Min Shêng as a Socio-Economic Doctrine.

If one were to attempt to define the relations of the min shêng ideology to the various types of Western economic doctrines at present current, certain misapprehensions may be eliminated at the outset. First: Capitalism in its Western form was opposed by Sun Yat-sen; min shêng was to put through the national economic revolution of enrichment through a deliberately-planned industrialization, but in doing so was to prevent China from going through all the painful stages which attended the growth of capitalism in the West. “We want,” said Sun Yat-sen, “a preventive remedy; a remedy which will thwart the accumulation of large private capitals and so preserve future society from the great inconvenience of the inequality between rich and poor.”187 And yet he looked forward to a society which would ultimately be communistic, although never in its strict Marxian sense. [pg 146] “We may say that communism is the ideal of livelihood, and that the doctrine of livelihood is the practical application of communism; such is the difference between the doctrine of Marx and the doctrine of the Kuomintang. In the last analysis, there is no real difference in the principles of the two; where they differ is in method.”188 This is sufficient to show that Sun Yat-sen was not an orthodox Western apologist for capitalism; as a Chinese, it would have been hard for him to be one, for the logically consistent capitalist ideology is one which minimizes all human relationships excepting those individual-contractual ones based on money bargains. The marketing of goods and services in such a way as to disturb the traditional forms of Chinese society would have been repugnant to Sun Yat-sen.

Second: if Sun Yat-sen's min shêng ideology cannot be associated with capitalism, it can as little be affiliated with Marxism or the single-tax. What, then, in relation to Western socio-economic thought, is it? We have seen that the state it proposed was liberal-protective, and that the society from which it was derived and to which it was to lead back was one of extreme laissez-faire, bordering almost on anarchism. These political features are enough to distinguish it from the Western varieties of socialism, anarchism and syndicalism, since the ingredients of these ideologies of the West and that of Sun Yat-sen, while coincident on some points, cannot be fitted together.

Superficially, there is a certain resemblance between the ideology of the San Min Chu I and that of Fascism. The resemblances may be found in the emphasis on the nation, the rejection of the class war and of Marxism, the upholding of tradition, and the inclusion of a doctrine of intellectual inequality. But Sun Yat-sen seeks to reconcile [pg 147] all this with democracy in a form even more republican than that of the United States. The scheme of min ch'üan, with its election, recall, initiative and referendum, and with its definite demands of intellectual freedom, is in contradiction to the teachings of Fascism. His condemnation of Caesarism is unequivocal: “Therefore, if the Chinese Revolution has not until now been crowned with success, it is because the ambitions for the throne have not been completely rooted out nor suppressed altogether.”189 With these fundamental and irreconcilable distinctions, it is hard to find any possibility of agreement between the San Min Chu I and the Fascist ideologies, although the transitional program of the San Min Chu I—in its advocacy of provisional party dictatorship, etc.—has something in common with Fascism as well as with Communism as applied in the Soviet Union.

A recent well-received work on modern political thought describes a category of Western thinkers whose ideas are much in accord with those contained in the min shêng ideology.190 Professor Francis W. Coker of Yale, after reviewing the leading types of socialist and liberal thought, describes a group who might be called “empirical collectivists.” The men to whom he applies this term reject socialist doctrines of economic determinism, labor-created value, and class war. They oppose, on the other hand, the making of a fetish of private ownership, and recognize that the vast mass of ordinary men in modern society do not always receive their just share of the produce of industry. They offer no single panacea for all economic troubles, and lay down no absolute and unchallengeable dogma concerning the rightness or wrongness of public or private ownership.191 Professor Coker [pg 148] outlines their general point of view by examining their ideas with reference to several conspicuous economic problems of the present day: public ownership; labor legislation; regulation of prices; taxation; and land policies.192

According to Coker, the empirical collectivist is not willing to forgo the profit motive except where necessary. He is anxious to see a great part of the ruthlessness of private competition eliminated, and capital generally subjected to a regulation which will prevent its use as an instrument of harm to the community as a whole. While not committed to public ownership of large enterprises as a matter of theory, he has little objection to the governmental operation of those which could, as a matter of practical expediency, be managed by the state on a nonprofit basis.

