明清商人的职业身份认同

The Self-Identification of the Merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

明清商人对自身的职业身份认同具有鲜明的特点:价值型与工具型兼具;工具型认同远多于价值型认同。明清商人的工具型职业身份认同所蕴含的价值判断和价值期待,就是“去商人化”。“去商人化”使该商人群体从整体来看缺少一种持续经商的动力,大多数又回到了出发时的体制,这就难以希冀其开辟新的社会发展道路了,发端于15、16世纪的商业大潮在近代的落幕似已成为必然。

During the Ming and Qing periods,the self-identification of the merchants as an occupation was based upon considerations of both value consciousness and instrumentalism and the instrumentalism actually functioned more obviously.In result,the merchants of this era usually expected to change their status from merchants to some others,which can be called de-merchant expectation.Such an expectation made the merchants of this era lack of a continual drive of mercantile development.As a matter of fact,many of the successful merchants eventually returned to their original occupation rather than being merchants.Therefore,it would be unwise to wish that they would open up a new path of social development.It seemed to be inevitable that the commercial boom started in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries would come to its end later.