Discrimination against businessmen in Chinese idioms

Author: Hao Tiechuan

Source: Originally published in The Rule of Law Daily, January 12, 2022, Jiang Anjie edited the "Law School" edition

In the era of natural economy, people advocated self-sufficiency, so they often cast contemptuous eyes on merchants who became rich through commodity exchange and wealth circulation. This was true both in ancient China and in the European Middle Ages. In his book Fatal Conceit, Hayek argues that contempt for commercial phenomena and aversion to market order have a long history. It is from the moral point of view of the natural economy and society, believing that a person who buys cheaply and sells expensive is essentially dishonest, and the hatred of businessmen is as old as recorded history.

The history of China's natural economy is relatively long, so there are many discriminatory content in Chinese idioms that discriminate against businessmen, such as:

No adultery, no business. Many scholars have pointed out that "no adultery and no business" was originally "no tip and no business", which means that in ancient China, grain banks sold grain rice with liters or buckets, and when merchants sold grain rice, they piled up the liters and buckets every time, indicating that they would benefit the people and try to win repeat customers, which is the origin of "no tip and no business". However, some people feel that peasants are more simple than merchants, and they are easier than merchants to be caught by the government for military service and forced labor, so they discriminate against businessmen and interpret no sharpness and no business as no adultery and no business. A statement that was supposed to reflect the merchant's courtesy evolved into a pejorative one.

Big and small. This idiom is a metaphor for a businessman making a big profit with a small amount of money. In fact, the exchange of commodities is carried out according to the principle of equal exchange, and the merchants profit because of the labor of research, transportation, storage, etc. It is not right to make huge profits, but it is normal to make a certain profit.

Shu Jia sells medicine. It means that businessmen are opportunistic and seek huge profits. From Liu Ji's "Yu Ion" at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. The book records that there were three merchants in Sichuan who were all selling medicines in the market. One of them specializes in high-quality medicinal materials, determines the selling price according to the purchase price, does not falsely declare the price, and does not make more profits. (Among them) a person of high quality or not quality are purchased, and the level of his price only depends on the buyer's needs (degree to determine), and then uses high-quality or defective products to deal with them. (Among them) one person does not enter high-quality products, only asks for more, the price of selling is also cheap, ask for more, do not care. So [people] scrambled to get to him, and the threshold of his shop changed every month. After a year it was very rich. The merchant, who combined high-quality and defective products, went to his place to buy medicine slightly less, and after two years he became rich. The merchant who specializes in high-quality products, the shop at noon is like in the evening, there is food in the morning, and there is not enough dinner. Of the three merchants, two were not good, and one was good, but he was going to starve. This idiom indicates that most businessmen are bad.

Odd wins (similar to idioms as well as hoarding). Describe a merchant hoarding goods for a lucrative profit. From the Western Han Dynasty Chao's "On Gui Su Shu": "And the merchants and the big ones accumulate and double the interest, and the small ones sit in the column and sell, and they win strangely, and they travel to the city." "Although there will be some merchants who hoard, manipulate prices, and make huge profits, under normal circumstances, the principle of commodity exchange is to buy some when the price is cheap, and throw some when the price is high, so that the price can be stabilized, of course, it can also be profitable, but this profit comes from the labor paid by the merchant in the warehouse." Therefore, the hoarding behavior of businessmen cannot be completely denied.

Reverence for the end. "Ben" refers to agriculture, and "end" refers to industry and commerce. From the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Zhi Sima Zhi Biography": "The rule of the king, the worship of the original and the end, the farming of the valley." Similar idioms include "go to the end and return to the book", from the source: "Later Han Shu ZhangDi Benji": "Sincere desire Yuan Yuan (Yuan Yuan refers to the people - the author presses) to go to the end of the return to the book"; "Wu Ben suppresses the end", from the "Book of Han Zheng Hong's biography": "Wu Ben suppresses the end, do not compete with the world for profits, and then educate Ke Xing." ”

There are indeed some profit-seeking and unscrupulous businessmen among the merchants, and it is also right to criticize their immoral behavior. But the idiom of discrimination against merchants in ancient China is often not a criticism of a small number of adulterous merchants, but a contempt for the entire merchant group, and the prejudice of the peasant class against the merchant class. So much so that to this day, a popular sketch show says, "A businessman just hurts you." "There are profound historical reasons for this.

In the past, the author often examined couplets with such content in the countryside: "First-class loyal subjects and filial piety; two things read and farm." For a long time, Chinese sources of wealth were mainly two, namely reading and farming. Owning land and studying Confucian classics were something that people at the time aspired to and were proud of. However, commerce and handicrafts are considered to be "the last industry", and the status of ancient Chinese merchants is generally very low. "Scholars, farmers, industrialists and merchants", the merchants are the last in line. Although some merchants are rich and enemy of the country, there are only two ways to achieve social status: either to buy the money they earn into land, as pointed out in the Western Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian's "History of Cargo Colonization" to "get rich at the end and use their own to keep it"; or to spend money to buy an official and become a "red-top businessman".

In this way, the money and wealth earned by merchants did not circulate in the market, either in the treasury or in the cellars of the rich, and did not play a circulation role. All this shows that China's concept of wealth has always been distorted, and at the first point of saying that it is not benevolent for the rich, no business, no adultery, and ill-gotten wealth; in short, wealth and benevolence, righteousness and profit are opposites. Therefore Chinese has always believed that there is no shortage but unevenness, and no fear of everyone being poor, as long as everyone is even. This erroneous idea was recognized and popularized by the feudal rulers. From the "Book of Shang Jun" and "Han Feizi", we can find three reasons why the ruler reveres the original and suppresses the end: First, the merchants move around and easily evade military service and conscription, while the peasants relocate to the land and are relatively stable laborers; second, the merchants can turn their wealth into gold and silver treasures, carry it with them, and it is not easy to collect taxes from them, while the peasants' land and property cannot be moved away, and it is easy to collect taxes on the surface; third, the merchants go south and north, they are well-informed, the rulers are not easy to fool them, and the peasants are guarding the land. Conformists, rulers are easy to fool them. Therefore, it is no accident that chongben or the end has become a national policy of successive feudal dynasties.

Medieval Christianity in Europe also discriminated against merchants. But in modern times, Protestantism has changed this conception through new ethical interpretations of doctrine. Protestantism believes that God calls on people to work hard to get rich, and then to do charity and social welfare after they are rich. Prosperity not only brings happiness to the individual, but also adds luster to God. In this way, it is glorious for the merchant to become rich. Weber's Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism combs through the ethical changes from medieval Christianity to modern Protestantism, showing how Europe changed its view of commerce and merchants. In addition, Adam Smith, in His Study of the Nature and Causes of National Wealth (The Wealth of Nations), also studied mercantilism in the period of primitive accumulation of capital in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries after the dissolution of feudalism. He tells us that the European Middle Ages only began to value commerce and merchants in the late period.

An important task of modernization is to change the policies and concepts of advocating the basics and suppressing the end, and to replace the natural economy with a market economy. The content of the idiom discriminating against businessmen belongs to the backward social concept. This should be pointed out realistically when teaching these idioms to adolescents.

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