ABSTRACT:

Chinese civilization has grown out of the thousands of years of fully matured agricultural life, while Western civilization originated in geographical areas not favorable to agriculture but suitable for marine trade or a nomadic life.

In the West, the overlapping of class conflicts with internal conflicts within the exploiting classes has made the whole Western society and the world under its sway a lasting battle field for the whole history with never-ending reshuffling of alignment of forces among interest groups on all societal levels, aiming at a dominating position over others. The No. 1 and No. 2 most powerful classes or groups of people, usually both belonging to the privileged exploiting class(es) are always trying to win support from the “third force”, usually the lower strata of exploiting class(es) and those of the middle- and lower-classes who blindly follow either or both the Big Two and decide which of them becomes the No.1 dominator. With contests for power between various interest group alignments happening on ever-broadening scales (from local to state-wide or national to international), more and more oppressed and exploited people(s) get involved and politically awakened. This has been the pattern of social evolution in the Western world and the whole world under its influence.

Nowadays, big capital’s domination, by economic, political, ideological and, if necessary, military means, over countries and peoples not of their own kind, is the No. One lifeline for capitalist empires, because, if there were not enough colonies or semi-colonies for capital to suck wealth from with which to pay for their “welfare state” at home, their internal class conflicts would be sharply aggravated, their internal “democracy” would collapse of itself. Therefore, the dominating plutocracy cannot be sincere when they claim to be helping the developing countries achieve the same economic prosperity as they are enjoying by selling their brand of “freedom”, “democracy” and “human rights”, of which the essential “ingredient” is an acquiescence of big capital domination.

In China, the family-style relationship of co-operation under patriarchal management based on integrated interests was extended beyond the family to that within the clan, and further to the big family of the whole state and of “all-under-heaven”. Traditional Chinese social ethics as an extension of family ethics laid emphasis on the congruity of interests. What was expected of the head manager, from that of a household through the king or emperor, is that he should work for the integrated interest of the whole family, the whole clan and all-under-heaven, not that of himself, or of a specific group or class. This practice on the state level was most typically seen in the economic-political reforms and policies pursued by Daoist-Legalists aiming at dynamically balancing the interests of all social classes and groups.

By pursuing such policies, China’s moral influence upon her neighbors was far more forceful and enduring than the physical might habitually exercised by the Western powers against other nations. This is evidenced by the historical fact that Western civilization has always relied on military conquests for survival whereas traditional Chinese culture has again and again assimilated alien military invaders and conquerors.

However, in the relationship between the sovereign and his subjects, there was never an effective mechanism for keeping a dynamic balance. Whether the nation could have a wise and capable emperor who would stick to the Daoist-Legalist policies totally depended on chances. Due to the limited vision of family-oriented small producers, repeatedly resurging Confucianist policies tended to over-stress the effectiveness of moral education and belittle the rule of law aiming at a general balance. And the common people would pin their hope on “Heaven” or the “Son of Heaven” to improve their fate, without realizing that they themselves are the “Heaven”, i.e., the motivating force of human history. Even Legalists failed to work out a procedure for the people to have their say in choosing the top ruler. And a wise emperor who knows how to promote balance in other social relationships would not think about seeking public opinion when choosing his successor. Thus there was no guarantee for the continuation of Legalist policies. Once an emperor adopted Confucianist policies, social imbalance would accumulate till the dynamics of the Dao worked to overthrow his dynasty through the rebellion of peasants and restored social balance under a new emperor of a new dynasty. Hence the endless cycle of order and chaos. It will not be broken until an operable and effective political mechanism is institutionalized that can in a peaceful and orderly manner adjust to a balance from time to time the relationship between people’s sovereignty and the government’s administrative power.

Western thought tradition did not have the conscious idea of dynamic balance, but, out of the need for internal unity in their never-ending effort to expand externally, has accumulated some practical experiences in their political process that embodies (though limitedly) the principle of dynamic balance. That is to say, there are certain positive factors in the formal procedure of Western constitutional democracy that China can learn from, though, of course, not to be copied or transplanted without adaptation and improvement.

