China needs to set its own moral priorities for the future

• Source: Global Times
• [23:45 February 20 2010]
• Comments

Interestingly, we can clearly find religious traces in the early active Democratic Socialists. The studies by Swedish scholars show that the Danish text mentioned by Friedrich Engels in the preface to the Communist Manifesto is likely to be of Swedish origin.

While translating the Communist Manifesto, Pehr Götrek changed Communist Manifesto to Voice of Communism. More outrageously, he changed, "Workers of the world, unite!" to "The voice of the people is the voice of God," based on the Latin phrase, Vox populi vox Dei.

According to the analysis by Swedish scholars, Götrek wanted to enhance the propagation effect with religious color. The combination of revolutionary and religious attitudes can be more convincing, as shown by the deep influence of religion in Sweden.

German scholar Franz-Xaver Kaufmann's words may help us understand the relationship between the Swedish translator's changes and the Swedish model.

In the book Herausforderungen Des Sozialstaates, Franz-Xaver Kaufman said, "A state that realized the ideal political community with solidarity of citizens based on freedom and equality of rights and with the aid of market economy and social welfare can only arise in a Western European society that has been deeply affected by Christianity and the Enlightenment culture."

Generally speaking, four factors determine a country's development model: tradition, social structure, political concepts and religious beliefs accepted by the vast majority of people. Among them, the effects of religion are mainly embodied in moral values.

Back to the topic, we can see that although "being civilized" depends on a nation's level of economic development, moral values determine whether a social system that promotes sustainable economic development and social equity can succeed.

The author is a senior editor with the People's Daily. globaltimesopinion@yahoo. com