… Apart from [mathematics], everything else [Europeans] do is excessive ingenuity. … So often to play around with things is to bring a myriad burdens on oneself. They have investigated to the utmost such cruel things as firearms. (Chinese scholar Cheng Tingzuo [1691-1767)]
– [The Korean king’s regent who ruled Korea from 1866 to 1873] viewed Japan’s progressive reforms as yet more evidence of how far it had fallen from the way, how little the island people really understood the virtues of [a Chinese] world order. (“Revolution and Its Past…”[2002,Schoppa])
– So often, when financial reward is the main goal, common sense, safety, ethics and decency take flight. (Chris Day)
If government is supposed to be doing anything, don’t we feel that it should be doing all it can to promote prosperity for its citizens? When you consider that politicians these days seem to be anxious to promise to make voters’ dreams come true, wouldn’t an elected official or political hopeful in the West be committing political suicide if he ever gave a speech promising “moderate” prosperity?:
– As capitalism falters, the rich move their money out of the country, violence increases, and politicians promising prosperity are elected. (Robert Kiyosaki)
“Moderate prosperity” is just what the leader of China promised in a recent speech which I feel reflects the thinking of the Neo-Confucian ruling elite from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) onward as to their belief that more important than growth was control. They realized the wisdom of the words of reformer Wang An-Shih of the earlier Song dynasty (960-1279) who said, “The state should take the entire management of commerce, industry and agriculture into its own hands, with a view to succoring the working classes and preventing them from being ground into the dust by the rich.”