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sophisticated view of the Hong Kong government as practising ‘macroeconomic laissez-faire and microeconomic intervention’, see Glassburner and Riedel 1972). This type of economic jungle had once existed in Chinese coastal cities. In Fei Xiao-tong’s view, the ‘morally unstable’ elements in Chinese society had congregated in these cities to become the early Chinese bourgeoisie (1946: 14-15):
to such ports a special type of Chinese was attracted. They are known as Compradors... They are unscrupulous, pecuniary, individualistic, and agnostic, not only in religion but cultural values. Treaty ports are ultraurban. They are a land where the acquisition of wealth is the sole motive, devoid of tradition and culture
As their children grow up, they give them modern education and send them abroad to attend Western universities. From this group a new class is formed
But, being reared in a cosmopolitan community, they are fundamentally hybrids. In them are manifest the comprador characteristic of social irresponsibility.”
Some of the offspring of this bourgeoisie had migrated to Hong Kong in the 1940s and set up a new textile industry. Their moral rectitude had apparently not been strengthened. Oksenberg finds the industrialists in the cotton spinning and weaving industries to be ‘not civic minded men’ but men motivated by ‘unbridled avarice’, (1972: 6).
Two hypotheses about the social ethics of Hong Kong’s cotton spinning industrialists have thus emerged. First, proportionally fewer of them would subscribe to the doctrine of social responsibility than their Western counterparts. Second, they were mostly economic men of the classical laissez-faire mould. In order to test these hypotheses, I used a modified version of the forced choice questionnaire developed by Nichols (1969: 254-255). Nichols assumes the existence of three ideological positions with reference to the social ethics of business. Other than the social responsibility and laissez-faire positions, he posits a third orientation that justifies business decisions in terms of the long range interests of the company. He chooses four areas of concern: redundancy provisions for workers; the social
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sophisticated view of the Hong Kong government as practising *macroeconomic laissez-faire and microeconomic intervention', see Glassburner and Riedel 1972). This type of economic jungle had once existed in Chinese coastal cities. In Fei Xiao-tong's view, the 'morally unstable' elements in Chinese society had congregated in these cities to become the early Chinese bourgeoisie (1946: 14-15):
to such ports a special type of Chinese was attracted. They are known as Compradors... They are unscrupulous, pecuniary, individualistic, and agnostic, not only in religion but cultural values. Treaty ports are ultraurban. They are a land where the acquisition of wealth is the sole motive, devoid of tradition and culture
As their children grow up, they give them modern education and send them abroad to attend Western universities. From this group a new class is formed
But, being reared in a cosmopolitan community, they are fundamentally hybrids. In them are manifest the comprador characteristic of social irresponsibility."
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Some of the offspring of this bourgeoisie had migrated to Hong Kong in the 1940s and set up a new textile industry. Their moral rectitude had apparently not been strengthened. Oksenberg finds the industrialists in the cotton spinning and weaving industries to be 'not civic minded men' but men motivated by 'unbridled avarice', (1972: 6).
Two hypotheses about the social ethics of Hong Kong's cotton spinning industrialists have thus emerged. First, proportionally fewer of them would subscribe to the doctrine of social responsibility than their Western counterparts. Second, they were mostly economic men of the classical laissez-faire mould. In order to test these hypotheses, I used a modified version of the forced choice questionnaire developed by Nichols (1969: 254-255). Nichols assumes the existence of three ideological positions with reference to the social ethics of business. Other than the social responsibility and laissez-faire positions, he posits a third orientation that justifies business decisions in terms of the long range interests of the company. He chooses four areas of concern redundancy provisions for workers; the social
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