Another question from my tutorial (thanks Andrea!).
To begin an answer we must address all the caveats. No, I do not mean "democracy" as it is currently practiced in the West. Yes, I understand that the context of the Tao Te Ching was not at all democratic as we generally think of the term. Yes, I know that the text itself, in referring to "Ruler" and "Sage" presumes something like a monarchy or autocracy. Yes, I know that asking the question opens me to charges of anachronistic misreading. But I still think we can ask the question, just as Manyul asked something similar of Confucius last week.
What, then, do I mean by "democracy" here? How about a rather general sensibility that the "people" (i.e. general public, not confined to the socio-economic elite) should play a significant part in the constitution and practice of government. Something like Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Does the Tao Te Ching put forth, or even prefer, this kind of idea?
Let's take them one at a time, easiest to hardest.
"For the people" seems quite straightforward. Throughout the text, the writers complain about and criticize leaders who use their power to serve their own interests. Rapacious power-holders are responsible for creating human conditions that contradict the natural unfolding of Way. Passage 75 always strikes me as strongest in this regard:
The people are starving,
and it's only because you leaders feast on taxes
that they're starving.
The people are impossible to rule,
and it's only because you leaders are masters of extenuation
that they're impossible to rule.
the people take death lightly,
and it's only because you leaders crave life's lavish pleasures
that they take death lightly,
they who act without concern for life:
it's a wisdom far beyond treasuring life.
Governments that are alienated from the people and do not allow for people to secure their own livelihoods and manage their own affairs are bad governments. In short, government should be "for the people."
How about "of the people"? To me this means that government should not be external to the "people" but should grow organically from the community and society that surrounds it. The Tao Te Ching, it seems to me, demonstrates a strong preference for the simplest, least intrusive forms of "government." The less government the better. In this manner it does have some sympathy for the notion that people should be allow to rule themselves, with little interference. And if people are self-governing, then government, such as it is, is "of the people." That is what comes through in passage 80, which I have always read as an idealistic image of the best Taoist socio-political circumstance:
Let nations grow smaller and smaller
and the people fewer and fewer,
let weapons become rare
and superfluous,
let people feel death's gravity again
and never wander far from home.
Then boat and carriage will sit unused
and shield and sword lie unnoticed.
Let people knot ropes for notation again
and never need anything more,
let them find pleasure in their food
and beauty in their clothes,
peace in their homes
and joy in their ancestral ways.
Then people in neighboring nations will look across to each other,
their chickens and dogs calling back and forth,
and yet they'll grow old and die
without bothering to exchange visits.
Notice that there is not mention of "rulers" or "sages" here. People, average people, are running their own lives. We might even say they are ruling themselves, since the means of coercion ("weapons") are still available, albeit rare and superfluous. The continuing presence of weapons implies that there is some understanding of where they are and when they might have to be brought out, and these are key questions of political rule, in the Weberian sense (i.e. determining when and how to deploy the legitimate means of coercion). Perhaps I am making too much of this, but I will stand by this passage as an ideal, maybe utopian, image of popular self-rule. And in that regard it goes to something rather like government "of the people."
"By the people" may be the most difficult. It suggests some sort of governing institution that is open to control and management by the people. To the extent that the Tao Te Ching pushes against institutions, and certainly against bureaucracy, this idea drifts away from Taoist sensibilities. Indeed, the text puts forth a fairly clear sense of distinction between rulers and people, between sages and those many of us who are prone to take "twisty paths" that lead away from Way. Can everyone be a sage? Can everyone be a "true emperor"? I think not, at least not from the text of the Tao Te Ching. It takes a person of a certain character and predisposition to open himself, or herself, to Way. It is not clear at all, beyond passage 80, that sufficient numbers of people will actually be able to follow Way to allow for the ideal outcome. Much in and about the text pushes in the other direction.