Regarding this issue, there are currently two kinds of devious tendencies that should be guarded against. One is, in the name of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, to reject the political institution of constitutional democracy, which is an important principle of socialism as advocated by Marx. The other is to exactly copy the Western pattern of democracy in an attempt to destroy socialism and restore capitalism completely through a political process dominated by big capital. The lesson from historical experiences, positive and negative, teaches us that only socialism with constitutional democracy, or democracy of a socialist nature, can save China and the world.

THE TEXT

Introduction

CHINESE civilization has been a unique one. It is essentially different from Western civilization. The difference originated in its unique natural environment and the way of earning a living in such an environment. Once a unique tradition was formed at the beginning, it would have profound and lasting influence on its later development, making it stand out as unique for a long, long time. As East-West relationship is reaching a historically new phase, a comparative study of Chinese and Western social evolution patterns will shed new light on the course to be taken by China and the world.

Chinese civilization has grown out of the thousands of years of fully matured agricultural life nourished by vast expanses of flat fertile land and a mild agreeable climate on the East Asian plains. These natural and material conditions have shaped a spiritual-cultural tradition that cherishes the native land, the family, and social ethics based on kinship values; gears human activities to natural cycles, local geographical conditions and the need for balanced human relationships in economic-political life; and lays emphasis on cultivation of one’s inner soul by purging it of greediness, aggressiveness, recklessness and any other impulses against the Dao, or the Way of Nature.

In contrast, Western civilization that originated in southern Europe and West and Central Asia grew out of hilly and/or coastal regions or dry grasslands or even deserts, that is, regions not favorable to agriculture but suitable for marine trade or a nomadic life. These conditions gave rise to a very tough pioneering and adventurous spirit and an individualistic approach to social life, forming contractual relationships with each other and interest groups based on self-interests only. The maritime and nomadic way of life tended to induce pirating and looting activities or even predatory wars. Their Christian belief in love does not reach beyond one’s own nuclear family and local church community plus casual acquaintances into economic-political power relations on the macro societal level.

The above basic differences in the way of earning a living, in social structure, in ethics and spiritual belief have further determined that in the pattern of social evolution.

Western Civilization:
Big Two Vying for Supremacy over Ever-Expanding Areas

Two Types of Interest Groups
An interest group is not like a family that is based on kinship relations, but consists of individuals who choose to or are compelled to form a group with others exclusively out of their respective self-interests. There are two major types of interest groups in terms of their internal relations:

The first type are groups expediently made up of people belonging to two classes with opposed interests, one dominating the other, that is, production units in agriculture, animal husbandry, industry, and commerce, such as farms, manors, plantations, ocean-going merchant ships/fleets, workshops, factories, firms, etc., in which slave or serf owners, or capitalists dominating, exploiting and often spiritually controlling slaves, or serfs, or workers. In spite of their internal conflicts of interest between antagonistic classes, externally such composite groups often appear as monolithic entities, representing solely the dominators’ interests, when confronting other such groups in conflicts of interest. Hence they are interest groups. But, as such production units have always been considered as private spheres, belonging to slave-owners, feudal lords or capitalists, they have never been recognized as social “groups” in class societies. By doing so, their internal conflicts of interest, and issues of freedom, equality, democracy, and human rights within such groups have been successfully suppressed from surfacing as topics to be discussed in traditional mainstream academic discourse. Such intentional “neglect” obviously betrays logical inconsistency and sophisticated hypocrisy.

The second type of interest group is composed of people with undifferentiated common interests. They may basically belong to different economic, political, and cultural business units but are in the same class status or social rank and thus having identical interests. This is the type usually recognized as “interest group”. Take modern times for instance, we have trade unions, chambers of commerce, consumer associations, political parties, religious, ethnic and cultural organizations, etc.

