Zhejiang culture

Zhejiang Traditional Culture and the Formation of "Zhejiang Model"

Xinhuanet Zhejiang Channel165438+1October 23rd (Zhejiang Economic Journal/Zhang) In modern society, the reason why regional traditional culture is important to economic development is because the requirements of modern industrial society and traditional agricultural economy for human resources are essentially different. Generally speaking, the traditional small-scale peasant economy requires farmers who work at sunrise and rest at sunset, as long as they abide by the rules; However, modern industrial society needs innovative human capital and entrepreneurs. Without the sense of innovation, it is impossible to gain a foothold in the fiercely competitive market society. The practical experience of world modernization also shows that modern economic growth or industrialization cannot be separated from the renewal of people's ideas or the modernization of people. Economist Inge once pointed out sharply: "Today, no country can successfully change from a backward country to a modern country with its own sustainable development ability, if its citizens do not experience such a psychological and personality change to modernity, but only rely on foreign aid, advanced technology and the introduction of democratic system."

In modern society, the path that traditional culture affects economic development is that the role of traditional culture in industrialization is mainly realized by influencing people's ideas. Traditional culture exerts a subtle influence on people living in this area through its long-term accumulated ideas, thus shaping people with different cultural endowments. These people with different cultural endowments have different adaptability to modern economy, which determines the different economic choices in different regions, and then determines the trend of regional economic development.

First, the spiritual essence of Zhejiang traditional culture and its compatibility with modern economy.

According to the author's point of view, from the perspective of human geography, China culture can be divided into two parts: "Central Plains traditional agricultural cultural area" and "Southeast utilitarian cultural area". Central Plains culture is the birthplace and communication center of China traditional culture, and its radiation scope covers the vast areas in the central and western regions. Because of living in inland areas, since ancient times, farming economy has been the mainstay here, and the idea of small farmers is deeply rooted, and people's ideas are conservative. This traditional culture resists modernization not only because it is a rigid value concept and mindset, which restricts how people think and how they think, but also because it is a lifestyle and behavior pattern, which restricts what people do and how they do it. Under the influence of its long-term edification and habits, all statements and practices, propositions and practices that are inconsistent with it are unnatural, suspicious and even evil, and they are either gently coldly or severely prohibited. This thinking mechanism makes people rigid, conservative, enterprising and afraid of innovation.

The "Southeast Utilitarian Cultural Zone" is mainly concentrated in the southeast coastal areas of China, and its main component is Wuyue culture, covering Jiangsu, Zhejiang and its nearby areas. As far back as the Neolithic Age six or seven thousand years ago, there were Hemudu culture and Liangzhu culture here. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Wuyue culture was unique. Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, as the economic and political center of China shifted from the Yellow River valley to the south of the Yangtze River, the cultural center also moved to wuyue, during which the culture of Wuyue and the culture of the Central Plains merged three times. Since modern times, the eastern coastal areas have been influenced by western industrial civilization, forming extensive exchanges between local culture and western culture. In the end, Wuyue culture changed from traditional agricultural culture to commercial culture with strong commercial flavor, which is at the highest level in all cultural sub-regions of China.

From a vertical perspective, the culture of Wu and Yue developed in the repeated collision between tradition and modernity. Horizontally, wuyue is in the collision zone between China's traditional continental civilization and western modern civilization, which makes its culture have both land and sea elements, and then develops into the exchange and integration of traditional ethical egoism and realistic utilitarianism.

As the main component of Wuyue culture, Zhejiang culture has its own uniqueness besides the basic factors of "Southeast utilitarian cultural area". Zhejiang, located in the southeast coast of China, is known as the "state of cultural relics". In the process of long-term historical development, Yongjia culture has been formed as the main body, which is different from other regions. The main characteristics of Zhejiang culture are: First, it has a distinctive utilitarian color of "enterprising and quick success". Second, it has a Shanghai-style cultural tradition of "being the first and pioneering". This is mainly because the living and production environment of living by the sea and sailing at sea has cultivated the tenacious vitality and pioneering and adventurous spirit of Zhejiang people. Third, it has a strong industrial and commercial cultural tradition. Since Dr. Fan Li abandoned politics and went into business in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Zhejiang culture has formed a vigorous profit-seeking culture, and the idea of "business-oriented" is almost consistent from beginning to end. Fourth, it has the humanistic feelings of "advocating softness and wisdom, being thicker than taste". Jiangsu and Zhejiang cultures respect human desires and attach importance to the consanguinity of families and clans, which is quite different from the cultural orientation of "preserving righteousness and destroying human desires" of Confucianism. Therefore, Zhejiang culture is different from China's dominant Confucian culture in many aspects.

Zhejiang culture has an endogenous spirit of innovation and adventure, and its overall characteristics can be summarized as eight words: "Be brave in innovation and pay attention to utility". Innovation and adventurous spirit are the most remarkable characteristics of Zhejiang culture, and strong vitality and creativity are the life energy of its culture; Utilitarianism and natural humanity constitute the basis of Zhejiang's cultural outlook on life. The pragmatic and utilitarian value orientation of Zhejiang people constitutes the internal motive force for Zhejiang people to devote themselves to economic development. The thinking character of independent innovation and being the first in the world constitutes the spiritual motivation for Zhejiang people to devote themselves to institutional innovation and achieve growth outside the system in economic reform; The cultural character of being good at management and resourceful endows Zhejiang people with qualities and advantages superior to others in adapting to the market mechanism.

