Plato and Xunzi on the Construction of the Ideal State: a meeting of distant minds

China and the West: Cultural Dialogues Series

Over the course of the 2021-2022 academic year, the Future of the Humanities Project is sponsoring a series of webinars on the Christian literary imagination in collaboration with Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford and The Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU).

 

Friday 5^th November

Plato and Xunzi on the Construction of the Ideal State: a meeting of distant minds

Xunzi (“Master Xun”) lived in the latter part of the aptly named Warring States period (ca. 312– 221 BCE). While the details of his life are hazy, it has been suggested that he followed the example of Confucius (Kongzi), whose teachings he professed to endorse, in travelling between states in the hope of securing high office and implementing his plans for the restoration of “order,” as set out in Xunzi, the book that bears his name.

In this webinar, Terry Peach will argue that the book contains a coherent and connected body of economic thought and analysis, notably an analysis of the pathology of unrestrained economic (gain-seeking) behavior and a detailed model of economic planning that together constitute what Peach terms the “economics of totalitarianism.” He will also suggest that there are striking similarities with the economics in Plato’s Republic, notwithstanding certain differences that reflect intellectual and cultural legacies. Xunzi and Plato bequeathed remarkably similar economic systems that addressed similar problems and were informed by similar values. The presentation is based on a chapter in European and Chinese Histories of Economic Thought: Theories and Images of Good Governance (Routledge, forthcoming; eds. Amelung and Schefold).

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Terry Peach is a historian of political economy. He studied at Oxford University, where he obtained the degrees of B.A., B.Phil., and D.Phil., and currently holds the positions of professor of economics at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics; honorary senior research fellow at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom; and chair (president) of the U.K. History of Economic Thought Society. He has published books, articles, and editions on Adam Smith, David Ricardo, classical economics more generally, W.S. Jevons, and, more recently, the history of ancient Chinese political economy. His publications include Interpreting Ricardo (1993, 2009), David Ricardo: Critical Responses, vols. i-iv (2003), The History of Ancient Chinese Economic Thought (2014), and The Political Economy of the Han Dynasty and its Legacy (2019), the last two co-edited with Cheng Lin and Wang Fang.  An edition on economic thought in post-1949 China is in progress.

Michael Scott (moderator) is Fellow and Senior Dean at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford. He is also senior adviser to the president of Georgetown University and leads the Future of the Humanities Project. He has previously served as pro vice chancellor at De Montfort University, Leicester, and was the founding vice chancellor of Wrexham Glyndwr University. His books include studies in Shakespeare and his contemporaries and in twentieth century theatre. He has been a fellow and visiting professor at two Chinese universities and published a book on King Arthur with the Foreign Research and Teaching Press in Beijing.

 

Upcoming event

Friday 3^rd December

Shakespeare and the Sinophone World

Talk followed by discussion. Participants: Alexa Alice Joubin and Tong Ping

Moderator: Michael Scott