关于历史上区域社会发展水平衡量标准的反思——兼论近代西方先进东方落后格局的形成

Reflection on the Standards of Regional Social Development in History——The Formation of the Advanced West versus the Backward East

衡量社会发展水平的标准应体现历史进步趋势。社会进步呈现纵、横两大基本趋势,现代化、全球化是近代以来社会纵、横发展趋势的基本表现,以此评估近代以来的区域社会发展水平是马克思主义历史观的要求。无论考察纵向发展,还是评估横向开放,人的自由和全面发展都是衡量社会进步的终极标准,物质、制度、文化等不同层次的综合分析不可或缺。以此衡量,16—19世纪初中国社会发展水平明显落后于欧洲国家,我们反对"欧洲中心论",但不能因此否定近代西方相对先进、东方相对落后这一基本史实。

How to evaluate the level of social development?Men’s liberation and full development are the ultimate standards to measure social development.In addition,the comprehensive analysis on material,institution and culture is indispensable.With such standards,from the 16 th century to the early 19 th century,the social development level of China was obviously behind that of Europe.We oppose "eurocentrism",but we cannot deny the fact that the West was relatively advanced while the East was relatively backward at the beginning of the modern times.