Original Sin of Chinese Capitalism
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.