The spirit of independent innovation contained in Zhejiang culture is inherently compatible with modern economy and has an endogenous influence on the formation of Zhejiang entrepreneurs. It is these unique traditional cultural spirits and value orientations hidden in the depths of Zhejiang people's consciousness that have revived under the new historical conditions, bringing up a large number of innovative folk entrepreneurs, and making thousands of peasant entrepreneurs emerge in Zhejiang in a short time after the reform and opening up, thus preparing for the development of private industries in terms of human capital. Take Wenzhou, Zhejiang as an example. Wenzhou has a total population of more than 6 million, of which more than 2 million people are engaged in business or market transactions. Their footprints are all over the world, which leads to the saying that "where there are China people, there are Wenzhou people". The formation of "Wenzhou Model" is a masterpiece of millions of private entrepreneurs in Wenzhou who dare to innovate. Since the reform and opening up, under the leadership of a large number of entrepreneurs, Zhejiang has formed a wave of "institutional innovation", thus promoting the process of industrialization in Zhejiang.

Second, the evolution path of Zhejiang's industrialization road: the process of induced institutional change led by entrepreneurs.

Judging from the types of institutional changes, it mainly includes induced institutional changes and mandatory institutional changes. Induced institutional change refers to the change or substitution of existing institutional arrangements or the creation of new institutional arrangements initiated, organized and implemented spontaneously by individuals or a group of people in response to profit opportunities. On the contrary, mandatory institutional changes are introduced and implemented through government orders and laws. Whether the induced institutional change can occur depends on the fact that the "creator" of the new institutional arrangement must organize and implement it spontaneously. Generally speaking, whether the institutional change of a society occurs depends not only on the participants' subjective evaluation of the cost-benefit or profit and loss of institutional innovation, but also on their judgment ability and adaptability efficiency, that is, a more efficient institutional arrangement will occur and continue only when there are a group of entrepreneurs with strong innovative spirit in a society.

Judging from the practice of Zhejiang's industrialization road, its institutional innovation can basically be said to be an endogenous induced institutional change process. In other words, this kind of institutional innovation is not forced by external forces, but mainly the result of continuous exploration and voluntary choice in practice with entrepreneurs as the main body, and then guided and regulated by the government. The author summarizes this kind of institutional innovation growth model, which is endogenous to the people and finally realizes the transformation from agricultural society to industrial society through bottom-up induced institutional innovation, as "the process of endogenous induced institutional change from bottom to top" The motive force of this model comes from traditional culture and folk power, and its essence is a spontaneous and endogenous economic development model. Its operating principle is: in the fiercely competitive market society, innovative private entrepreneurs constantly imitate innovation through institutional innovation and technological innovation, realize the destruction of creativity, and finally promote Zhejiang's economic development and industrialization. Specifically, this bottom-up "Zhejiang industrialization model" includes the following aspects: First, from the perspective of the main body of industrialization, it is dominated by thousands of entrepreneurs in Zhejiang. After the long-term edification of traditional business culture, farmers are unwilling to be poor, brave in innovation and adventure, break through the shackles of traditional agriculture, and rely on the development of folk rural industries and related industries, before they realize it, they are ahead of others and become pioneers and pioneers of China market economy. Secondly, from the perspective of the evolution path of Zhejiang's industrialization model, it is an induced institutional innovation process. A prerequisite for induced institutional innovation is that the subjects engaged in institutional innovation must have a strong spirit of independent innovation, which is precisely the main feature of Zhejiang entrepreneurs. After the reform and opening up, Zhejiang has become a "frequent area" for institutional innovation. In every new historical period, new content will be produced, one after another, and it will always be at the forefront of the country. There are various forms of institutional innovation in Zhejiang, among which rural industry, professional market, joint-stock cooperative system, peasant city and block economy are all the first in China, and these forms have now become the objects of imitation and learning in other regions. Thirdly, judging from the types of Zhejiang's industrialization road, it is characterized by bottom-up industrialization initiated by the people. Geographically, Zhejiang's industrialization is a process in which folk industries develop and gradually surround urban industries. From the perspective of ownership structure, it is a process in which private economy and individual economy gradually grow and impact state-owned large industries; From the perspective of market development, it is the process that a large number of specialized markets in rural areas gradually squeeze the urban commodity market; In the transition from planned economy to market economy, rural industries took the lead in entering the market system to participate in the competition, and rural areas realized the system transformation before developed cities.

It can be seen that the traditional culture of Zhejiang has long influenced and edified people in this area, and a large number of high-quality talents with innovative and open consciousness have been precipitated among the people. Under the background of reform and opening up, they broke free from political shackles and quickly turned into innovative private entrepreneurs. It is under their leadership that a wave of institutional innovation and technological innovation has formed in economic activities, which finally promoted the successful transformation of Zhejiang's regional economy.