EDITOR’S NOTE: Thank Mr. Lang Yan for his third piece of critique of New Legalism “More on Harmony and Nationalism: the Debate with the New Legalists Part Three”. We have been serious about this debate because of two reasons: First, in spite of some possible previous misunderstandings between Mr. Lang Yan and us, we New Legalists do “share the same goal” with him, that is, to end the exploitation by capital, just as declared in our website motto “End capital’s hegemony in the name of liberty…” Secondly, our difference in strategy shows the ideological confusion in the ranks of the present-day world’s anti-capitalism forces. A wrong line of approach would not lead us to our common goal. So, hopefully, this debate, or rather discussion, will help find out the right one.
A brief history of the debate:
Lang Yan:
Legalism debate continues
Yuzhong Zhai & Sherwin Lu:
Dichotomies OK, Dualism No: In reply to Mr. Lang Yan
Lang Yan:
One divides into two, or two fuse into one
Sherwin Lu
Neither “One Divides into Two” Nor “Two Fuse into One”: 2nd reply to Mr. Lang Yan
Lang Yan
More on Harmony and Nationalism: the Debate with the New Legalists Part Three
THE TEXT
I. Is the Issue Philosophical or Political
At the very start, Mr. Lang Yan professes that “The New Legalists talk mainly in terms of philosophical principles. This is not my primary interest… My interests lie elsewhere: the ending [of] exploitation and destruction of capitalism.” That means his interest is in political thought. That may be true. But the way Mr. Lang Yan looks at our difference shows he does not quite understand the Chinese culture in general and New Legalism in particular, nor himself either.
Traditional Chinese learning did not use the term “philosophy”, but talked about the “Dao”, or the Heaven’s way, as the most general and fundamental principle governing everything under Heaven. The discussion of the “Dao” is somewhat like the counterpart of “philosophy” in Western culture. But what distinguishes it from Western philosophy is: while the latter is only one of the many fragmentized academic disciplines, in the Chinese thought system a conscious understanding of the Dao guided all learning, no matter what specific field. That means all scholars tried to fit their view of a specific field in with the most general “big picture” of the Dao, rightly or wrongly understood. Therefore, while there was some sort of division of work between the different fields of learning, as no scholar can be an expert in everything, there was not a clear-cut splitting up between the search for a truthful understanding of the Dao as the most general and all-governing law and the exploration of specific laws as its manifestations in a specific field, for instance, social political-economic life. This means that Chinese learning and Western learning are essentially different systems of thought and that Chinese culture has been an integrated whole, not compartmentalized. We Chinese New Legalists have been trying to carry on this tradition, because it has stood the test of a long history of thousands of years, while Western learning has been proved inadequate for solving, besides being at least partially responsible for, present-day world’s crises after raging for only a few hundreds of years.
To say that Western learning is compartmentalized or fragmentized does not mean that any political view can be independent of the holder’s philosophical world outlook. The holder might not be consciously interested in philosophy, but still his way of looking at anything must have been shaped by the philosophical worldview he has been educated in with or without his awareness of it. That is why we New Legalists do not judge a viewpoint in isolation from the philosophical principles underlying it. As a matter of fact, Mr. Lang Yan is not totally uninterested in philosophy, as the title of one of his critiques “One divides into two, or two fuse into one” shows. The problem with him is that the philosophical way of looking at things he has adopted from the mainstream Western tradition cannot sustain and does not fit his political aspiration and belief, which former contradicts the latter in the ultimate sense. That is why this author says he does not understand himself either.
II. Is Capitalism just Economic Exploitation on Shop-Floor
What is the problem with capitalism in philosophical terms, then? To be sure, it is not a problem with “capital” per se, but its internal and external relations. First of all, capitalism means the domination, or hegemony, of capital over labor, or, in terms of our “philosophical principle” of “dynamic balance”, the imbalance of power, economic and political, between capital and labor in favor of the former in plants, firms and other business units on the shop level. But this is not all. This prevailing and unchecked, or rather deliberately indulged, imbalance in shop-level labor relations has created further imbalance on higher societal levels: the domination of monopoly capital over all others, including non-monopoly small- or medium-sized capital; and the “globalized” domination of Western monopoly capital, in collaboration with local bureaucratic/comprador capital in developing countries, over local small- or medium-sized businesses and all working people of those countries. To put it simply, the hegemony of monopoly capital over all working people and non-monopoly businesses all over the world, or the imbalance of power between a handful of financial magnates and all others on a global scale, has been the root cause of all the crises and major problems confronting mankind today. The consequences of this hegemony, the disasters it has imposed on the mankind, have been much more horrendous than just economic exploitation on the shop floor..