The family resembles the second type in sharing common interests without class conflicts among members. There might be conflicts of interest among family members, but on the whole such conflicts are insignificant as compared with their common interests. Though conflicts of interest in families of the exploiting classes, being generally greedier, are more prevalent and acute, even triggering major conflicts on a social scale or with other ethnic peoples, they only account for a tiny percentage of the whole population and, so, do not change the basic nature and social function of the family in general, i.e., that, with kinship relations as the basis for common interests, family relations and ethics do not play any significant role (as compared with China) in the evolution of the Western society, which has been driven basically by rivaling individual and small group interests. And the family is not regarded as a social group but as a private entity. Therefore it is not necessary to single it out as a type of interest group. 

The internal and external conflicts within and between the above-discussed interest groups, or in other words, the overlapping between class conflicts and internal conflicts within the exploiting classes has made the whole Western society and the world under its sway a lasting battle field for the whole history with never-ending reshuffling of alignment of forces among interest groups of all kinds and all sizes on all societal levels, aiming at a dominating position over others, somewhat like China in the “Spring and Autumn and Warring States” period before her unification .under Qin. The Western world has never had the idea of a total integration, internally and externally, of all mutually conflicting interests based on a dynamic balance between all interest groups, including geopolitical/ethnic/racial entities, like that advocated by traditional Chinese all-under-heaven-ism. There might have some expedient balance and integration of interests within a limited boundary for the purpose of fighting for domination over a wider area, but never a total integration covering the broadest area ever reached by the dominating influence. If one looks at the Western world as a whole at any specific historical moment, one would always see some major forces falling over one another. And if we look at a longer period of time for the general trend of development in the political maneuvering and reshuffling of forces, we can find some regular pattern, which is the content of the next passage.

Big Two’s Tug-of-War for Third-Force Support in the Ever-Shifting Scene of Struggle for Supremacy
“Big Two” refers to the No. 1 and No. 2 most powerful classes or groups of people, usually both belonging to the privileged exploiting class(es) while the “third force”, usually the lower strata of exploiting class(es) and those of the middle- and lower-classes who blindly follow either or both the Big Two and decide which of them becomes the No.1 dominator. With contests for power between various interest group alignments happening on ever-broadening scales (from local to state-wide or national to international), more and more oppressed and exploited people(s) get involved and politically awakened. This has been the pattern of social evolution in the Western world and the whole world under its influence. When the Big Two, with support from their respective allies, reach an approximate balance in power, they would make some political arrangement in the form of written or unwritten social contract for sharing economic-political-cultural power and interests between them. But such a balance is always precarious and impermanent, with one party in a slightly superior position over the other and both parties continuing their maneuvers either to secure the existing allies or to win over more followers from the other side until the balance is tipped with re-alignment of forces. Either the old Big Two may exchange their positions or new powerful force(s) may appear to replace them and win supremacy. 

The following table shows the general picture of the evolution of class relations in the political struggles for supremacy during each major period of time in the Western world’s history of expansion from part of Europe to the whole world:

* Revised 8/24/2014 per suggestion by a friend named Paul Farwell.

The above table shows:

1. The Big Two always belong to the upper strata of exploiting classes while the exploited classes always fall into the third force and become blind followers and pawns in the upper class power struggles.

2. To win support from the exploited peoples under their domination, each of the Big Two necessarily try to fool them with such fair-sounding rhetoric as “common interests”, “patriotism”, “promoting universal values” and what not, while making a few minor concessions that will not harm but help to strengthen and prolong their domination, such as, take modern times for instance, so-called economical “welfare state”, and, politically, the gradual process towards universal suffrage (so long as their money power can control the result of election). It is through the crevices, so to speak, crevices that divide their dominating oppressors into conflicting rivals, that the laboring people have come to, by little steps, shake off the shackles binding them and “evolved” from slaves to serfs with less personal bondage, and, still further, to workers with the “freedom” to change their employer-exploiters. And, economically, the working people in the capitalist world have been rewarded for their “patriotic” support of big capital’s foreign policies, rewarded by some growth in their living standard, growth in 10% (so to speak) increments as compared with 10 or 100 times increments for the big capitalists. Such growth has been made possible because, and will continue so long as, there are other nations or ethnic groups, i.e., people not of their own kind, but under their big capital’s domination, such as old-time colonies or today’s economic colonies, that can provide big capital with astronomical profits ceaselessly. This has been the pattern of “progress” of Western civilization so far.

