On Agency, Part 10
Going to America! Arkady Svidrigailov’s dying words as he commits suicide in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment
Going to America! Arkady Svidrigailov’s dying words as he commits suicide in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment
America, you are better off than our continent, the old. Goethe
In the beginning all the world was America. John Locke
Valour begets tranquility, tranquility ease, ease disorder, and disorder ruin. Sallust
From the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the early 1980s right up through the first decade of the twenty-first century, China’s socialist-capitalist hybrid society worked remarkably well.
Deng Xiaoping knew what he did not know! Deng Xiaoping
It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice. Deng Xiaoping
The Shang and the Zhou
The Shang dynasty (roughly 1600 – 1046 BC) is the earliest Chinese dynasty that we actually have solid evidence of. Earlier dynasties may have existed, but if so no one can prove it – they are referred to as “legendary” dynasties.
We found that the belief in human agency in ancient Chinese philosophical and religious thought co-occurred with progress. Yukun Zhao et al., “Agency in Ancient China”
“Agency” is a small word but it has large meanings. In my day job in the financial industry, for example, “agency” issues refer to the differences in interests between investors (the principals) and their financial advisors (the agents).