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A bold exploration of China's economic transformation that fuses Marxist theory with human sociobiology to rethink the foundations of human nature and reform.
How do we understand China's dramatic economic reforms through the lens of both Marxist theory and human sociobiology? In this ambitious and deeply original work, Boshu Zhang challenges conventional interpretations of political economy by bringing together philosophical anthropology, historical materialism, and evolutionary insights into human behavior.
Moving beyond standard ideological debates, Zhang explores the tension between "labor-for-living" and "labor-for-profit," re-examines the foundations of Marxist thought, and proposes a bold framework for understanding the ethical and cultural dimensions of economic transformation in contemporary China.
Both intellectually rigorous and personally courageous, Marxism and Human Sociobiology offers a rare synthesis of theory and lived political reality—one that speaks not only to China’s past and present, but to global questions about human nature, reform, and social change.
"This book is completely original in its main premise and at every stage of its argument. It not only reveals the thinking of a brilliant Chinese intellectual, but also displays breakthrough ideas having important universal implications transcending China."— Kirill Thompson
"What I liked most about the book is the personal voice the author carries in approaching the problems surrounding the present socioeconomic situation in China. China has a long political tradition in which in order to rule her people, the political authority must control them as if holding sand in the fist. Given this tradition, it must have taken Zhang Boshu enormous courage to write this book." — Shigenori Nagatomo
"The author extends philosophical analysis into the practical area of China's current economic situation. The risk that Professor Zhang faces in so passionately voicing his own ideas and commitments gives the book an urgency not usually found in philosophical works in the West." — Claude N. Stulting, Jr.
Zhang Boshu is a Chinese Researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, China. He is the author of Economic Behavior and Man and is currently engaged in a critical-philosophical study on the modernization of China in the twentieth century.
Foreword "How to Read Zhang Boshu's Marxism and Human Sociobiology"
by David Edward Shaner
Preface
Introduction
1. Reforms: Understanding the Origins of our Contemporary Theoretical Dilemma
2. Historical Evidence
3. Commodities and Human Nature: "Labor-for-Living"
4. Commodities and Human Nature: The Transformation from "Labor-for-Living" to "Labor-for-Profit"
5. Marx's Philosophical Anthropology
6. Historical Materialism: A Defective Demonstration
7. Insights from Human Sociobiology
8. A New Challenge: Cultural-Ethical Issues
9. The Possibilities and Difficulties of Combining Marxism and Human Sociobiology
10. Return to Reality
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index