3. The concessions made by the capitalist-imperialist governments to their own people have limits, however, depending on how much they can practically grab from other countries. Therefore, they will never concede on some essential issues. See below.

Three Basic Principles Upheld by Capitalist Empires:
a) The basic class relationship in social production: labor being dominated by capital.

b) The control by big capital (big money) of mainstream media, academic and recreational culture, education, especially higher learning, and general ideological orientation, all this under the banner of economic and cultural “freedom”.

c) Domination, by economic, political, ideological and, if necessary, military means, over countries and peoples not of their own kind, so as to grab from them as much wealth as possible.

These three principles define the ultimate limit and true nature of Western democracy. So long as all these three principles remain intact, they can go on with “importing” wealth continually while “exporting” starvation, social conflicts and wars. Therefore, so long as there still remain in the world enough “colonies” or “semi-colonies” for their capital to grab more profits from, with which they can bribe their labor aristocracy at home, their imperialist nature will not change and their democratic institutions will not be able to break through the ultimate limit of these three basic principles, still less to change the anti-freedom, anti-equality and anti-human rights status through such institutions. (As to what might be useful in the formal aspect of their democracy, we will discuss further below.)

Among the above three basic principles, while the first one is the primary in the sense that it is the initial pattern of major social relationship in a capitalist society, the third one is the NO. ONE lifeline for monopoly capitalist empires, because, if there were not enough colonies or semi-colonies for capital to suck wealth from with which to pay for their “welfare state” at home, their internal class conflicts would be sharply aggravated, their ideological lies would collapse of themselves, and the other two basic principles can no longer hold. That is to say, they cannot be sincere when they claim to be helping the developing countries achieve the same economic prosperity as they are enjoying by selling their brand of “freedom”, “democracy” and “human rights”, of which the essential “ingredient” is an acquiescence of big capital domination (“they” here refers to the big capital plutocracy, who are in control of national economy and people’s livelihood, and their political and cultural agents, not the vast majority of kind-hearted common people who are victims themselves.) As they know very well, if all other countries are as prosperous and powerful as they are, who will be the docile “fat lambs” for them to fleece? Most probably, long before all the developing countries could catch up with them, with an increasing number of “developed” countries fighting for control of a decreasing number of controllable countries, an inevitable World War III or even World War IV will have nearly destroyed our planet Earth.

It is obvious that the capitalistic development pattern that is a continuation of the evolution pattern of Western civilization is ultimately not imitable or sustainable. If mankind does not mend his way by rejecting this pattern, then it will inevitably lead him into the abyss of destruction beyond redemption. Even if human beings on Earth can colonize some outer-space planets as new sources of wealth, the ultimate non-imitability and unsustainability of this pattern will never change because, though there is no limit to the outer space, there is definitely a limit to humans’ physical being and intellectual capability. So, this pattern is destined to go bankrupt sooner or later, but will cause immense disasters and sufferings to mankind before that happens.

This is the fundamental nature and historical fate of the Western pattern of social evolution.

Chinese Civilization:
Cycles of Order & Chaos under Family-Style Social Management

All-under-Heaven – One Big Family
The family as part of nature is a kinship unit and as part of the society (i.e., in terms of production relationship and class relations) has, generally speaking, high internal congruity of interests with a co-operative relationship and no confrontational class conflicts among its members. In traditional Chinese agricultural society, the family was the economic and social “cell” having the functions of material production, daily life organization, and human reproduction at the same time. The relationship between the head and other members of the family was not a class relationship but one between the organizer and those being organized. Although there existed some small number of tenant peasants in traditional China and their relationship with their landlords was a class relationship, however, there was no institutional slavery or serfdom in Chinese history as those typical of the West. The majority of the rural population in China, including tenants, were free peasants with no personal bondage, many of them cultivating their own land, and all their families were independent and basic production units of the society, subject to the administrative management of government officials only, but not to the jurisdiction of any feudal lord like in medieval Europe.

