The Influence of Chinese Culture on Economy

Now although the globalization has brought the countries all over the world together to do business and trading, each country has a unique kind of economy that anything else can replace. As we all know, the factors that have influence on economy is numerous, for example the policies, culture, tradition, geography and etc. So the reason why so many unique kinds of economy can exist in harmony at the same time is an intriguing question that many economists and researchers try to find out. The answer is simple as well as complicated, culture. What I find myself in the process of discussion today is culture’s influence on the economy and I will specifically discuss the Chinese culture’s impact on its economy in details.

First and for most, I will talk about the dialectic relations between culture and economy is very necessary. During the long process of society development, we can come to a conclusion that the culture will be the core if the economy and the economy are the basis of culture and have an influence on the economy. On the contrary economy can be the support culture.

As we all know the Chinese history is rather long and its culture is profound. China is now under the age of a large amount of lands and resources. In the ancient days, the culture of China was very developed compared to other countries. Ancestors of Chinese also worshiped the moral virtues, for example, the hard-working and the filial piety. The Chinese were always regarded as the hard-working. We can see it today that some of the top Chinese students are called the super scholar-“model minority myth”

People in China believed in filial piety. They had a strong sense of family and homeland. We can see many poems that expressed the feeling of homesick. They believed that children need to remain with their parents to be reckoned as filial children. There is a saying that: When parents are alive. Children do not travel to distant. (Confucius Chapter 4) That was a direct reason that Chinese people always chose to stay at the place they were created. So the economic status was still the original self-sufficient. This kind of culture caused that the economy of China was the introverted kind. Besides, Chinese believed in honesty and goodness. They considered trading commodities were a disgraceful line of business. The Chinese would rather spend their time to participate in the exam that would help them is a part of the authority. In addition, people in China worshiped the agrarian culture; the self-sufficient economy was like planted in their minds for this culture had passed from generations to generations. They barely had the sense of economy. They relied on the present resources that they could use. Some people planted the crops on the land. Some people fished fishes by the river. Some people are hunted in the mountain. Only few people relied on trading commodities to make a living. I had to mention. Women had a very low status in the society owing to this kind of culture. They had no right to be a part of an organization that had an actual power. They were even thought to be the venerable and weak group China was the men’s society. Even now, women’s salary still can’t keep pace with men. It id written on the website “women may never come for men on average earnings” and. It could be found on the polygamy. Women could not go learn how to learn how to view or write. There was an old saying in China “innocence is the virtue of women” which came from people’s conventional wisdom. There were some practical factors that did not allow them to develop the economy. As for the transportations, they were very inconvenient at that time and the information is rather closed. What’s more, due to the monarchy, the traditional culture of China, the entire country of people only listened to the authority’s order without any right of questioning or speaking. Most of the vital commodities were supervised by the government, which was cited by the earliest monopolies. The businessmen had very low ranking in the society and have a duty to shoulder a heavy tax. On the contrary, the agriculture tax is lighter than the trading tax. As a result, the free economy is rather restrained at that time they were never supported by the culture nor the governmental policy.