Sun Yat-sen's position greatly resembles this, with respect to his more immediate objectives. Speaking of public utilities, he said to Judge Linebarger: “There are so many public utilities needed in China at the present time, that the government can't monopolize all of them for the advantage of the masses. Moreover, public utilities involve risks which a government cannot afford to take. Although the risks are comparatively small in single cases, the entire aggregate of such risks, if assumed by the government, would be of crushing proportions. Private initiative and capital can best perform the public utility development of China. We should, however, be very careful to limit the control of these public utilities enterprises, while at the same time encouraging private development as much as possible.”193 Sun had, however, already spoken of nationalization: “I think that when I hold power [pg 149] again, we should institute a nationalization program through a cautious and experimental evolution of (1) public utilities; (2) public domains; (3) industrial combines, syndicates, and cartels; (4) coöperative department stores and other merchandising agencies.”194 It must be remembered that there were two considerations back of anything that Sun Yat-sen said concerning national ownership: first, China had already ventured into broad national ownership of communications and transport, even though these were in bad condition and heavily indebted; second, there was no question of expropriation of capital, but rather the free alternative of public and private industry. An incidental problem that arises in connection with the joint development of the country by public and by private capital is the use of foreign capital. Sun Yat-sen was opposed to imperialism, but he did not believe that the use of foreign capital at fair rates of interest constituted submission to imperialism. He said, in Canton, “ ... we shall certainly have to borrow foreign capital in order to develop means of communication and transportation, and we cannot do otherwise than have recourse to those foreigners who are men of knowledge and of experience to manage these industries.”195 It may thus be said that Sun Yat-sen had no fixed prejudice against private capital or against foreign capital, when properly and justly regulated, although in general he favored the ownership of large enterprises by the state.

Second—to follow again Professor Coker—the Western empirical collectivists favor labor legislation, and government intervention for the protection of the living standards of the working classes. This, while it did not figure [pg 150] conspicuously in the theories of Sun Yat-sen,196 was a striking feature of all his practical programs.197 In his address to Chinese labor, on the international Labor Day, 1924, he urged that Chinese labor organize in order to fight for its own cause and that of national liberation. It had nothing to fear from Chinese capitalism, but everything from foreign imperialistic capitalism.198 Sun did not make a special hero class out of the workers; he did, however, advocate their organization for the purpose of getting their just share of the national wealth, and for resistance to the West and Japan.

Third, the empirical collectivist tends to advocate price-control by the state, if not over the whole range of commodities, at least in certain designated fields. Sun was, has been stated, in favor of the regulation of capital at all points, and of public ownership in some. This naturally implies an approval of price-control. He more specifically objected to undue profits by middlemen, when, in discussing salesmen, he said: “Under ideal conditions, society does not need salesmen or any inducement to buy. If a thing is good, and the price reasonable, it should sell itself on its own merits without any salesmanship. This vast army of middlemen should hence be made to remember that they should expect no more from the nonproductive calling in which they are engaged than any other citizen obtains through harder labor.”199 In this, too, [pg 151] min shêng coincides with empirical collectivism; the coincidence is made easy by the relative vagueness of the latter.

Fourth, in the words of Mr. Coker, “many collectivists look upon taxation as a rational and practical means for reducing extreme differences in wealth and for achieving other desired economic changes.”200 Sun Yat-sen agrees with this definitely; his land policy is one based upon taxation and confiscation of the amount of the unearned increment (which, not involving the confiscation of the land itself, is perhaps also taxation), and proposes to apply taxes extensively. Quite apart from the question of distributive justice, a heavy tax burden would be necessary in a country which was being rigorously developed.