This family-style relationship of co-operation under patriarchal management based on common interests was extended beyond the family to that within the clan, and further to the big family of the whole state and of all-under-heaven. Therefore, the family-style social management structure and family ethics had a decisive influence on the evolution of the traditional Chinese society, an influence not seen in Western history nor readily understandable to ordinary Westerners.

Traditional Chinese social ethics as an extension of family ethics laid emphasis on the congruity of interests. What was expected of the head manager, from that of a household through the Son of Heaven (king or emperor), is that he should work for the integrated interest of the whole family, the whole clan and all-under-heaven, not that of himself, or of a specific group or class. The Son of Heaven had a mandate from Heaven and the Heavenly way is to treat everybody equally: “It is the Way of Heaven to remove where there is excess and add where there is lack.” (Dao De Jing, Chap 75.) This is quite unlike the Western Christian tradition, in which people under heaven have been divided between the “selected” and the non-selected, and, as discussed above, the well-being of a privileged few has always been founded on the sacrifice of the many that are not of the same kind as the few (laborers, and people in conquered, colonized, or more subtly controlled alien nations and areas), in spite of the preaching that “all human beings are equal before God”.

The Heavenly way of social management based on family-style social structure represents the fundamental principle of Chinese social ethics, in which the reverence for Heaven (the exoteric equivalent for the metaphysical “Dao”) and worship for ancestors are naturally integrated: All under Heaven belongs to one big family.

People may ask: Is the theory of congruity of interests of the whole population, or the integral interest of the whole society, in contradiction with that about class conflicts? Actually these two theories are not mutually exclusive, but on the contrary, a perfect integration of the two is what makes classical Chinese thought stands out as unique. The link lies in what is quoted above from Laozi: “It is the Way of Heaven to remove where there was excess and add where there is lack.” Why should there be “excess” and “lack” at the same time? The main cause was certainly the usurpation of means of production which should belong to all under heaven and, based on that, exploitation of the many by a few. The family is of course an interest group and there might be families in a same clan but belonging to different classes: landlord or rich merchant or peasant. But theoretically, traditional Chinese rulers should represent the generally balanced and integrated interests of all classes, not that of a specific class and this theory was practiced by many of them.

General Balance of Diverse Interests: Achieved and Not Achieved
The Chinese did not only successfully reconcile class distinction with social oneness in theory but also in practice in a considerable degree, most typically seen in the economic-political reforms and policies pursued by Daoist-Legalists aiming at dynamically balancing the interests of all social classes and groups during and after the “Spring-and-Autumn and Warring-States” period (not to be discussed in detail here).

In the long history of China, many rulers, especially those emperors and ministers who were inclined to believe in Daoism-Legalism, tended to conscientiously adjust general social relationships instead of following the jungle law and indulging the strong preying upon the weak as has been the Western tradition, and, as a result, there were on the whole more balance than imbalance within the society and between man and nature, much longer periods of peace and prosperity than those of wars and starvation; and human-induced destruction of lives, wealth and resources were much less than in Western history. Therefore, China’s moral influence upon her neighbors was far more forceful and enduring than the physical might habitually exercised by the Western powers against other peoples. This is evidenced by the historical fact that Western civilization has always relied on military conquests for survival whereas traditional Chinese culture has again and again assimilated alien military invaders and conquerors.

Due to limitation by historical conditions, however, in the relationship between the sovereign and his subjects, the key aspect of social-political relations, there was never an effective balancing-through-mutual interaction mechanism. Whether the nation could have a wise and capable emperor totally depended on chances. This was because the overwhelming majority of the population, including many thinkers, scholars and statesmen, were family-oriented small producers or born and bred in such families and, so, could not “look” beyond their limited scope of vision. The limitation found expression in the following ways:

