This story on the front page of today's Washington Post describes just one of the many riots and demonstrations that have broken out in China in recent months. In most cases, the social unrest is driven by the debilitating corruption of bureaucrats and robber barons that leaves politically disconnected and excluded people in desperate economic circumstances. People are denied the benefits of economic growth, as those in power grab the spoils for themselves, and they fight back.
This is an age-old problem that both Mencius and the Tao Te Ching address:
Most of the major schools of thought in ancient China accept a certain level of social inequality as naturally inevitable (the Mohists may stand out as the exception here). The I Ching, the Tao Te Ching, Confucius, Mencius, all have some expression of the inescapable reality of inequality. Mencius is very straightforward here: "But inequality is the very nature of things." (95).
Yet, just as certainly, all of the texts cited above also recognize that the haves of this world are morally obligated to limit their personal consumption and give something back to the have-nots.
For Confucius and Mencius, the wise should rule, but the wise must rule humanely. Indeed, inhumane rule is grounds for political opposition, regime change(!), and, even, for Mencius, regicide. He would have this to say to the corrupt bureaucrats in China who steal land and money and economic opportunities from average citizens:
Therefore, the wise ruler practices humility, economy, and reverence toward his subjects. And he takes from the people only what is due him... If you cultivate wealth, you give up Humanity. If you cultivate Humanity, you give up wealth. (84-85).
The old communist saying, "serve the people," has a distinctly Mencian tone to it but, it seems, the venal, grasping Party has left both "socialist spiritual civilization" and Confucian ethics far behind in its rush toward personal enrichment.
None of this would surprise the author(s) of the Tao Te Ching (I accept the notion that Lao Tzu was not a real historical person). Selfishness -however destructive of both social bonds and, ultimately, personal fulfillment - is hardwired in human nature:
The Way of heaven takes away where there is abundance and restores where there's want, but the Way of humankind isn't like that: it takes away where there's want and gives where there's abundance. (77)
We are less than heaven and must work hard to walk away from our selfish impulses to realize the most of ourselves and those around us. It is possible to be unselfish:
In yielding there is completion. In bent is straight. In hollow is full. In exhaustion is renewal. In little is contentment. In much is confusion.
This is how a sage embraces primal unity as the measure of all beneath heaven.
Give up self-reflection and you're soon enlightened. Give up self-definition and you're soon apparent. Give up self-promotion and you're soon proverbial. Give up self-esteem and you're soon perennial. Simply give up contention and soon nothing in all beneath heaven contends with you.
It was hardly empty talk when the ancients declared "In yielding there is completion." Once you perfect completion you've returned home to it all.
But this is what corrupt Chinese bureaucrats and fat cats - and many celebrity- and consumption-besotted Americans as well - cannot see.
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