ernmental protection rendered to those firms to compensate for all the
disadvantages suffered by the mercantile interests, to fend off bureau-
cratic abuse and harassment, social prejudice, and legal incapacity; in
addition to assistance beyond the ordinary scope. In other words, the
public component, almost the left hand of the government, had to
counter the works of its right hand. In the end it was the right hand that
prevailed in its usual way.

Until very recently, groups of Chinese historians were trying to
advance the theory that during the late Ming, a "sprouting of capital-
ism" took place in China. The thesis is built on a substantial number of
entries, albeit scattered, about the introduction of commercial crops,
the rise of handicrafts, and the influx of farm labor into the cities. ²⁰ As
I see it, the enumerated evidence has tumbled under its own weight
because of a lack of organization. This is to say that exceptional and
uncoordinated economic activities never by themselves appear as a
system; much less do these carry a society, dominate its politics, and
influence its thought.

According to French historian Fernand Braudel, neither Marx nor
Adam Smith ever used the word "capitalism." The term in its present-
day usage seems to have been started by Louis Blanc in the nineteenth
century and further publicized by Werner Sombart in the early twenti-
eth century. ²¹ English historian Sir George N. Clark has this to say:
"The use of the word 'capitalism' as a name for the modern economic
system was, I believe, invented in the middle of nineteenth century by
socialists, and it meant a state of society in which the predominant
power is that of the owners of capital." ²²

The sense of an organization induces us to think that in order to
establish a modem economic system, there must be a wide extension
of credit so that unused capital can go through the process of private
borrowing to reach its maximum circulation. Entrepreneurs must fur-
thermore hire managers on an impersonal basis, so that the scope of
administration extends beyond their own supervisory power and that of
their family circles. Likewise, technical support, including transporta-
tion, communication, insurance, legal services, etc., must be jointly
utilized by various firms so that the extent of business transactions
goes beyond the limit of separate operations. In this way a network of
multilateral relationships is established, to be distinguished from
strands of bilateral relationships. But the success of the three underly-
ing conditions -- i.e., wide extension of credit, impersonal manage-

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