1.They could only see a part of the society and separate individuals but not the whole of the big picture and, hence, they tended to over-stress the effectiveness of moral preaching while making light of the importance of the rule of law and necessary punishments for crimes, thus having a bias towards Confucianism against Legalism. It was not wrong for Confucianists to attach due importance to moral education; What was wrong with them was their belittling the importance of law and punishment. The Daoists-Legalists did not reject moral education at all but recognize its importance as well. What distinguished them from the Confucianists was their belief that only when there was strict rule of law on the macro social level could moral education on the individual level be more effective and its effect accumulate to the point of changing the whole society for the better. But such a wise belief was often drowned in the ignorant sea of parochial thinking typical of small producers. That was why the founders and early successors of every new dynasty tended to adopt Legalist policies and thus bring about and maintain a fairly long period of peace and prosperity but the later successors, when intoxicated with the glamour of a golden age, would yield to the resurgence of tender-minded Confucianist policies and turn the good social order into chaos, a situation only a change of dynasty could reverse.

2. They pinned their hope on “Heaven” without realizing that the people are the “Heaven” in the sense that they are the motivating force of human history. That explains why people usually claimed to be acting on Heaven’s decrees (替天行道) even when compelled to rise against tyranny. In social life they believed in the Confucianist doctrine that “There are only the wise of the highest class, and the stupid of the lowest class, who cannot be changed” (唯上智与下愚不移) and so always looked up to the king or emperor and the successor he chooses  from his own “noble” lineage as their savior. Though the existence of disparities in intellect between individuals needs to be taken into account in structuring social institutions, this consideration should not be used to deny that the people as a whole are the real master of history. The reason why every peasant rebellion would lead to a new dynasty re-adopting Legalist polices is because the new emperor recognized through direct experiences the will and power of the people. This recurring phenomenon typically manifested the historical role played by the common people.

Repeated Cycles of Order and Chaos
However, due to the historical conditions of a small producer society, even Legalists who understood better the importance of balanced social relationships failed to make the law break through the ceiling of tradition, so to speak, to reach the emperor. Even a wise emperor who could bring himself to abide by the human law and work conscientiously to promote a general balance in social relationships would not be able to choose his successor through a procedure taking wider public opinion into consideration. To the public, whether the selection of the future emperor meant blessing or disaster was totally decided by fate or luck. In other words, there was no sure way to make every “Son of Heaven” act on the mandate from Heaven and work for balanced social relationships. Once an emperor betrayed the Way of Heaven and pursued “the way of people’, i.e., “take away where there is need and add where there is surplus.” (Dao De Jing, Chap 75.), social imbalance would accumulate till the Way of Heaven worked to overthrow him through the rebellion of desperately suffering masses of the underprivileged and dynamically restored social balance.

Hence the cycle: change of dynasty – reestablishment of rule of law – realization of new social balance – new golden age of peace and prosperity – inevitable emergence sooner or later of a “Son of Heaven” who failed in his Heavenly duty – resurgence of Confucianist policies – society going from bad to worse – reappearance of troubles at home and from abroad – change of dynasty again… This process was repeated again and again and pushed the traditional Chinese society forward steadily and slowly, but failed to reach a point where the dynamic balance between the supreme social manager (as the regulator of diverse interests) and the people (whose interests he was supposed to serve in a balanced way) could be achieved through a peaceful and orderly process instead of cyclical violent rebellions and bloody dynastic changes.

In spite of the fact that, compared with the West, China enjoyed more and longer periods of peace and prosperity at home and peaceful relations with her neighbors far and near in her long history, the destruction and loss of wealth, resources and lives were enormous nonetheless   when imbalances in internal and external relations developed into chaos and wars.

In history, China did not acquire wealth by plundering other tribes and nations, nor did traditional Chinese “all-under-heaven-ism” allow plundering of others as a means for internal appeasement. More often it was the other way round. When golden times returned to the country under the Legalist administration of a new dynasty, resurging Confucianist scholar-officials would blow bubbles of “benevolent administration”, overestimating its moral appeal, and slackened rule of law at home and self-protective military preparation against potential aggressors from outside. The resulting chaos and vulnerability, side by side with wealth accumulated before, would invite nomadic tribes at the borders to intrude into inland areas and engage in looting, occupying farmland, interfering with inland politics, establishing separate regimes, or even defeating the central government and starting a new dynasty (e.g., Yuan and Qing). Because of the above, so long as the cycle of order and chaos is not broken, social productive capabilities which had been revived, developed and accumulated through a long period of time would thus be ruined again and drop to near the original low level and a new emperor would be called for to start everything all over again, and again…till modern times.

