| dc.description.abstract | The famous writing of the Judgment of Extravagance by Lu Chi (1515-1552), which had pointed out the extravagance of the rich, could create employment for the poor explicitly. Hence Lu Chi deprecated sumptuary regulations and assured extravagance to enrich people. However, on matters pertaining to consumption and standards of living, it is supposed that traditional Chinese thought has been in favor of saving and frugality and against spending and lavishness. We could find the concept in Judgment of Extravagance is tremendously different from general impression that frugality is a good virtue.
However, the existing literatures label such meritocracy, for instance, the Kuan-tzu, Fan Chung-yen and Wei Yuan, who advocate of extravagance as less important philosopher. We are interested in finding out whether the concept of Judgment of Extravagance is really heresy heterodoxy. If it is not influential, it is meaningless even once existed. Nevertheless, it is difficult to evaluate if it is influential from empirical policy directly. We turn to explore the basic logic in the derivation of the advocate of extravagance. And then we proceed in finding out if the basic logic is shared by the other meritocracy and policy makers. Moreover, we will tell if the basic logic is approved even emphasized in the mainstream concept of Confucianism in ancient China.
We also provide a full version of the general attitude in the thrifty and extravagance in order to judge if the Judgment of Extravagance is really heresy heterodoxy. We will analyze and sum up the typical philosophy from Neo-Confucianism viewpoint. For it is highly consistent with the main concept of Confucianism. In other words, it helps us to tell if Confucianism is anti-consumption.
The Fable of Bees by Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) in 1714 is also well-known in the West. It is noticed in literatures that the common idea existed in both the Fable of Bees and the Judgment of Extravagance, that prodigality is a vice that is prejudicial to the man, but not to the trade. That is private vice leads to public benefit. We will further compare the deep-rooted philosophy between the Fable of Bees and the Judgment of Extravagance. Hence we will endeavor to explore the economic philosophy and method of classicalists in the theme of consumption to the wealth of nation from the Physiocrats to Adam Smith by surveying the representative masterpieces (e.g., An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations) among these economists.
Furthermore, For the sake of analysis on the advocate of extravagance in general form, we provide the relevant economic theory (includes mathematical economy) to capture the complete philosophy in consumption. | en_US |