April 30th, the Sixth UCERC Saloon was held in Beijing at the office of Unirule Institute of Economics. The theme of this saloon was “Belief and Entrepreneurship”. This saloon was jointly held by Unirule China Entrepreneur Research Center (UCERC) and Unirule Culture and Institution Research Center. This saloon was gracefully joined by independent scholar Professor ZHAO Xiao; Professor LIU Peng from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Professor CHEN Haowu from Peking University; Professor YAN Kewen from Shandong University; Professor ZHAO Nong from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Director of Unirule Culture and Institution Research Center; and independent scholar and columnist Mr. SU Xiaohe. Professor FENG Xingyuan, Director of UCERC hosted this saloon. The six guest speakers gave a 30-minute speech separately. Around 40 participants from business circles were present.
Dr. ZHAO Xiao first recognized the significance of Unirule World Civilization Tour to Israel as a worthwhile explore. Then he talked on belief and entrepreneurship in terms of business ethics, natural law, traditions, civilization, market principles, and businessmen’s beliefs. He said that “Firstly, economists first and foremost concentrate on human behavior and choices which are based on institution. And institution is backed by culture. Our culture is tolerant and encompassing. Chinese business culture lacks public involvement and focuses too much on ‘business is business’; secondly, there is a lack of natural law and belief in Chinese business ethics which is showcased by the fact that there is no innovation based on revelation from God. As a result, Chinese businessmen find it hard to break away from ‘fat swine destiny’ and a stereotype of being sly.” He also thought that western business ethics stemmed from Protestants who formed a strong sense of responsibility to God and a motivation to innovate based on beliefs, which further nurtured a unique sense of public concern. Meanwhile, there was no functioning belief, but the belief in natural law survived. Therefore, it was necessary to motivate Chinese traditional beliefs in the natural law by adopting Christian beliefs, to develop our business ethics by combining the traditional belief in natural law and the Christian beliefs.
Independent scholar Mr. SU Xiaohe talked on “Adam Smith’s Proposition on Ethics and Its Hidden Relation to Calvinism”. He mentioned that “Adam Smith nurtured a sense of ‘unbiased spectator’ in terms of ethics. In his framework of ethical philosophy, this unbiased spectator is God. In a country where there is a belief in God, a state of life with morality and self-discipline is common. On the contrary, in a godless country, all moral discourse is no more than moral disputes between people, which leads to hypocrisy and vanity.”
Professor LIU Peng talked on “Religious Ethics and Capitalism”. He pointed out that “Capitalism is the best patter for the development of human society and human life. It creates the biggest economic achievements and the biggest civilization. And the rooting reason for that is the Christian belief and the legal system built on it. Christianity gives capitalism a positive set of values and establishes it on the moral high ground. A law system based on Christianity guarantees the future of capitalism.” Professor CHEN Haowu, initiator of the Shimenkan project told a story about the spread of Christianity in Shimenkan, the invention of local language, and the translation of the Bible. He also shared stories about the conversion to Christianity of the locals, and how they obtained culture, ethics, and a pursuit of civilization and freedom, which served as a proof of the power of belief. He said that “Our society will not really go through changes, nor does the living standard of our people improve until we obtain a spiritual belief and uphold culture and civilization. The relation between Shimenkan and religion is, in a way, a demonstration of spirituality, or a sense of the Way which we are seeking for.” Professor YAN Kewen talked on “Protestant Ethics and Rationalization”. He thought religions like Christianity was a systematic belief system. The essence of beliefs was to guarantee the utmost identification of its followers’ values, which is demonstrated on the rationalized system of principles. Modernity stressed, in fact, multivariate rationality which in itself a system of principles. He thought this multivariate rationality could lead to cage where nobody could get out. Therefore, there was no need to worry about the lack of an advanced religion since the critical requirement of modernity is rationalized system of principles.