Capitalism is not only an economic phenomenon. It is a multi-dimensional system penetrating into all societal levels and all social realms of the world today. Besides economy on all scales, local, national and global, it also dominates over domestic and international politics and cultural/ideological discourse, all backed by overwhelmingly superior economical and military power. Therefore, just as one cannot finish a meal in one bite or win a big war in one battle, the historical task of ending capitalism cannot be achieved at one blow. It has to be brought about in steps, steps so divided that at each one an alliance of the progressive forces of all countries can guarantee support or neutral understanding from the greatest possible number of people from all strata all over the world so that the core of world evil forces is isolated to the utmost. Therefore, talking about ending capitalism without differentiating between monopoly and non-monopoly capital, without singling out the former as the worst form of capitalism and currently the archenemy of all mankind, would only serve to consolidate the forces of capitalism and help it survive longer.
III. Why not Divide Capital into Two
The difference between monopoly and non-monopoly capital is not only a matter of size, but more importantly, it is a matter of social economic-political relations: the relation between the two is one between usurpers of public power and victims of its selfish and irresponsible policies instead of one between equal social entities. It bears resemblance to the general relationship between capital and labor under the capitalist system but on a higher societal level and a much broader scale. If we take the two-level, three-party relationship as a whole, it resembles that between the feudalistic monarch/aristocracy (the earlier counterpart of today’s monopoly capital), the rising bourgeoisie (non-monopolistic) and the proletariat in early modern times.
What is different between the two historical sets of three-party relationships is that:
1. The power of monarchic/aristocratic forces of earlier times basically did not go beyond the boundaries of nation-states they respectively belong to, while the monopoly capital today is a global phenomenon, its power reaching from the Northwestern globe out to all corners of the world and, so, many times more ambitious, powerful, and destructive.
2. The working class and small business people of all countries in today’s world are almost all subjected to the exploitation, oppression, control, bullying, manipulation or threat by the same bloc of world monopoly capitalists (in collaboration with their economic, political and ideological agents in each country) and so have the potential to form the broadest resistance alliance for justice against this common archenemy of all mankind;
3. The so-called “middle-class” today includes not only small businessmen, or non-monopolistic entrepreneurs, but also the great number of technical and managing professionals who share profits in a way with business owners of large-size or high-tech corporations, just like using their knowledge and skills as a sort of capital (tech capital). This new middle class is weaker in moral awareness of existing social injustice, domestic and international, and in the political will to fight it than their earlier counterpart, the then newly-rising bourgeoisie. Though individually there are people from this class, especially its lower stratum and the middle class in non-Western developing countries, who are standing or will stand firmly on the side of the oppressed majority, today’s middle class as a whole is ideologically captivated by the ruling monopoly clique and can hardly break free from its manipulation, especially the upper stratum of this class in the Western countries as these people are more stake-sharers than victims of world monopoly interests. They lack a sense of fate sharing and solidarity with the most victimized peoples of the developing countries and act more as blind ideological and political followers of the former than as supporters and allies of the latter.
From the above scenario, two conclusions can be made:
1. The “middle class” today cannot play the most active role, not to say the leading role, any more in the fight against domestic and international injustice as its earlier counterpart in fighting feudalism. This role has to be assumed by the “capital-less” (not only property-less) working class peoples of the world. This majority of the world’s population should be the social basis for the progressive movement of today.
2. The middle class is, however, an important source of allies and supporters in the fight against mankind’s archenemy – world monopoly capital. Not until the most oppressed and exploited peoples of the world win over support from a larger part of this class, can the progressive mission to diminish and terminate the hegemony of world monopoly plutocracy be fulfilled, still less to end capitalism “per se”.
IV. Is Capital-Labor Partnership Possible
Mr. Lang Yan might argue: Non-monopoly capitalists are also capitalists. They also exploit the working class. How can the proletariat take them as potential partners? This author cannot help wonder, since Mr. Lang Yan believes in “one divides into two” as a philosophical principle, why he refuses to see that capital divides into two, i.e., good (justly earned and constructively used) capital and bad (unjustly earned and destructively used) capital? Why he refuses to see the role played by non-monopoly capital also divides into two, i.e., facilitating social production (positive) while exploiting the working people (negative)? The problem with him is that he only sees “dividing” and refuses to see the necessity and possibility of “balancing”. And Mr. Lang Yan is so strongly opposed to “two fuse into one” that he can never imagine that capital and labor can fuse into one person though it does happen in reality, for instance, in workers-owned co-operatives..
