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Message 31641422
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In the 7th century BC, the Guanzi, an important and political and philosophical text from ancient China, described how profit-seeking merchants study demand and supply on the marketplace, and lay the foundation for an efficient economy through their activities: “Marvellous and fantastic things arrive in timely fashion; rare and unusual goods readily gather. Day and night thus engaged, merchants tutor their sons and brothers, speaking the language of profit, teaching them the virtue of timeliness and training them how to recognise the value of goods.”
Numerous ancient Chinese intellectuals had advanced free market ideas some 2,000 years before Adam Smith. Confucius himself was an advocate of limited taxation. Mencius, the second most influential Confucian philosopher, had advanced theories on why market price setting should be free from government involvement and private property protected.
This ancient Chinese intellectual criticised state taxation of market exchange and advocated the rights of the individual. Lao Zi, the founder of Taoism, had before Mencius laid the foundations of the first known libertarian ideas: advocating personal as well as economic freedom.
Rational self-interest, an idea commonly attributed to 20th century thinker Ayn Rand, isn’t new either.
Chinese historian Ssu-ma Ch’ien explained around 100 BC how individuals who act in their own self-interest are the driving force for wealth creation: “Therefore, farmers provide food, forest guards supply mountain resources, and merchants distribute these goods. The government did not order the collection of the goods. It was done because each person did what he could best and wanted to get what he needed. When the prices are high, that is a sign they will soon become low. Everybody diligently attends to his task and enjoys doing it just as water flows to a lower place. He keeps working days and nights, comes even if he is not called, and supplies goods even if they are not demanded. This stands to reason and is the way it should be.”
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See, ancient wisdom. |
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