During the enlightened society of China, owing to the introverted kind of culture, Chinese people had been late with the rest of the world, including thoughts, skills, technologies and talents. China had the largest number of people and the resources abundant at that time. China was just like a sleeping giant waiting for someone to wake him up. As a consequence, Chinese people suffered from invasions and wars. Numerous campaigns broke out at that time. Countless young people were not pleased with the current situations at that time. So they went abroad to learn new ideas and received higher education and widen their horizons. Knowledge is power. As for now, it’s still a theory. “higher schooling affects the pay” That was a very turbulent period of time in Chinese history which is easy to have fresh ideas coming in. The residual part of the feudal government versus against the new-type of people with advance minds that caused a cultural collusion. The traditional culture was suffering from the crashing of the innovative culture. The theory that men and women are equally came into people’s sight. The women could be examined to receive education. And polygamy was banned. That was very important for a woman to fight for her deserved right. Then the culture began to have vivid change and so did the economy. This can be viewed as the extension and development of ancient Chinese culture. It absorbed the advanced western culture, such as rationalism, science and merged with the Chinese traditional culture which formed into the prevailing culture. This novel kind of culture was something with both the eastern culture’s character and western culture’s personality. And this culture started to have an impact on people’s minds without their notice. Did not know any more when, more and more people abandoned the previous thought about businessmen and started to show respect to the people who worked as businessmen. Of course, the businessmen’s ranking in the society was promoted a lot without feudal governing. The green kind of culture largely stimulated the Chinese people to give up the under-developed thoughts in their minds, like the occlusive thoughts and conservative thoughts which gave Chinese people celebrated courage to recover from their countries to look outside world. More and more people dedicated themselves in the business and industry instead of keeping the traditional agriculture. What’s more, the contemporary culture also encouraged a great deal of people to start their own business. Learn new technologies in order to develop the economy. And that was the first time that capitalism played a part in the Chinese sect io-economy. That can be called as a proud time of Chinese people. Smartness is common, but the courage is.“brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius” (Peter Thiel 5).

Right after the Chinese people stepped out of the wars and resolutions, there came the World War Two. Chinese people again suffered from wars started by their neighbor, Japan. Instead of being obedient to the Japanese’s invasion, Chinese people who had the inventive minds and keen sense of dignity chose to stand up and struggle against the invaders. And the culture was necessary in order to transform again. The culture played an important role in the economy. For starter, the culture came together to combat invaders who once were separated during the turbulent times. It provided the core cohesion for an economy to develop instead of collapsing. And we can do to ensure that time. There was still undeveloped culture left in Chinese people’s minds. Some people chose the safest and most convenient way to make sure that a living during the wars. Women began to take a significant role in the battle field. They were the property of the mission that men could not finish. They were teachers, nurses, businesswomen, doctors and soldiers. They were everywhere in the society. Though they were playing an important role in the society, but the discrimination for women still existed. As for now, it is not that hard to get out. “Female-millionaire claims American women don’t have equal right”

The social ranking began to change dramatically. Farmers and workers consisted most of the population. Unlike the archaic monarchy, this time the power was not in the hands of the minorities; ordinary people had the right to express views on their minds. People began to acquire the idea of democracy and science in their minds. And the farmers and workers became the major power of the society to improve the economy and played an important role in the war against the invaders together with all the other ranks of society. In the mean time, their ideas and thoughts were the vital parts of the new era of culture.

Now after opening up of China, China has started to be one of the fastest developing countries. Despite the fact that suffering from the wars and invasions, Chinese people could not be defeated for its unyielding spirit and culture. Like the fallen giant was recovering from the bitterness and hurt. Learning the lessons of the wars and invasions, the culture of China become improved, neither introverted kind of culture nor the copy of western countries. As the saying goes, “It’s easier to copy a model than to make something different” (preface).

It has formed into a new kind of culture that keeps the sound part of the traditional culture and develops some different characteristics according to its own reality. It has solid cohesion to bring all the 56 peoples together and also it has different meaning to the society strengthening. It grows the economy to a new level. Now the Chinese economy is a lot of diversities and well ordered. We still can see the habitual thought of it. The major part of the economy continues to be the state-owned economy, on the basis of that, we can have different kinds of fiscal parts of it. And we have an obligation to mention that despite the fact that and the culture and the economy are pushing each other to move forward.

After the above analysis, we can safely come to a conclusion that the culture and economy are closely related and affect each other. They are linked and relatively independent of each other. It’s not that consequent that the innovative culture can have the thriving economy. There is possible that the culture is promoted, however, the economy is pretty under-developed. As of today, we can learn from many countries that there is a phenomenon that is called skill gap happened during the development of economy, “This is the “skills gap”—the gulf between the skills job seekers currently have and the skills employers need in order to fill their open positions” So what we need to make is to make the best use of the culture; turn it into a positive power to push the economy to go to the right to thrive.