Confucian Case Against Political Equality
* Book: Bai Tongdong, Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019.
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Contents
Mateusz Janik:
"Against Political Equality has nine chapters that guide readers through the three main steps in Bai’s argument. The first step sets the comparative framework by claiming that Confucianism in the Spring and Autumn [770-476 BCE] and Warring States [475-221 BCE] periods should be seen as a response to a shift from feudalism to modernity. This shift was marked by dissolution of the clan-based political authority and intensification of social mobility, creating new political solutions and new ways to think about the sociopolitical body as a whole. According to Bai, Confucian thinkers in the pre-imperial period found themselves in conditions that structurally resembled the rise of the modern state system in Europe, and thus their answers can be justifiably compared to those given by Western thinkers in the post feudal period. The second step follows from the argument that although liberal democracy remains a globally hegemonic political model, it is far from the last stage of historical development. Bai points out some problems in the Western political model, ranging from questions of legitimacy and political agency to education and citizens’ ability to participate in decision making. The third step applies the Confucian responses to the challenges of modernity in order to reform the institutional and ideological frameworks of liberal democracy. The resulting “Confucian hybrid regime,” when applied to Western democracy, would strengthen the liberal side but undermine the democratic side, offering a more community-oriented and meritocratic approach.
Chapter 1, “Why Confucianism? Which Confucianism?” reveals the foundation of Bai’s philosophical project at the methodological level. The reader will find here some revealing explanations of how Bai reconstructs the textual tradition of Confucianism—a step often missing from the comparative approaches that tend to take the Confucian corpus for granted. Bai attempts to read the Confucian canonical works philosophically. This means that he approaches them as texts that engage reflexively in discussing “philosophical problems” (i.e., genuinely unsolvable challenges to human existence that transcend particular moments in time and space; p. 10). As such, these texts are taken as a whole and read systematically, even though this kind of a holistic approach has been challenged (p. 14). However, it is a pity that the book does not provide a similar explanation of the liberal tradition, which is far from a closed system of ideas. Bai has a certain textual tradition in mind in referring to John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and John Rawls, yet interweaves them into the narrative without enough methodological caution. Thus, whereas “can early liberal texts be read philosophically?” is a provocative question, the answer to it might turn out to be even more interesting than the answer to the question concerning a philosophical reading of Confucian texts.
Chapter 2, “Confucianism on Political Legitimacy: For the People, of the People, But Not by the People,” explores the early Confucian response to Chinese modernity in the pre-imperial period. Here, Bai stresses an important point made by other proponents of Confucianism, such as Jiang Qing—namely, that the core question of early Confucian political discourse is not sovereignty but, rather, legitimacy (p. 34). This has important consequences, particularly with respect to the alleged democratic tendencies found in Mencius as well as in how Confucian moral and political precepts should be interpreted. Bai takes a very open approach to an aspect of Confucianism that is sometimes neglected, namely, that it was developed as a discourse addressed to the ruling classes (p. 45). He sees this not as a limitation but as an advantage. It is interesting to follow his consistent defense of political meritocratic elitism and critique of the “one person, one vote” system on this ground. Nevertheless, the binary setting of the entire book becomes a burden here. As a confrontation between liberal and Confucian traditions, it excludes other perspectives—not only radical democratic antiliberal movements in Europe that had a tremendous influence on the development of the liberal tradition but also Daoist critiques of the Confucian political model that might put the question of authority and political legitimacy into a broader perspective.
Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the Confucian “hybrid regime,” which is Bai’s response to the limitations of liberalism and Western democracy. In Chapter 3, “A Confucian Hybrid Regime as an Answer to Democratic Problems,” the blending of democracy and meritocracy is defended as a proper response that allows a more stable political model in which social mobility and political participation are reframed along the lines of education and the development of moral cultivation. The argument in favor of a hybrid regime is based on a political reading of Mencius. Nevertheless, Bai’s point is that a political perspective blending together democratic and authoritarian elements is universally applicable. Chapter 4, “The Superiority of the Confucian Hybrid Regime Defended,” addresses some of the possible critiques of the Confucian corrections of the liberal democratic model—in particular, the accusation that it undermines equality, which is supposed to be one of the foundations of liberal democracy (pp. 98-102). In the conclusion to this chapter, Bai offers a good summary of his argument so far: in general, Confucian political theory provides not only a model for more balanced political institutions but also a regulative horizon that is more realistic than the one offered by liberal democrats.
Chapter 5, “Compassion as the New Social Glue in the Society of Strangers,” contains a philosophically intriguing defense of the Confucian version of the idea of universal care and humanness, seen as a response to the dissolution of social relations during Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. A deeper metaphysical structure of the Confucian project is at work here, and Bai skillfully shifts between early Confucian and neo-Confucian authors, showing how the universalist claims, concerning the care for others, remain hierarchical despite their inclusive features. The strength of this chapter follows in part from the fact that Bai develops his interpretation of compassion, care, and humanness from the Confucian tradition, without an attempt to fit it into the liberal philosophical discourse (pp. 125-28). This is the heart of the book. It offers insight into the Confucian understanding of social relations and offers a convincing political reformulation of the moral philosophy found in Confucian texts.
This discussion continues in Chapter 6, “Conflict in the Expansion of Care: The Private versus the Public.” Here, Bai employs the philosophical apparatus that he constructed in earlier chapters. He argues that the division of society into two spheres (public and private) can be positively transformed by a more hierarchical order involving a gradual stratification of society. Individuals and groups that comprise such a society would be linked together by an affective network of relations inspired by the concept of universal compassion (p. 139).
