According to early Confucian thinkers, a key task for rulers is to strive to improve a peoples’ happiness, which is itself grounded in a moral way of life. Because poverty was an obstacle to moral behavior, they believed that the state should be vitally concerned with eliminating it.
早期儒家思想家认为，统治者的核心任务是提高民众福祉，其本质是基于生活的道义。由于贫穷阻碍了实行道义，因此他们认为国家应致力于消除贫困。但是，孔子及其追随者是唾弃为求经济发展而罔顾道义的治国理念的。