Fifth, empirical collectivists believe in land control, not only in the cities, but in the open country as well, as a matter of agrarian reform. We have seen that the land figured extensively in the ideology of min shêng, and shall observe that Sun Yat-sen, in his plans for min shêng, stressed the importance of proper control of land.

In summing up the theory of distributive justice which forms a third part of the principle of min shêng, one may say that, as far as any comparison between a Chinese and a Western idea is valid, the positive social-revolutionary content of min shêng coincides with the doctrines of that group of Western politico-economic writers whom Coker calls empirical collectivists. The correspondence between the two may not be a mere coincidence of names, for in considering Sun Yat-sen's min shêng, one is struck by the empirical, almost opportunistic, nature of the [pg 152] theory. A great part of the activity of the Chinese, whether material or intellectual, has been characterized by a sort of opportunism; not necessarily an opportunism of insincerity, it may be more aptly described as a tendency to seek the golden mean, the reasonable in any situation. It is this habit of compromise with circumstance, this bland and happy disregard of absolutes in theory, which has preserved—with rare exceptions—the Chinese social mind from the torment of any really bitter and profound religious conflict, and which may, in these troubled times, keep even the most irreconcilable enemies from becoming insane with intolerance. This fashion of muddling through, of adhering to certain traditional general rules of reasonableness, while rendering lip-service to the doctrines of the moment, has been the despair of many Western students of China, who, embittered at the end, accuse the Chinese of complete insincerity. They do not realize that it is the moderateness of the Confucian ideology, the humane and conciliatory outlook that centuries of cramped civilized life have given the Chinese, that is the basis of this, and that this indisposition to adopt hard and fast systems has been one of the ameliorating influences in the present period of serious intellectual antagonisms. Generalizations concerning China are rarely worth much. It may be, however, that the doctrine of min shêng, with respect to its positive socio-economic content, may appear vague to the Western student, and that he may surmise it to be a mere cloak for demagogues. It could easily do that in the West, or in the hands of insincere and unscrupulous leaders. In China, however, it need not necessarily have been formulated more positively than it was, because, as we have seen, the intellectual temper of the Chinese makes any strict adherence to a schedule or a plan impossible. It is easy, always, to render the courtesies; it is hard to follow the specific content. Sun Yat-sen apparently [pg 153] realized this, and wished to leave a general body of doctrine which could be followed and which would not be likely to be violated. In any case, the theses of min shêng, both ideologically and programmatically, can scarcely be contrasted with the detailed schedules of social revolution to be found in the West.

Sun Yat-sen's frequent expressions of sympathy with communism and socialism, and his occasional identification of the large principles of min shêng with them, are an indication of his desire for ultimate collectivism. (It may be remarked, in passing, that Sun Yat-sen used the word collectivist in a much more rigid sense than that employed by Coker.) His concessions to the economic situation of his time, the pragmatic, practical method in which he conceived and advocated his plans, are a manifestation of the empirical element in his collectivism.

Ming shêng cannot, however, be thought of as another Western doctrine for national economic strength, national economic reconstitution, and national distributive justice; it is also a program for the improvement of the morale of the people.

How is the min shêng doctrine to fit in with the essentially conservative spirit of the nationalist ideology? If, as Sun proposed, the new ideology is to be compounded of the old morality, the old knowledge, and modern physical science, how is min shêng, referring to social as well as material programs, to be developed in harmony with the old knowledge? In the terminology of ultramodern Western political science, the ethical, the moral, and the emotional are likely to appear as words of derision. In a milieu characterized by the curiously warmblooded social outlook of the Confucians, such terms are still relevant to reality, still significant in the lives of men. The sentimental is intangible in politics; for that reason it is hard to fit into contemporary thought, but [pg 154] though it cannot be measured and fully understood, its potency cannot be disregarded; and for Sun Yat-sen it was of the utmost importance.