Today, in my Chinese politics class, we discussed the book, Will the Boat Sink the Water?, by Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao. It is a bracing description (it describes more than it explains) of the pervasive corruption in rural China.  A book anyone interested in rural China should read.  The English-edition title refers to an old saying (which the authors ascribe to Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, but which I am fairly certain is from Xun Zi) about how the people are the water and the leader is the boat, with the obvious implication that only a ruler who attends to the needs of the people will stay afloat.  The situation is so bad, however, that it is quite natural to ask: will the abuse of power by those in the "boat" of political power ultimately "sink" rural people?

      One thing that struck me about the book was its Confucian overtones, which are likely unintentional on the part of the authors.   The main horror stories of bureaucratic repression of farmers all end with the bad guys getting their due.  At some point along the way, remonstrance works.  After repeated attempts at petitioning, farmers finally find that one virtuous higher level leader to help them out (or, alternatively, sympathetic media coverage helps prick the consciences of upper level administrators).  The bureaucratic-authoritarian system that gives so few real opportunities for farmers to find redress for their grievances, both relies upon petitioning and abhors it. 

    The authors recognize the problems here.  Justice is not served by a  system that creates incentives for ostensibly good people in administrative positions to cheat and steal from the farmers. Corruption is inherent and endemic.  But as long as the Party is unwilling to consider more fundamental changes (a truly autonomous judicial system; the expansion of free and fair and regular competitive elections; a scaling back of Party power) the occasional good ending will remain just that, occasional.  It is a shame that a victory by farmers against corrupt officials is so unusual that it is heralded today by the China Daily as a significant breakthrough.  It is 2007 and we are still supposed to take this as something special…

    In any event, it reminds me of the limitations of Confucian governance, which would rely upon virtuous people making sound judgments based upon the totality of circumstances.  Laws might figure in such a system, but they would be secondary to the superior discernment and wisdom of the Jun Zi. The system would depend upon good people to make it work.

     And that, of course, made me think of James Madison in Federalist #51:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels
were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would
be necessary.

     Men, sadly, are not angels; and angels do not govern men.  Systems of government that rely on the virtue of leaders are thus doomed.  If power is overly concentrated in the hands of "good" people, it will not take long for a bad person to come along and abuse that power, setting a new, lower standard for political behavior that will be copied by others.   Only when power is divided and dispersed, when each branch or department has a certain autonomy from the others, and a certain interest in the limitations of the others, can we have greater confidence that justice will be served.  We cannot rely upon the goodness of leaders; we have to create systems that limit the power of any one leader, like the petty tyrants at the bottom end of the party-state apparatus in the PRC.

     The Madisonian response is not the only one, however.  Han Fei Tzu also scoffed at the Confucian reliance on virtuous leaders.  How many truly good gentlemen are there?, he asked.  Not many.  Confucius had only a few disciples who struggled to live up to his standards and he himself never succeeded politically.  So, Han Fei Tzu reasons, it is too idealistic.  Better just to concentrate power at the top and terrorize everyone else, ministers included, with strict laws and harsh punishments. 

     The CCP says that it wants to turn away from such bleak Legalism.  Wen Jiabao and Hu Jintao style themselves as caring men of the people.  But they are not angels.  There are no angels.  If they really want to serve the people, then best to divide and disperse power.

      UPDATE: Charlie’s been reading the same book…