a very shameful and hateful thing. At this time, businessmen don't even have the possibility of kneeling for survival, let alone spiritual pursuit.
Under the shadow of these two original sins, it is impossible for China businessmen to have a spiritual quality with independent personality. 1992, after China decided to implement the market economy system, China society paid more attention to businessmen, who were renamed as "business owners" and "entrepreneurs", and their fate ushered in a better period. But true entrepreneurship is still a scarce product in China today, because there are still too many stumbling blocks in the political ecology. Therefore, entrepreneurs have to live on their knees or semi-knees.
For example, too many administrative regulations force entrepreneurs not to invest in the real economy, but to speculate and gamble, wandering in the property market, stock market, futures and other markets. Shi Yuzhu, chairman of Giant Network, sarcastically said: "One reason why entrepreneurs are unwilling to invest in the real economy is that China has the largest administrative regulations in the world. In the last physical project, dozens of official seals have to be stamped, and thousands of' prohibitions' and hundreds of' penalties' have to be faced. If the law is strictly enforced, all entity entrepreneurs will spend the New Year in prison. If you can't catch all of them, there will be selective law enforcement. Last year (20 1 1), the penalty for speculation was abolished, and half of private capital could be fined as fiscal revenue. I'm glad I retired. " Can entrepreneurs who don't do the real economy have a good home? Is the entrepreneurial spirit keen on the speculative industry a perverted spiritual pursuit?
For another example, the monopoly of the financial industry makes small and medium-sized enterprises live like years, and some entrepreneurial grassroots either dance on the knife edge, challenge the flexibility of laws and regulations, or endure the great risk of usury. The heated "Wu Ying case" shows that monopoly industries are harmful to people. In addition, the increasing rent-seeking behavior of some government officials also scares entrepreneurs, and the days are like years.
Where is the spring of entrepreneurship?
Today's world is flat and should be based on individuals. When mark zuckerberg, an American, wanted to spread the news of Facebook's listing to China, the Weibo operation in China was only trying real-name registration system, and it was still unknown when it could be linked to Facebook. Zuckerberg's success, like his predecessors Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page and sergey brin, is the practitioner of American personal-oriented entrepreneurial dream. Driven by internet technology, the whole world has entered the era of individual standard, and the era of individual awakening has arrived, and the political ecology of collective standard will eventually be eliminated. Entrepreneurs in the real individual-oriented political ecology can earn money standing, not kneeling or half kneeling. On this basis, entrepreneurs can cultivate character and spirit.
An individual is an entrepreneur if he can deeply realize his rights and potential and insist on exerting it. If he can manage himself well and release values such as freedom, equality, fraternity, democracy, rule of law, innovation and transcendence, then he has a scarce entrepreneurial spirit, which not only equips his body and mind, but also illuminates the world.