An Economic History of China by Chou Chin-sheng: Subjective idealism, whether Chinese or European, boils down to spiritualism. Pre-Marxist materialism boils down to the reduction of man to a thing, as it fails to recognize that not only does the natural environment (sunspots, China as a continental rather than a seacoast-dominated geographic entity) act on man, but that man reacts on his environment too. The same is true of the school of social or economic materialism founded by Marx. At best, materialism provides the objective element in history; the spiritual element must remain history\u27s motive force. In earliest times the material forces predominated in man\u27s history, but the trend has been for the immaterial forces to grow in strength with time until now they can (as in the accomplishments of modern science) reshape the material forces themselves. Only the historical viewpoint of Sun Yat-sen\u27s People\u27s Livelihood adequately synthesizes the strong points of spiritualism and both varieties of materialism, making them inseparable facets of itself, the center of human history. It sees human progress as a spiritual process, but one inextricably linked to continuous improvement in material production.https://cedar.wwu.edu/easpress/1019/thumbnail.jp
