The Yale Free Press

The relatively large degree of freedom the West has enjoyed for the last few centuries made possible a period of prosperity and happiness unprecedented in human history. The success of the West can be unmistakably traced back to the partial adoption of Anglo-American liberalism, the endeavor to maximize individual freedom through a system of rights under law, in the social systems of Europe and North America. Unable to deny the evidence of the prosperity liberty has brought to the West and the essential role it plays in the way western societies work, the enemies of liberalism have been forced to fight freedom in other parts of the world. Advocates of many forms of authoritarianism and statism have fought liberalism in the name of defending against "cultural imperialism" and protecting native cultures in other parts of the world from incompatible and alien Western concepts like “freedom” and “free-trade.” The anti-globalists, communists, advocates of “Asian Values” and others have all argued at one time or another that the liberal understanding of law and government are irrelevant and inapplicable to certain other cultures and peoples. The value of liberty being universal to human beings, no viewpoint could be more pernicious to the well being and future progress of the world’s people.

The value of liberty is based in the very nature of human beings and there is no reason to believe its principles and importance have been understood only by western thinkers. Belief in and the understanding of the concept of human freedom has arisen independently in many places at many times. This fact is not well known. In the minds of many, the West is viewed as the sole stronghold of liberal viewpoints and the originator, of individual liberty as a core social value. This belief has strengthened the illiberal argument that liberty is a distinctly western invention that does not have a place in the values of other cultures and can not be successfully introduced to other societies. A powerful counter-example to this is the strong defenses of core liberal principles found in ancient Chinese philosophy.

The cultures of Asia are often presented as being very different from our own. Emphasis is put on the importance of consensus and group decision making and “Asian Values” that are some how inimical to open liberal society but provide the same benefits and a path to modernism. Much is also made of the fact that the Chinese word for freedom (ziyou, literally translated: “through oneself”) did not exist until the 20th century when it was borrowed from the Japanese who themselves had coined the term in order to translate foreign literature. But in China, a country reputed to be at odds with our own in the way its people think and how its society is ordered, important pillars of liberalism were developed and defended long before thinkers in the West came to these conclusions.

Parallels between Chinese philosophy and liberalism are easy to find in the writings of the Daoist thinkers. The philosophy of Daoism, as set forth in the Tao Te Ching, contains some of the most overt instances of a radical libertarianism in all of ancient literature. As political philosophers have always done, the authors of the book reflected on a way for humanity to follow which would put an end to conflicts and strife. They attributed this strife to interference with the natural order and the use of force. If rulers let society develop naturally good will arise naturally through the peaceful actions of individuals. Again and again, the Tao Te Ching defends an extreme form of hands off, laissez-faire governance:

“The greater the number of laws and restrictions, the poorer the people who inhabit the land. The sharper the weapons of battle and war, the greater the troubles besetting the land. The greater the cunning with which people are ruled, the stranger the things which occur in the land. The harder the rules and regulations, the greater the number of those who will steal. The sage therefore does not contrive in order to bring about reform, but teaches the people peace of mind, in order that they might enjoy their lives.”

Although the Tao Te Ching strongly supports limited government, even to the point of anarchism, it is unfortunately also strong on primitive hostility to modern civilization:

"Lessen the population. Make sure that even though there are labor saving tools, they are never used. Make sure that the people look upon death as a weighty matter and never move to distant places. Even though they have ships and carts, they will have no use for them. … Make sure that the people return to the use of the knotted cord [in lieu of writing]. … Then even though neighboring states are within sight of each other, [and] can hear the sounds of each other’s dogs and chickens … people will grow old and die without ever having visited one another."

For a fuller more well-rounded treatment of the other aspects of liberalism it is necessary to turn to the works of the Confucians. While often quoted and held up as an alternative path to western capitalism and liberalism, many Confucian scholars defended freedom against tyranny in their thought. According to philosopher Roderick Long, “The early Confucians, by contrast, may not be as radical in their anti-statism as the Taoists, but in my estimation they make up for this flaw by firmly yoking their anti-statism to the cause of civilization, commerce, and the Great Society; their overall program thus looks a lot more like contemporary libertarianism than the Taoist program does.” One Confucian text, while noting approvingly Laozi’s hostility to despotism, sharply criticizes Laozi for wanting to ‘drag the present age back to the conditions of primitive times and to stop up the eyes and ears of the people’; the best ruler instead ‘accepts the nature of the people,’ which is to long for “beautiful sounds and forms,” “ease and comfort.””

Perhaps the best of the Chinese liberals was Confucian historian Sima Qian. Almost two thousand years before Adam Smith, Sima opined that "Wealth and currency should be allowed to flow as freely as water!" It was a long time before any one is the West recognized the value entrepreneurs and business as Sima most insightfully did over two thousand years ago:

“These, then, are examples of outstanding and unusually wealthy men. None of them enjoyed any titles or fiefs, gifts, or salaries from the government, nor did they play tricks with the law or commit any crimes to acquire their fortunes. They simply guessed what course conditions were going to take and acted accordingly, kept a sharp eye out for the opportunities of the times, and so were able to capture a fat profit. … There was a special aptness in the way they adapted to the times …. All of these men got where they did because of their devotion and singleness of purpose. … [T]here is no fixed road to wealth, and money has no permanent master. It finds its way to the man of ability like the spokes of a wheel converging upon the hub, and from the hands of the worthless it falls like shattered tiles. … Rich men such as these deserve to be called the “untitled nobility” …”

A third major school of ancient Chinese philosophy, Legalism, is often held up as the model for the authoritarianism and brutality that have sometimes characterized Chinese regimes, especially in the 20th century. Mao Zedong compared himself to Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of China who applied Legalistic principles to the administration of the state. Much of this criticism is well founded but the credit still must be given to the Legalists for independently developing and getting adopted an early conception of the rule of law. 

In ruling a country, the Legalists thinkers put great emphasis on fa: law or principle. They believed that the law code should be clearly written and made public. The people must know what is expected of them and what the consequences of their actions will be. All people under the ruler were equal before the law. The functions of government must be spelled out and the function of individual governors must be limited and directed by the system to insure that the functions are carried out no matter who is executing them and to prevent abuse of position. It is the position of the ruler, not the ruler himself, who holds the power. All of these principles are important elements in our conception of the rule of law. Under the rule of law all government authority may only be exercised in accordance with written laws, which are adopted through an established procedure in order to safeguard against arbitrary rulings in individual cases.

All these beliefs coexisted at more or less the same time in the heads of Chinese philosophers. All of them were discovered independently of any similar developments in the West and even preceded the Western development by centuries. The ancient Chinese philosophers were smart men that turned their minds to the question of how society should be ordered and it should be no surprise that many of their conclusions resemble the principles that have served us in our time so extraordinarily well.

Ben Darrington is a sophomore in Pierson College.