I have examined the implications of various ideas emanating from popular belief.

Needless to say, these beliefs appear to be rooted in ordinary ways of thinking, that is to say, public views on economics. We must therefore escape from a narrow view limited to economics.

The word ‘economy’ can be traced back to a Greek word: oikonomia. oikos means ‘home’, while nomos means ‘law’, hence economy was historically inter­preted as ‘wise administration by the patriarch’. The Oxford English Dictionary states:

ORIGIN late 15th cent. (in the sense ‘management of material resources’): from French economie, or via Latin from Greek oikonomia ‘household management’, based on oikos ‘house’ + nemein ‘manage’. Current senses date from the 17th cent.

‘Economy’ in the Western sense, back to the ancient Greek, retains the sense of ‘management of material resources’. However, by 2010 in Japan, there was another context in the East, as this excerpt from a press conference statement of a Japanese minister for Financial Services shows:

As the proverb goes, an economy is all about governing a society and saving its people - every single one of them.^[17]

The proverb mentioned is from the ancient Chinese School of Gongyang. This view emphasizes the first priority as the relief of people in view of natural justice. There is insufficient space in this book to discuss the details of ancient Chinese thinking, but it is obvious that the development of a nation's wealth must depend on fair governance. I will, therefore, not discuss increasing wealth by ‘good' or ‘bad' means, but rather in a way that is consistent with natural justice. In this sense, we will not pursue a single means of attainment.

1. The Moral Law; 2. Heaven; 3. Earth; 4. The Commander; 5. Method and discipline.

The word ‘economics' in Chinese retains an explicit meaning of a norm of morality.

In ancient China, there was some metaphysical thought that underestimated personal business activities on the grounds of morality, according to Yao and Shun. For instance, “If a sage were content simply with eating plain food and drinking water, then it would make no sense to perform acts of charity for the people”.^[19] Japanese people, often merchants, tried to accommodate Confucius' teachings to business activities, enabling them to make a profit without contravening his tenets. For example, Miura Baien (1723-1789) in Miura (2001), a physician of Chinese medicine, wrote a book on economics called Kagen.^[20] He systematically constructed a positive as well as a normative theory. As his positive contribution, he analyzed price variation in relation to demand and supply, by taking an example of the wage rate fluctuation in terms of excess demand for labor. He was writing at almost the same time as Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, and like Smith, Baien also touched on the norm of morals for economic measures. His moral doctrine was based on the Analects of Confucius. He successfully discovered that a country's wealth is not limited to monetary values, but can also be found in welfare in conformity with justice. In Baien's view, therefore, policy measures should be concentrated towards the theory of enlightened rule and succor of the people. Profits must not be monopolized, but distributed among the people by the earners themselves, so that accumulation of wealth becomes merely a tool for the essential object of public welfare.

I now turn to Dirk Helbing's views on the harmony between Homo economicus and Homo socialis.

1.9.1