ZERO-SUM VERSUS POSITIVE-SUM CONCEPTIONS OF WEALTH IN TRADITIONAL CHINA

The idea that wealth is fixed in amount tended to predominate in traditional China. On one extreme were the Legalist philosophers, whose view of wealth conformed to their notion of zero-sum competition between public and private. On the other extreme were the Buddhists, whose beliefs included the concept of "one is many, many is one," facilitating wealth creation via "inexhaustible treasuries." Occupying the middle groundand ending up in possession of the fieldwere the Confucianists, who, while claiming to nurture the private sector under such banners as "storing wealth among the people," seemed the most open to the possibility that laissez-faire would best grow the economy. However, the Confucians were only favoring a distribution of wealth that favored the private sector, with the wealth to be distributed retaining in their eyes its finite character, incapable of multiplication.