先秦诸子百家，声望最高、影响最大的，莫过于儒道两家了；两千多年来，影响中国社会人心最大的，又莫过于儒家鼻祖孔子的垂训《论语》和道家崇奉的中心经典《老子》两本书了。先秦以降，百家争鸣，百花齐放，儒、墨、道、法、名、阴阳等九流十家，色彩纷呈，但是，按最基本的思想体系来区分，可以统揽为两家，即儒家和道家;各家思想的对立，主要是儒家思想和道家思想的对立.因此，比较儒、道两家经济思想的异同，就可以从总体上把住中国经济思想史发展的脉络和主张。本文系统地比较了儒道两家的经济思想,使国外读者对中国传统经济思想有一个比较清晰的了解.

Among the various schools of thought in the pre-Qin period, the most famous and influential two are Confucianism and Taoism；In the 2,000-plus years, what influenced the society and the will of the people of China most were no more than the two books:Analects of Confucius, teachings originator of Confucianism, Confucius, andLao Zi, the central sutra of Taoism. Since the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC), numerous schools of thought came into being, vying with each other, such as Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism, Legalism, Logicians, Yin-Yang and so on, yet，in terms of the bottommost ideological system classification, there are two schools only, namely, Confucianism and Taoism. "In the pre-Qin period, the opposition of various schools of thought was chiefly the opposition between Confucianism and Taoism. Hence, in the study on China′s history of ancient economic thoughts, so long as we compare the similarities and differences between Confucianism and Taoism, we can basically grasp the venation of development of China′s history of economic thoughts and the main propositions in it.

唐任伍.A comparison between Confucian and Daoist economic philosophies in the pre-Qin era[J].The History of Ancient Chinese Economic Thought.2014：106—139.