If you can’t beat ’em..
If one should propose to all men a choice, bidding them select the best of all the customs that there are, each race of men, after examining them all, would select those of his own, for all think that their own customs are by far the best. Herodotus. Histories.
Governance – the art of managing millions of lazy, passionate human beings – is the most difficult occupation on earth, while politics – promising to manage – is the easiest.
So little do Western governments, like the monarchs they replace, care little for their people’s wellbeing that Sheldon Wolin calls their model inverted totalitarianism. It keeps the language and iconography of democracy but surrenders real power to corporations and oligarchs. This, he said, creates a sense of powerlessness and political apathy over time and accelerates the loss of political egalitarianism.
With its global leadership now just a memory, the West needs professional governance merely to face simultaneous threats from Internet communications and China’s governance system. The West’s response has been to imprison thousands of citizens for expressing unpopular ideas on the Internet and to attack China on all fronts.
Neither approach has borne fruit. Donald Trump will keep Internet communication relatively free, while China’s economic, scientific and moral lead widens daily, thanks to that country’s 2500-year-old governance model, which continues to serve countries like Japan. Now that China’s model is more successful than ever, might the West emulate it?
Confucianism with Western characteristics?
Imagine a continuous civilization on the other side of the world, unchanged for millennia, ruled by Imperial dynasties grander than Rome’s, unaware of Greek philosophy, the alphabet, democracy, Christianity, individualism, feudalism, the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, whose people surpass ours in intelligence and whose institutions surpass ours in effectiveness. Now picture it thriving today, exceeding us in every field of endeavor. Fernand Braudel, A History of Civilizations.
China’s Good Governance Guide is no secret. In the 6th century AD, the Taizong Emperor, having newly gained the throne, realized that running a country and keeping its people safe and prosperous was a huge undertaking. He anthologized 14,000 books and 89,000 written scrolls back to 2,600 BC and extracted the best passages into the Compilation of Books and Writings on Important Governing Principles, Qunshu Zhiyao, 500,000 words on sixty-five governance categories.
Taizong was ecstatic,”The collection has helped me learn from the ancients. When confronted with issues, I am sure to know what to do. This is all due to your efforts, my advisors. The ruler depends on the state and the state depends on its people.
The content below was originally paywalled.
Oppressing the people to make them serve the ruler is like someone cutting off his own flesh to feed his stomach. The stomach is filled but the body is injured: the ruler is wealthy but the state is destroyed.” Some Important Governing Principles:
Be careful of military actions
Be frugal and diligent
Be respectful of the Dao
Be sincere and trustworthy
Be benevolent and righteous
Care about people
Build your character
Correct your own mistakes
Emulate good deeds
Exercise caution from beginning to end
Formation of cliques, greed
Heed troubling signs
Show magnanimity, impartiality
Refrain from anger
Teach and transform the livelihood of the people
Uphold integrity
To be continued..