Chapter 7, “Tian Xia: A Confucian Model of National Identity and International Relations,” takes this argument even further, showing how it can be applied to international relations by exploring the implications of Confucian moral teachings on the idea of “All under Heaven” (pp. 184-87)—one of the most important terms in Chinese political thought. The Confucian model of international relations is presented as an alternative to various modern political theories of nation-state interests. In this context, Bai also argues that embracing the Confucian hybrid regime would allow the Chinese government to relax its dependence on nationalist ideology, which remains one of the biggest obstacles to its peaceful rise in the global arena (p. 213).
The last two chapters conclude the argument by pointing to the possibility of a Confucian concept of rights, based in particular on the Mencian approach to justice. In Chapter 8, “Humane Responsibility Overrides Sovereignty: A Confucian Theory of Just War,” Bai reconstructs Mencius’ views on justified war, showing that, despite many differences, the Confucian concept of justice can be elaborated as a social discourse with some merit in the context of modern social and political conflicts (pp. 226-29). In this way, he lays the ground for the argument developed in Chapter 9, “A Confucian Theory of Rights.” It is somewhat surprising that, in this chapter, Bai seems to return to a “compatibility claim” renounced in the introduction (p. xi).
Throughout the book, Bai consistently avoids argumentation focused on showing how Confucianism can be integrated into the liberal political discourse, offering, instead, various Confucian alternatives to the challenges faced by liberalism. The last two chapters seem to be written in a more conciliatory manner. However, the argument that Confucians can develop a concept of rights that is not in direct conflict with its liberal-democratic counterpart seems to be a strategic statement. It allows Bai to make the argument that, by applying the Confucian approach to the concept of rights, one can offer the meritocratic corrections of the liberal discourse.
Finally, in the “Postscript,” Bai makes some general remarks concerning the applicability of the Confucian perspective to issues that pose moral and existential threats to humanity, such as climate change and unbalanced technological development. The book closes with a brief consideration of the very possibility of challenging the liberal-democratic model of political institutions under the current sociohistorical conditions."
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/pii/S2352133323000821)
Review
By Mateusz Janik:
"Chinese Confucianism is as diverse as a millennium-old intellectual tradition can be. However, the common ground for various Confucian positions stems from the shared corpus of texts and the questions that follow from it. One of these questions concerns continuity, which—especially in the case of political philosophy—resonates with the image of China as a state-based civilization rooted deeply in its history.
Bai Tongdong’s latest book, Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case, is an original voice in the ongoing debate on the contemporary application of Confucianism. Its point of departure is philosophical continuity, taken not as an assumption but, rather, as a question (how should early Confucian texts be read philosophically?). Bai has been engaged in this debate for over a decade now, starting with his work on the political stakes that shaped the historical reality of the early Chinese state.1
The originality of the argument presented in Against Political Equality follows from Bai’s claim that classical Chinese philosophy was developed amid a historical shift to a society that, in many respects, resembled that of early modern Europe. This view was presented in his 2012 book China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle Kingdom,2 and it sets the groundwork for the main argument in his latest book, as it offers an effective methodological vehicle for developing a comparative perspective. It also allows the author to voice a critique of liberal democracy as well as to distance himself from a broader current of New Confucianism, revived recently by scholars such as Jiang Qing 蔣慶3 as well as Daniel A. Bell and Wang Pei 汪沛."
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/org/science/article/pii/S2352133323000821)
Discussion
- Article: An epistemic case for confucian democracy. By Elena Ziliotti. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy Volume 26, 2023 - Issue 7
URL = https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698230.2020.1838736
"In the last twenty years, the question of whether Confucianism can support democratic legislative institutions has become the focus of several debates in Confucian political theory. One original contribution to the debate is the conception of ‘political meritocracy’. In line with the Confucian idea that political leadership should be based on de (virtue, 德), Confucian meritocrats maintain that political leaders selected on the basis of their political competence and moral character should have a greater than or equal influence to that of democratically elected leaders in the decision-making process, they argue, can provide better chances of allocating superior political power to the junzi (the gentleman in the ethical sense, 君子) and not to the xiao ren (petty persons, 小人).Footnote1 Such a view is , opposed by the Confucian democrats, who defend the instrumental value of democracy beyond the material well-being of the people . Democratic participation, Confucian democrats maintain, is required to provide citizens with the opportunity to cultivate the Confucian virtues, such as ren (benevolence, 仁) and yi (righteousness, 義)."
* Article: Saving Liberalism from Democracy through Confucianism: Response to Critics. Tongdong Bai.
URL = https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/jspp.2022.0012
"In Nicholas Tampio’s Introduction to this group of criticisms of my new book, Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case, he said, ‘If not a teacher of evil, as Strauss called Machiavelli, Bai will still appear as a diabolical figure to many people who take democracy’s goodness for granted.’ I know he is joking, or so I hope. But I have been called ‘a crusader against democracy’ or a defender of authoritarianism, among other names. So, let me be clear at the outset: I consider myself a (Confucian/Burkean) liberal, and I think that to defend the kind of liberalism I cherish, we need to put restrictions on democracy and equality, which is a central theme of my book. The discussion in this book is inspired by ideas in certain Confucian texts. To many, Confucianism is considered part of the (traditional) Chinese culture, that is, something particular to the Chinese (or Chinese of the past). But I take Confucianism as a set of universal and contemporarily relevant values, just as Kantianism is considered a set of such values, and not specific to the German culture of the eighteenth century. Therefore, I don’t agree with some of my critics when they imply that my proposals are only made in the Chinese context and about China’s future. They are meant to save the world."