The Final Reward
How the means by which order is established predicts the manner in which it will collapse and vice versa.
What is a punishment? If asked for a definition, most people would probably say something along the lines of “an unpleasant experience inflicted with a dissuasive aim”. This definition is, however, incomplete.
If I punch you in the face for playing tinny music out of your phone speaker on the train, this is not a punishment (however justified my decision may be) because your physical safety had not up to that moment been mine to grant or withhold. Under the modern system of national sovereignty, that privilege belongs to the state alone, and if I were to take such extreme measures the state would then put a certain amount of effort into dissuading me from repeating my usurpation of its role.
In other words, a punishment must involve the removal of something previously accorded by the sanctioning party: if the state publicly beheads you, it is removing the safety it previously granted, if I do so I am simply expressing an opinion in a forceful manner.
This is why reputational sanctions are such a dicey business. If the recipient’s personal honour is tied to their standing with the sanctioning entity they work: consider the classic trope of a Victorian officer shooting himself rather than be cashiered. If individual’s self-image is dependent upon other things, however, then attempts to apply such sanctions will, at best, fail, and at worst be seen a badge of honour. It is for the same reason that those parachuted into positions of power tend to struggle to assert their authority. Any attempt on their part to sanction their new subordinates is perceived as attempting to take away something they did not grant, which only serves to compound their illegitimacy. The only individuals with full scope to apply punishments are those who are entirely secure in their positions; anyone attempting to do so in a space (whether physical, temporal or psychological) in which his authority is contested, risks undermining what authority he does possess.
This may explain a commonplace idea in early Chinese historiography: that the early sage kings were purely benevolent and secured their power through generosity rather than by fear. The belief is one of the few to traverse all of the various schools of thought:
“A long time has elapsed since this world of men received its being, and there has been along its history now a period of good order, and now a period of confusion. In the time of Yao, the waters, flowing out of their channels, inundated the Middle Kingdom. Snakes and dragons occupied it, and the people had no place where they could settle themselves… Shun employed Yu to reduce the waters to order. Yu dug open their obstructed channels, and conducted them to the sea… After the death of Yao and Shun, the principles that mark sages fell into decay. Oppressive sovereigns arose one after another, who pulled down houses to make ponds and lakes, so that the people knew not where they could rest in quiet; they threw fields out of cultivation to form gardens and parks, so that the people could not get clothes and food. ”
- Mencius
Fu Xi and Shen Nong taught but did not punish; Huang di, Yao and Shun punished but were not angry; Wen wang and Wu wang both established laws in accordance with what was opportune and regulated rites according to practical requirements.
- Shang Yang
Anciently, Huang-Di was the first to meddle with and disturb the mind of man with his benevolence and righteousness. After him, Yao and Shun wore their thighs bare and the hair off the calves of their legs, in their labours to nourish the bodies of the people. They toiled painfully with all the powers in their five viscera at the practice of their benevolence and righteousness; they tasked their blood and breath to make out a code of laws - and after all they were unsuccessful. On this Yao sent away Huan Dou to Chong hill, and (the Chiefs of) the Three Miao to San-wei, and banished the Minister of Works to the Dark Capital; so unequal had they been to cope with the world. Then we are carried on to the kings of the Three (dynasties), when the world was in a state of great distraction.
- Zhuangzi
The reign of King Cheng was not so good as that of King Wu, that of King Wu was not so good as that of Tang the Successful, and that of Tang the Successful was not so good as that of Yao and Shun.
- Mozi
The idea of a lost golden age is a quasi-universal cultural trope, but could these descriptions be more than simple nostalgia for a world that never was? In fact, we find descriptions of similar processes - aspiring leaders building up a following through generosity alone - in texts describing the contemporary Warring States political environment, though shorn of its legendary trappings the strategy becomes a much grubbier business:
Ministers distribute money out of public revenues to please the masses of people and bestow small favours to win the hearts of the hundred surnames, and thereby make everybody, whether in the court or in the market-place, praise them, and, by deluding the sovereign in this manner, get what they want.
- Han Feizi
There came from Chu to Teng one Xu Xing, who gave out that he acted according to the words of Shen Nong. Coming right to his gate, he addressed the duke Wen, saying, 'A man of a distant region, I have heard that you, Prince, are practising a benevolent government, and I wish to receive a site for a house, and to become one of your people.' The duke Wen gave him a dwelling-place. His disciples, amounting to several tens, all wore clothes of haircloth, and made sandals of hemp and wove mats for a living.
- Mencius
In the Records of the Grand Historian it is precisely Qin Shihuang’s generous approachability that tells Wei Liao that he has much higher aspirations than simply ruling Qin, and is thus dangerous:
“Subject to his current constraints he cheerfully abases himself before others, but given his druthers he would eat them alive just as casually. I am a mere commoner, yet when he receives me he always acts as though he were my inferior - if he should really have his way with the world then we will all be his prisoners. I should not linger here."
- Sima Qian
While the semi-legendary early founders may or may not have been uniquely benevolent individuals, the fact remains that for the major part of their respective ascents to power, the possibility of behaving in any other way was simply not available to them. King Wu of Zhou, held up as a model of virtue by Confucius, overthrew the Shang Dynasty at the Battle of Muye in 1046, during which most of the Shang forces either defected to Zhou or refused to fight. Whether his generosity was a moral act or not, it was certainly the only strategy that could have produced such a result. Had he been as or more brutal than the Shang leadership, hot only would he not have succeeded in luring away the Shang troops, he would never have built up enough of a following to attempt such a thing in the first place.
