The Entrepreneurial Vocation: Is Creating Wealth a Calling?

Abstract

“To be rich is glorious,” a famous saying attributed to Deng Xiaoping in the mid-1980s,¹ marked a radical change of attitude toward wealth and prosperity that was going to constitute a core value of the moral foundation for China’s economic reform and open-door policy. It has been embraced by millions and millions of Chinese and proved, overall, to be quite successful. I personally have been fortunate, since 1994, to observe and study the remarkable economic development in China and particularly in Shanghai, to ask for possible lessons to learn in other parts of the globe, and to reconsider my own views with regard to poverty and wealth and business responsibility.