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Original Sin of Chinese Capitalism
Written by Alice Poon (潘慧嫻)
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
In a 2007 post, I shared my own observation on the irony of capitalism.
If anything, the 2008 global financial debacle would seem to testify to a grain
of truth in the ironic and disastrous outcome of American capitalism. But
capitalism with Chinese characteristics (not in the specific sense of Yasheng
Huang’s book) – in reality just a Western economic concept that has been
grafted onto Chinese soil - appears to be even more egregious, owing probably
to its putrid fusion with a deeply implanted class-discriminating and serf
mind-set in the Chinese culture.
Thousands of years of hereditary Chinese imperialism, with all its
emperor-subject, master-servant, male-female and senior-junior class
discrimination trappings, have endowed the Chinese race with an innate
iniquitous mentality. Lu Xun (魯迅), the liberal thinker and writer, once quoted
an ancient saying (“左傳”昭公七年) in one of his articles to illustrate this lasting
social phenomenon, “There are ten suns in the sky, as there are ten classes in
human society.” (“天有十日, 人有十等”).That is why, he said, it was natural for the
royalty to discriminate against the plebeian (貴賤), the big to bully the small
(大小), the upper class to tread on the lower (上下). Everyone was born into a
certain class and had to submit to his/her fate with no room for resistance.
The more powerful had the natural right to treat the less powerful like dirt,
one class trampling on another, in descending order, ending with women and
children as the lowest. He even likened the so-called Chinese civilization to a
big feast of human flesh arranged for the exclusive enjoyment of the powerful
and wealthy. Each serf, numbed by his own suffering, was callous to the pain of
others. As well, being sustained by the hope of eventually having the chance to
enslave and devour another in a lower class for self-benefit, he was prone to
forget his own miserable destiny of servitude and being devoured.
Lu said in the article that he would feel heartily thankful if a
foreigner visiting China would grimace in disgust of what was happening in the
country rather than heap empty praises about the Chinese culture, as then he
could be certain that the foreigner was at least not interested in eating
Chinese human flesh.
Emperors in ancient times, starting with demagogue Liu Bang in the Han
dynasty, were astute to utilize partial teachings of Confucius – the concepts
of loyalty and filial piety in the officialdom and family hierarchy – to
restrict social behavior so that the common people could be rendered submissive
and incapable of independent critical thinking, while using cruel penalties to
repress or threaten dissidents. Thus, Confucianism was distorted purposely by
emperors (with the part about benevolent governance and people as the prior
concern of rulers entirely wiped out) to suit authoritarian rule and further
entrench class discrimination and servitude in the social code. It’s no
coincidence that the current authoritarian regime is so eager to promote
Confucianism as a means to controlling the thoughts of the nation, but I
digress.
With servile attitude towards the strong and powerful being a given,
along with the vengeful desire to bully the weaker to placate the bruised ego,
many Chinese, especially Mainland Chinese who have not been sufficiently
exposed to Western education, may instinctively find the universal values of
equality, liberty and fraternity rather unnatural and even alien. Against such
a background, Western Capitalism, which condones selfishness and wanton greed
in the individual with no restraint, when coupled with the nation’s pervasive
depravity and innate class-discriminating and serf mentality, can therefore
easily be transformed into brutal, corrupt and predatory Cannibalism when
practiced on Chinese soil, where, since the Cultural Revolution, money and
power trumps human dignity, morality and compassion.
Even in relatively Western-educated Hong Kong society, capitalism with
Chinese characteristics has been at play to create a cannibalistic property
oligarchy to the detriment of the whole society. The recent labor-capital
dispute at the container terminals yet provides a fresh sample.
Lu Xun made a lacerating remark in his article: that the Chinese people
had never, even up to his times, attained the qualities of a human being, at
best only those of a serf, and the vicious cycle of serfs begetting more serfs
couldn’t seem to stop.
But our Hong Kong container terminal laborers are obviously on the way to
breaking this vicious cycle by daring to demand to be accorded a little bit of
human dignity
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