On the Culture of 優合 — Lecture One
This was the first lecture in an internal teaching series at Pingxintang. Zhang Xiaotong did not live to finish the later lectures; the family plans to reconstruct them from his other writings and Pingxintang materials. English translation of this first lecture by the family, 2026.
1. Everyone has strong points
The first premise of 優合 culture is that every person has strong points. Each of us must put our own to work, look for them in others, learn from what others do well, and then gather all those strengths together into a harmonious resonance.
2. Strong points are capital
Each person's strong points are that person's capital. What is capital? Capital is that which is used to earn; capital is what produces value; capital changes; capital appreciates.
So what, concretely, counts as capital?
A person's knowledge, skills, and abilities are capital; their experience, connections, courage, and wisdom are capital; their diligence, perseverance, and honesty are capital; even their time, energy, looks, and interests can all become capital. Tangible or intangible — in sum, a person's strong points, the things that set them apart from or above others, are their capital.
When each of you puts your own capital into Pingxintang, are you still just working a job? No — each of you is making value and earning returns through your own capital. The more capital you put in, and the more scarce it is, the more value you produce and the larger the share of returns you deserve. Looked at this way, every one of you is a "capitalist."
And what does it mean to be a "capitalist" inside a company? It means you are an owner. You are not a guest, not a hired hand; you are here to put your capital to work and grow it, and to earn your returns from it.
3. Capital is shared
The moment you invest your capital, it is no longer strictly yours alone. Your money, property, equipment, skills, wisdom, character, courage, experience, connections, appearance, and physical health all become shared by the capital combination. Each piece of capital is shared by the whole; the combined capital is likewise shared by each piece. From this angle capital is not private — or at the very least it should be seen as shared; the nature of its ownership has changed.
Take an example. If an actress is beautiful and joins a production to perform in a television drama, her beauty-capital no longer belongs only to her; it belongs to the production, and is entirely common property. The reason we can make demands of every staff member through rules, and constrain every staff member through order, is precisely that your capital is not private to you — it is shared by everyone.
In short, each person inside the enterprise is a genuine owner. You are not a "private individual" — you are an owner of this enterprise. Every day you work here you are an owner for that day. But if everyone is equally an owner, why are earnings not the same? What decides the earnings? How is your salary determined? And what is your greatest capital?
4. Capital determines earnings
At Pingxintang, the greatest capital is integrity. Every act of patient, attentive service; every physician's medical skill and medical ethics; every slice of naturally-sourced herbal medicine — all of these embody integrity. Integrity is the core of Pingxintang culture, the bottom line we hold to, the purpose of our service. But we must not only serve through integrity; we must also earn through integrity — we must turn integrity into limitless value.
The goal of earning a living, of building wealth, of our common prosperity, is built on integrity. Without integrity, none of it can even begin; integrity is the only real guarantee of sustainable development. So then: if everyone pays out integrity, why are earnings still different? What is the basis for the allocation?
Is it "distribution by labor"?
Labor cannot be measured scientifically — whether by the "necessary time" of labor, by years of schooling required, or by output — none of these accurately captures the value of labor. So what is the actual measuring stick?
Market demand is one important part: how scarce you are in the market. The scarcer, the more the market will pay.
How is market price set? The whole of society sets it — referencing advanced regions and backward regions, advanced countries and backward countries, many variables together — and eventually this converges on a "socially average value." That average is not decided by any one person; it is decided by the market.
Beyond social demand, you also need action that responds to social demand. For example, society has no shortage of learned and capable people, but many of them sit at home without a job, without income, producing no value — because they do not act. The conclusion follows: however capable you are, and however much the market needs you, if you don't act, it still equals zero.
Why do we not let everyone simply lie flat? Why do we insist that everyone study and keep up with the times? Because capital is constantly appreciating or depreciating — nothing stays still. Social competition is not static, social demand keeps changing, and as overall social quality rises, each person's value falls (all else equal, the more supply there is, the less each unit is worth). So if you don't grow your capital, if you don't learn more skills, you depreciate. And if you depreciate past a certain point — unable to keep up with society — you risk being cut loose.
Going one level deeper: why do I keep saying everyone needs to raise their standard? Why do I keep emphasizing this? Because when every person at Pingxintang falls, Pingxintang falls with them; as competition intensifies and society moves forward, Pingxintang is always under the pressure of depreciating too. That is why we cannot stop: we must keep innovating, keep moving, in order to hold our ground today and in the future. All of you have to use your heads — keep digging for potential appreciation. Each person's growth will push Pingxintang to grow, and Pingxintang's growth will in turn push each person up. This mutually-adaptive shared appreciation brings benefits that are hard to measure.
5. Encourage becoming "capitalists" — not the "exploiters" who lie flat
If we pursue this line of thinking about society, we can see what the laws, regulations, and various policies of a society ought to reward, and what they ought to restrain. For society to move forward, what development laws should it adapt to?
Take an example. Today's so-called "leech-the-elders" types — people who refuse to work — have latent capital of their own that they don't use, and instead sit back and enjoy what others produce. They don't help build society; they wait for a pie to fall from the sky. While contributing nothing, they also consume and waste shared capital. This is behavior that violates the laws of capital; it deserves not sympathy but society's refusal to compromise or indulge it. We need to fight against those who consume the wealth of society and waste capital. This kind of self-destructive existence is often encouraged by bad policy and excessive welfare systems. Such behavior runs counter to social progress: these are the "pests" of society, the real "exploiters." If not curbed, they will corrode the whole society and drive it backward.
To put it another way: as people who actively put in our capital, we have the right to protect that capital, the right to let it appreciate, and the right to see it used properly in the combination we belong to.
"Capitalists" are not exploiters. Looking at today's society, there are two real kinds of exploiters. The first: those who lie flat, give up, demand something for nothing — who leave their own capital idle and simply wait for social welfare. The second: the "scum" who use power to embezzle and take bribes. What we do is invest our own capital and use it toward the appreciation of social value. We may well become capitalists, but we are not exploiters — we are those pushing society forward.
The people of Pingxintang need the courage to uphold truth and to seek facts from reality; and the confidence to innovate, to walk a road of our own.