Chapter 2 focuses on the expansion of pro-market trends and how it came to influence Qing policies. It also discusses the economic developments that inspired the rise of pro-luxury consumption ideas from the late Ming period to the early nineteenth century. In this context it examines the writings of a variety of scholars and intellectuals including Lu Ji (1515–52) and Tang Zhen (1630–1704), the two most prominent pro-luxury advocates.This chapters also illustrate the elasticity of the Confucian discourse on the economy and its ability to adapt to actual changes in the economy of the empire, challenging the notion that Confucian ideology led to intellectual immobility.