Of course, I never expect straightforward and unambiguous answers from the Tao Te Ching. That's not the way it works as a book. So, hey, two out of three ain't bad. I think we can find some resonances there with the ensemble of ideas that we associate, loosely, with the notion of "democracy."
This is not to say that it is a "democratic" text. Rather, just that there are hints and traces there. It is also not to suggest that China, somehow, might have developed more of a democratic tradition historically if it had stuck to its Taoist orientations and avoided the Confucian-Legalist synthesis. That's way too big a historical leap to be feasible or, even, interesting.
Let's just say that it contains some democratic intimations. It offers a critique of tyrannical power and suggests a certain faith in popular self-rule. And it tells rulers to subordinate themselves to and follow popular interests (a la passage 66):
So, wanting to rule over the people
a sage speaks from below them,
and wanting to lead the people
he follows along behind them,then he can reign above without weighing the people down
and stay ahead without leading the people to ruin.
Is this merely enlightened despotism? Or could it equally apply to a leader who subjects himself and his rule to popular scrutiny and judgment? If the people reject his rule as too heavy and out of tune with where they would lead him, shouldn't he heed the will of the people? He certainly shouldn't force the issue in order to hold onto power.
I'll open it up to you, readers. I know that many will find it easy to knock down this idea but, what the heck, it's a nice day here today, how about it: what about the Tao Te Ching is democracy-like, and what isn't?
It almost sounds like you are talking about the mass line when you put it like that.
Posted by: Justsomeguy | February 26, 2008 at 12:38 PM
"It almost sounds like you are talking about the mass line when you put it like that."
Perhaps that was how Mao convinced those Chinese who could not understand Tao to be communists! Just a thought.
Posted by: Allan Lian | February 26, 2008 at 04:03 PM
Sam:
Seems you are using "democracy" as a yardstick to measure Tao Te Ching. I wonder how it could ever be done, considering the vagueness both "democracy" and Tao Te Ching.
Isha
Posted by: isha | February 27, 2008 at 02:51 PM
It is hard to imagine Lao Zi in an election campaign, to make a speech like Obama. If ever pushed to the front, I guess lao Zi would flee as fast and as far as he could and hide himself in the desert...he might expect the democracy (a relatively innocent one) to lynch Plato's Master and his fellow philosopher. As a deep skeptic of the language, he would be horrified by the control and manipulation of the mass media by the economic elites as a mind control machine. He would prefer the innocence of the ignorance farmers (on retaining the De of the their natures) rather than the manufactured opinions of the middle class ... he wouldn’t trust the “democratic peace” theory… the one that is tailor designed to justify all the deeds of Israel in the ME … As a historian in residence at Luoyang who oversees the documents on the down and fall of the 800 years’ Zhou history, he is prejudiced against all the emotional stirring up of masses and danger of the manipulation of public opinions…
Isha
Posted by: isha | February 27, 2008 at 03:18 PM
I've come to the conclusion that Tao Te Ching is an anarchist text, actually: ultimately the people govern themselves in an atmosphere of equality and non-competition. Laozi, like anarchists, is an optimist at heart, arguing (just like the anarchists) that the removal of oppressive categories and practices will result in happier, self-regulating people.
Posted by: Jonathan Dresner | March 01, 2008 at 12:27 AM
Perhaps instead of asking "Is the Tao Te Ching Democratic" we should ask "Can democracy be taoist?"
Posted by: Alfred | May 19, 2011 at 09:28 PM
I see support for democracy in the Tao Te Ching. The ruler that does little so that the people are made dynamic and strong seems to make an argument for direct democracy. Certainly a government that requires a sizeable majority of support from a broad electorate would not be able to reach too far and cause too much mischief.
This is not anarchy and neither is Taoism because anarchy workes against the human nature of creating political institutions. The Taoist thinkers seem to stress that we not be taken in to thinking too much of these human constructs like honor, family and government; but to deny them is to deny human nature...and denying nature is anything but Taoist.
Posted by: Robert | May 23, 2011 at 07:55 PM