This, however, leads to an interesting paradox: by gaining enough support to establish a new political entity and make it subject to their own rules, a founder establishes for himself the ultimate right to punish the recalcitrant by demonstrating that he does not need it. Directing one’s followers with the added ability to impose sanctions is a sort of governmental new game plus, and few live long enough to really settle into using it, always seeking new horizons to conquer rather than bedding in their achievements. In fact, it tends to be their subordinates and successors who make the most use of the facility, lacking the founders’ charisma and legitimacy, and thus requiring other means to maintain the unity of the state.
Shang Yang - cited above - was famously brutal in suppressing dissent in his role as Prime Minister of Qin. This was the highest position he could reach within the state, and thus one in which there was no point accumulating reserves of goodwill to fuel future advancement. At the same time, however, he was apparently so well-liked by his serfs in his role as ruler of a feudal domain that at least some would fight to the death for him, something that the conscripts of the Warring States era were famously unwilling to do[1]. Clearly he maintained his sovereign’s state through fear, but his own as a benevolent founder.
Nevertheless, as the years pass and the residual legitimacy of the founder diminishes, those who follow him will be obliged to have ever greater recourse to more and grislier sanctions in an attempt to maintain the cohesion of the polity he built. This further accelerates the evaporation of such legitimacy as they had managed to retain, until they become simply one gang among many, expressing their opinions through violence. Simultaneously, however, it is this fracturing of the right to exercise legitimate violence that in itself renders violence an ineffective means of asserting authority. Because no one central power is able to control their movements, citizens are free to vote with their feet, and can shop around for better leadership in a way that is not possible within a large unitary state. Thus the only way to break the game becomes through the use of positive incentives - sage-like benevolence - until finally some affable, redistributive political entrepreneur manages to collect together the refugees from the domains of his neighbours and begin the cycle again. The establishment of order sews the seeds of the inevitable future disorder, while disorder establishes the parameters within which order will evolve.
[1] The distinction should also be made between sanctions intended to maintain public order - which are a public good to the majority of the population - and those intended to maintain state unity, which tend to benefit the leadership more than anyone else.
This article highlights the state's nature as a social construct, contract, and idea - as a body of encoded laws and self-held restraints that restrict the coercive nature of state power and prevent the people from rising up in revolt. As power is restrained, it becomes less necessary by way of generosity, the more coercion is used, the more it becomes necessary by way of reaction to repression.
Life is an unstable equilibrium, and we're just wobbling around the trend line.
Hello Bureaucrat from Xianyang,
I will be very interested to know more about the roots of Chinese thought. May I make a suggestion: You refer to many people, rulers, emperors and sages. If you could kindly attach a date to each name, for me who does not recognize the names, maybe I could better research the topic by the dates of what was going on in the empire at that time.
You introduce "a commonplace idea in early Chinese historiography: that the early sage kings were purely benevolent and secured their power through generosity rather than by fear. The belief is one of the few to traverse all of the various schools of thought."
Wow, is that myth? (And myths can exert power on thinking.) It is my belief that there were many "Chinas". China went through many periods of dissolution and re-configuration, in that, its continuity is actually quite weak and there have been many ruptures. But every new dynasty wrote the history of the previous dynasty, so that in historiographical terms there is a lot of continuity of the myth, which in turn created a strong coherence at the level of consciousness—that “China” is actually a real thing. But in actual life, there have been huge ruptures.
I am weak on Asian history. Some periods of Chinese history stand out. What were the dates of the three kingdoms? When did the Han dynasty fall, about 150 AD? Then warfare until 264-280 AD. One might assume that in any age, the MIND-SET WAS THE CULMINATION of all the so-called enlightenment that preceded it? If true, that relegates much of Chinese antiquity into myth.
The principle of the kingdom of Wei was "Time and Heaven," i.e., fate. The Cao family kept pace with the times and time worked for it. Cao Cao declared that "ability is higher than conduct", so he rejected Confucianism. Only "might was right".
The Wu became an empire in 229. It continued the Han tradition of granting privileges to the learned Confucianists and the hereditary bureaucracy. Like any conservative system, Wu policy was doomed. Sun Quan's successors brought to power temporary-ists, such as Zhuge Ke, assassinated in 253. Struggles of court cliques and intrigues developed. The ruling elite no longer cared about the people, because they relied on the police and the army.
The kingdom of Shu was a most interesting and remarkable phenomenon. But its principle of "Humanity and Friendship" was never realized. Shu arose from a combination of the high intelligence of Zhuge Liang and the daring of Liu Bei's thugs. By capturing together, the rich Sichuan, they were given the material means to accomplish "great deeds. But they didn't do it.
During the Three Kingdoms period, all energetic individuals became visible and died. Some (in yellow scarves) for the idea of the "great peace", others for the red Han Empire, some for their loyalty to their leader, others for their own honor and glory in the posterity, etc. After the terrible cataclysm, China socially represented a cluster of ashes. After the census in the middle of the II century, about 50 million people were counted in the empire, and in the middle of the III century only -7,5 million. Even the most mediocre government could now govern an impersonal remnant mass.
Yan's coup ended the Confucian legacy, if not de jure, then de facto. In every office were totally unprincipled, amoral scoundrels who divided their time between stealing from their subjects and dissolute debauchery. This was a time of such decay, that China recovered from it only 300 years later, purged by the fires of the Barbary invasions.
WOWEE: If there was a time of rule by generosity, I want to know about it, or if it is only myth.
I never ever found a "golden age" in European history, of which I have a more thorough knowledge.
Thanks for your site on Chinese thought and history.
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