Actually there have been businesses all over the world in which capital-labor relations are more or less balanced, such as Co-determination,Mondragón Cooperative Corporation, and many other forms of business management in which labor plays a more or less equal role. Such arrangements are , of course, still exceptions in today’s world or not thorough enough in the degree of dynamic balance between capital and labor and cannot change the basic capitalist nature of the societies in which they exist. But such many examples definitely show that, when both labor and capital are subjected to the oppression by a powerful common enemy, as is the world situation now, or when a progressive political force representing the interests of the working people and the whole population is in control of state power, a situation that has existed before or might still be existing in some parts of the world, some form or combination of different forms of labor-capital cooperation on different societal levels through dynamic interactions (or “class struggle”) and mutual compromise between the two is not impossible.
If someday a balance between capital and labor in economic and political power on all levels of human existence is achieved, (that can be achieved only after the battle or battles against world hegemonism is won, wherever it appears), then that will be the end of capitalism we New Legalists are striving for – it will not be “capitalism” any more as Mr. Lang Yan wrongly assumes -- while capital may still exist but will play a predominantly benign role. At that time, new imbalances of some other kind will emerge and hence the need to achieve new balances through dynamic interactions between some other or newly emerged social groups but the mankind on the whole will have acquired a higher level of consciousness of the need for self-restraint, comprehensive balance and all-round harmony, internal and external – this should be the “vector” of human “progress” if there is one.
V. Which Perspective is Closer to Reality
The world’s socialist forces, including China, have suffered from deviations in both extremes: either underestimating or denying the positive role of properly regulated private capital to the detriment of a faster growth of socialist economy, or losing vigilance against the destructiveness of both private capital not regulated by public power and state capital not constitutionally supervised by the working class and all citizens and overstepping the proper line of compromise to the extreme of betrayng the interests of all working people and of the whole nation while catering to those of newly-emerged bureaucratic monopoly capitalists at home and world monopoly interests abroad. All of us, including Mr. Lang Yan, need to learn from both lessons.
The lessons are not only political. They are also philosophical: Those in power did not have in their cultural tradition or have cast away from their national legacy the consciousness and practice of all-round balance-keeping on all societal and non-societal levels through conscientious dynamic interactions.
The idea of “dynamic balance” does not exclude that of the existence of opposites but already presupposes that “All things carry the opposites Yin and Yang, approaching harmony through moderation.” (Dao De Jing, Chapter 42) Actually this idea accommodates a multiplicity of closely-related implications:
1. In the political context of capital-labor relations as an illustration, it implies either compromise for the purpose of fighting a common enemy or confrontation till one or both sides together cease to exist, all depending on the need for a comprehensive balance, internal and external. Obviously, Mr. Lang Yan misunderstands our idea of “balance” as unconditional compromise.
2. The above understanding implies the recognition of a multi-level/dimension context for all pairs of Yin-Yang opposites (as exemplified by the above analysis involving three parties on two levels). It seems that Mr. Lang Yan’s perspective lacks this important dimension.
3. The relatedness, or the need for balance, between things on different levels extends through all levels/dimensions in all directions. If the human society believes in unbalanced “dividing” only and cannot achieve a dynamic balance internally and externally, the internal tension at any level will inevitably spill out into the external till finally reaching the topmost-level relation between man and Nature (the non-human part of existence). Just look and see how the monopoly capitalists, who have been dominating at home and then trying to find enemies abroad to ease domestic tension while grabbing more wealth, and then trying to maintain their world hegemony by sacrificing our planet Earth’s ecosphere, all motivated by their selfish interests, are now trying to conquer the outer space – the limitless new “frontier” -- for military as well as economic purposes. If man sticks to “dividing” without self-restraint and balancing – synonym for enemy/adversary-searching, Nature will inevitably take revenge on man by destroying him. This understanding implies a holistic perspective, or one of “wholeness”. And this is also what Mr. Lang Yan seems to lack.
“Dynamically-balanced multi-dimensional whole” – this is our worldview. When translated into political terms, it means “All-under-Heaven-ism”, instead of national chauvinism or any other parochial isms. This wholeness in our view involves not only the dimension of space but that of time as well. Our perspective is not limited to the narrow scope of national interests, nor will it expire with the end of capitalism. “Dividing” without “balancing” cannot comprehend such political high-mindedness and philosophical thoroughness.
Our Chinese Daoist-Legalist philosophy is close to life and not mystical nor very abstract, is quite straightforward and not too sophisticated, is holistic and not hair-splitting; and, what is most important, our philosophy penetrates our understanding of apparently non-philosophical issues, as one can see in our above discussion of capitalism. It takes only a serene mind, or in classic Chinese terminology, 虚静的心, to understand all this. We thank Mr. Lang Yan for having provided us with this chance to put across to the public our philosophical-political views in such a way.
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