The Economic Ethics Of Jin Businessmen And Its Enlightenment To Contemporary Economic Activities

Created numerous business miracles, Jin businessmen have made a remarkable history of 500 years in business world. During a long period of development, they have inherited ethnical principles and accumulated substantial experience of business operations which form the Jin businessmen economic ethics culture on the basis of good faith. A research on the economic ethics of Jin businessmen is of great significance to enrich and complete the research of Jin businessmen as a whole and enlarge research space of Marxism economic ethics.The economic ethics of Jin businessmen refers to the ethnical principles and behavioral norms of businessmen in Shanxi province during Ming and Qing dynasty which had been gradually formed in practice of coordinating various kinds of interest relations and perfecting life. Its essence is to clarify dos and don'ts in business operations. The core content of the economic ethics of Jin businessmen include 4 viewpoints: the good faith viewpoint honor honesty and credibility; the righteousness viewpoint focuses on the relations between righteousness and interest; the responsibility viewpoint pays attention to loving homeland and people and be self-disciplined; the harmony viewpoint stresses being modest and helping each other. With substantial theories, distinguishing values and detailed business norms, the economic ethics of Jin businessmen effectively coordinated the interest relations in business operations and enhanced the professional ethics and morals. As a business moral system with traditional Chinese ethics and Shanxi local characteristics, economical ethics of Jin businessmen revealed the law in business practice and played an irreplaceable role in the rise and flush of Jin businessmen.Although born in a traditional social background, the economic ethics of Jin businessmen has certain historical limitations due to its ethnical principals and basic requirements do, to some extend, apply to contemporary economic activities. In building socialist market economy, some negative social phenomena frequently occurred including a lack of credibility and honesty and as a result of it, corporate credit crisis and survival crisis. To inherit and carry forward the brilliant ideological achievements of the economic ethics of Jin businessmen have an active and practical impact on building up the economic ethics required in contemporary economic development.Based on the principals of historical materialists and adopted the method of Analyzing and synthesizing, induction and deduction, logic in line with history, this paper paid great attention to historical documents. The research covers aspects as follows: the historical development, the core content and the enlightenment of the economicethics of Jin businessmen, aiming at an overall analysis and a basicsystem of the economic ethics of Jin businessmen. Compared with Marxism economic ethics, the writer expects a discovery of the economic ethics of Jin businessmen in contemporary society and if possible, a helpful reference to building economy in a better and fasterway.