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| The Historical Development of the Prejudice against Commerce in the West and Its Comparison with China |
| DING Tao,XIA Chunyu |
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Abstract The philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome thought that commerce added little value and was essentially non-productive. Their prejudice against commerce has deep influence upon the western society. The desire for commercial profits was considered evil from the view of religious theology in the Medieval Western Europe. And the commercial vocations were taken by those foreigners with low status and those tramps who had no land. However, in the Medieval Age, the loose structure of the western society offered great chance for commercial development. The prosperity of commercial economy promoted the disintegration of the feudal system and the emergence of nation-states, leading to the time of mercantilism. In mercantile ages, though foreign merchants were respected, those middlemen doing domestic trade were disdained, because commerce was depicted as a “zero sum” game. After the mercantilism, the prejudice against commerce was gradually overcome, but commerce was not chosen as an important subject in the western tradition of economy study. Comparing with west Europe, the prejudice against commerce in China was much more inveterate, because the stratified feudal hierarchy didn’t leave enough space for commercial development. There never emerged powerful merchant class in China, because of the culture of disdaining commodity economy and the policy of restraining commerce.
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Received: 24 April 2013
Published: 15 July 2013
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Corresponding Authors:
DING Tao
E-mail: yihuaoo@yahoo.com.cn
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2013, Vol. 
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