That fact was a puzzle. As was true in regard to the sciences, China was far more advanced economically than Western Europe for most of history, yet the country wasn’t able to develop a relatively modern capitalist-style economy until the final two decades of the twentieth century. Why, scholars began to ask, did the Industrial Revolution occur in the West and not the East? And once the wonders of Western capitalism became apparent to the world, why was China unable to effectively adopt it? In the search for answers, Confucius took it on the chin once again. Confucian culture and social systems, the thinking went, were resistant to capitalism and lay at the heart of China’s economic weakness.
This argument was put forward most insistently by German sociologist Max Weber in his treatise The Religions of China, originally published in German (under a different title) in 1915. Weber had already made the case in his most famous work that capitalism had emerged in Western Europe because the Protestant religion possessed the necessary “spirit” to make it happen. After examining Chinese society, Weber concluded that Confucianism lacked a similar character, and that was why capitalism didn’t develop in China. Confucianism, Weber contended, placed too much emphasis on tradition and was too content with the status quo for capitalism to thrive in the societies dominated by it. Rather than encouraging the Chinese to alter the world for the greater good, engage in impartial business relationships, and amass practical, specialized knowledge, Confucianism wrapped the Chinese up in stodgy social conventions and old-fashioned economic practices, preventing modern capitalism from bubbling up in the East.
The reason Confucianism was anti-capitalist, Weber argued, could be found in its view of man’s place in the world. Confucianism, he noted, believed that man had a duty to conform to the prevailing social order by adhering to traditions and a code of behavior handed down from antiquity. The Confucians’ focus on harmony and tranquility led them to accept the existing state of things. As a result, the proper Confucian gentleman was incentivized to uphold tradition instead of seeking and advocating for change. Protestantism pushed Western Europeans to do just the opposite—that is, to alter the imperfect world in accordance with God’s will, which in turn spurred innovation and the capitalist spirit. “Confucian rationalism mean rational adjustment to the world; Puritan rationalism meant rational mastery of the world,” Weber wrote.
What Confucianism lacked, Weber determined, was a vision of the afterlife that compelled the Chinese to break free of tradition and fix a wicked world. Absolved of the fear of sinning against God or eternal damnation, Confucians were concerned merely with the rules of propriety of everyday life. Being a good person had nothing to do with true moral conduct; one could reach perfection simply by abiding by customary patterns of social behavior. “‘I have sinned’ corresponded to our ‘I beg your pardon,’” Weber quipped. With no grander calling from God, the Confucians became obsessed with mundane matters—including (seemingly paradoxically) the acquisition of wealth. “In no other civilized country has material welfare ever been so exalted as the supreme good,” Weber wrote, because Confucians perceived the “value of wealth as a universal means of moral perfection.”
The problem, according to Weber, was that petty penny-seeking destroyed the trust necessary to conduct proper capitalist business transactions. “This distrust handicapped all credit and business operations and contrasted with the Puritan’s trust, especially his economic trust in the absolutely unshakable and religiously determined righteousness of his brother in faith,” Weber wrote. “The Confucian’s word was a beautiful and polite gesture as an end in itself; the Puritan’s word was an impersonal and businesslike communication, short and absolutely reliable.” Making that problem even worse was the Confucian obsession with filial piety. Since Confucians were to favor family and others close to them over everybody else, the fair and impersonal economic transactions necessary for the functioning of modern capitalism were unable to develop.
Weber’s analysis has to be taken with a rather large grain of salt. Perusing Weber, one gets the sense that he examined Confucian traditions with a predetermined derision rather than the open mind fitting for a proper scholar. His notion that Confucianism encouraged greed and moral laxity is only the most obvious misrepresentation of Confucius’s teachings. Nevertheless the idea that Confucianism and capitalism didn’t mix entered the standard explanation for China’s economic failings. Confucianism was blamed for squelching the personal independence necessary for capitalist entrepreneurship and fostering a disdain for merchants—who, after all, were dumped at the bottom of the Confucian occupational order. “The different economic growth of Europe and China is symptomatic of the total cultural difference between them,” historian John King Fairbank and his colleagues wrote.22 The implications for Confucius were clear. Just as Chinese revolutionaries and feminists believed that Confucius was preventing Chinese society from reforming politically and socially, scholars and historians thought Confucianism was stopping China from progressing economically. Confucius was again accused of being incompatible with the modern world.
Pao’s attorneys also said she was excluded from an all-male dinner at the home of Vice President Al Gore; received a book of erotic poetry from a partner; was asked to take notes like a secretary at a meeting; and subjected to talk about pornography aboard a private plane.
Hermle, however, showed the jury emails and text messages that seemed to contradict Pao’s claims that the colleague hounded her into a relationship. In one email from 2006, after the affair began, Pao wrote that she was always looking out for the colleague — “never stopped, never will.”
Jurors were asked to determine whether Kleiner Perkins discriminated against Pao because she is a woman; failed to take reasonable steps to prevent that discrimination; and retaliated against her after she complained about gender bias by failing to promote her and then firing her.
The jury was also tasked with deciding what, if any, money Pao should receive for past and future lost earnings.
In “City of Quartz,” the polemical and fascinating history of Los Angeles that turns 25 this year, Mike Davis devotes a chapter to the influence of what he called the “homegrown revolution.”
Davis outlined three keys to understanding the homeowners’ cabal in the city’s single-family suburbs, which take up nearly 80 percent of the residential land here (vs. 25 percent in New York City and San Francisco).
“Los Angeles homeowners, like the Sicilians in ‘Prizzi’s Honor,’ love their children, but they love their property values more.” I know. The title makes it sounds like a third-grader’s report on her trip to the planetarium. But you know, except for the third-grader part, it was sort of like that.
And I thought you might be interested to hear the story. I mean, who doesn’t like a good orgy story?