When a corporate cabal buys monopoly ownership of essential industries like food, and exercises its vast wealth to buy all new technologies and scientific inventions that offer to delight and improve the lot of humanity, the blessing of economic progress is transformed into the curse of monopoly control and pricing, built-in obsolescence, and eternal debt. Not to mention the scarifying of the planet for resources to build new gizmos to replace the obsolete 2 year old gizmos that now occupy the most geologically recent stratum of our vast landfills, ripe to bursting with the market externalities that are sloughed off by corporate capitalism's "way of doing business".
Democracy may be rule by the incompetent, but capitalism is most assuredly government of sheep by wolves.
the Tao of Confucius
China's political government, like capitalism's privately owned and operated planning system, engages in economic management of the present and planning for the future. China's "let's get rich" plan was spectacularly successful -- its vision was deliciously embraced by virtually all strata of Chinese society who are now rightfully proud of their national accomplishment. But like any tsunami, the rapid rise of material wealth that washed over China brought its share of socioeconomic problems.
These are all too familiar to us sovereign consumers in our advanced capitalist states. Central among these, and hearkening back to de Tocqueville, is the extreme income and wealth inequality that stratifies society into disconnected layers. Unless a responsible political government possesses the power, the wisdom, and the will to ameliorate this breaking of social cohesion, an emergent plutocracy will become the defacto government by virtue of their ownership of the financial, commercial and industrial infrastructure.
The capitalist planning system is designed first and foremost to enshrine itself invincible atop the nation, and rule as a tyrant in service to its need to grow and intensify its monopoly control. Four decades of implementing the Powell Doctrine has led to adoption by America's planners of their present policy of full spectrum domination of everything, everywhere. Any slightest indication of competition must be crushed with extreme prejudice, in order that the American Empire might enjoy its thousand year reign as an indispensable people ruling from their enlightened city on a hill. One cannot but wax Biblical in the face of this Biblically inspired vision of dominion.
China's cultural heritage followed a different path, a way that is closer to the spirit of truth that Jesus taught. Confucius, the Tao, and Jesus have, perhaps surprisingly, much in common.
Central to Confucian thought is the vision of the "gentleman", who alone possesses the knowledge, the personal morality, and the wisdom to serve as a leader of his culture. Unlike Plato's philosopher-kings who are rationally certain that their way is universally true and good, the Confucian gentleman adapts the applications of the principles to the exigencies of changing times.
Confucius said, "I have no preconceptions about the permissible and the impermissible". Christians will recognize the parallel in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, explaining that for a person who is thinking and acting in the spirit of truth, "Everything is permissible, but not everything is constructive. Everything is permissible, but not everything builds up. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others" (1Corinthians 10: 23-24) And Jesus said all of the law and the prophets are condensed into two simple principles: love God; love one another as I have loved you. How we apply those principles is up to us and depends on the circumstances at hand.
There are no permanent universal 'laws' in The Way. There are guiding principles, which followers of the Tao must adapt to their specific times and circumstances. Laws will emerge, relevant to the exigencies of the present, but with an eye to honoring the past and securing the future of the culture. The past provides a ready store of culturally preserved wisdom to draw upon. The Analects of Confucius, and a host of Taoist texts from antiquity, contain much of China's cultural wisdom.
Today China's leaders are looking to apply the Tao to China's present circumstances. The gentleman ruler, as contrasted with the capitalist plutocrat, does not seek personal benefit from his service to the people. As D.C. Lau wrote in the Introduction to his 1979 Penguin translation of The Analects,
"Confucius was both a great thinker and a great human being. As a thinker he held up an ideal for all men. This consisted of perfecting one's own moral character. Realizing this ideal involves not only being benevolent to other individuals but also working unstintingly for the welfare of the common people. For this Confucius could hold out no hope of a reward either in this life or the next. The reward lies in the doing of what is good, and this constitutes the joy of following the Way. He had great respect for the wisdom of the past but did not accept it uncritically. For him the only way of making progress is to reflect on what has been handed down to us from the past. He was anything but dogmatic: he refused to entertain conjecture or insist on certainty; he refused to be inflexible or be egotistical." (p. 51-52)
Unlike the Levite's 613 laws for "correct" Jewish practice, Confucianism involves an evolutionary give and take between principle and practice. The specifics of practices that are permissible and not permissible depend on present circumstances. The Tao is the "right" way, that leads to the most harmonious outcome for the society as a whole. How that translates into practice depends on where your society is now, and the path it "should" follow in order to achieve maximum harmony.
Confucianism and "government" are inseparable. The Tao is a well-ordered society, the product of good government by gentlemen whose concern for the welfare of their people leads the people to a contemporary version of green pastures and still waters. Maybe that means the people have jobs and sufficient incomes, and social security in the form of government-sponsored health care and pensions. The specific circumstances and needs of the present determine the specific path to the desired future.
Genghis Khan was "the scourge of God" who scorched the Earth and forged an empire. His grandson Kublai was a leader who ruled a civilized empire. Chinese capitalism has forged a wealthy nation. It will require a different kind of leader to civilize and manage what has been built.
One thing Confucius is certain about is that leaders lead by example. Lau writes,
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