Although the 1949 Revolution offered the hope of breaking the cycle, yet, the hope would not be realized until one day an operable and effective political mechanism is institutionalized that can in a peaceful and orderly manner adjust to a balance from time to time the relationship between people’s sovereignty and the government’s administrative power. So long as there is no such mechanism operating and, so, that order-vs.-chaos cycle is still being repeated, China will never be strong enough to be a nation with equal footing, i.e., not to be bullied, in the contemporary world, still less to soften or stop the aggressiveness of capitalist powers by relying on “benevolence” or “moral” influence; and there will never be lasting peace in China and the world.

How, then, can such a mechanism be shaped? Or, where is the way out for China and the world?

Conclusion: Socialism plus Constitutional Democracy

Since the Western pattern is not ultimately imitable or sustainable while the Chinese one cannot escape the order-vs.-chaos cycle, does that mean that there is no way out for China and the world? NO. To say “not sustainable” does not mean there is nothing positive in the pattern, just as to say “no escaping the cycle” does not mean either that the whole pattern should be rejected. China has had the systematic theory about, and largely conscious long-time practice to bring about, general dynamic balances in social relationships, only short of lasting success at the key point of the relationship between the government and the people. On the other hand, Western thought tradition did not have the conscious idea of dynamic balance, but, out of the need for internal unity in their never-ending effort to expand externally, has accumulated some practical experiences in their political process that embodies (though limitedly) the principle of dynamic balance. That is to say, there are certain positive factors in the formal procedure of Western constitutional democracy that China can learn from, though, of course, not to be copied or transplanted without adaptation and improvement.

First of all, we need to sever the Western democratic political structure from its capitalist economic relationship base, and then we need to screen out those parts of the structure which are compatible with Chinese tradition and the present-day need for developing socialism, and, after “trimming” or reconditioning if necessary, transplant them to the (supposedly) socialism-oriented economic base (which right now needs to be rehabilitated first in China).

What has served effectively to prolong the domination of big capital over all others cannot readily serve a socialist enterprise. As a matter of fact, what is worthwhile in Chinese thought tradition and what is essential in scientific socialism are in accord with each other -- both are against the two extremes: one is the individualistic interpretation of freedom and democracy; the other is monolithic collectivism and centralism based on it which together deny individuals the right to freedom and the opportunities to bring into full play their initiative and creativeness. The way to avoid both extremes is to promote an all-round dynamic balance between the individual and the collective on various levels, and between the different levels and parts and the whole of a society. Marx said to the effect that, not until the whole mankind is free, could the proletariat be free. Is it not the same in broadness of mind and vision as the traditional Chinese holistic idea of all-under-heaven-ism? Therefore, those who have committed themselves to the liberation of the proletariat and all mankind should never do as the bourgeois class have been doing – never dream of replacing their oppressors in their privileged position, or using other classes or nations as instruments to take advantage of, or even as victims of exploitation, for the selfish purpose of securing their own freedom and prosperity.

In contrast, Western bourgeois democracy, as well as the whole Western tradition, has been based on atomistic individualism. The relationship in and between interest groups is built on something like a business contract between opposing interests without, ultimately speaking, a sense of mutuality between the individual, the small collective and the whole of human community. As mentioned above, they also have a limited sense of mutuality within a certain boundary but this sense of internal mutuality requires a prerequisite, that is, taking some other entity outside the boundary (another interest group or an alien nation) as their common rival/enemy. Only this limited “commonness” incurs the need and precondition for practicing democracy within that boundary. Once short of an outside enemy, their internal democracy will surely break down and yield to internal bloody conflicts. So long as there must exist an “enemy” as a precondition (no one will treat an enemy in a “democratic” approach, of course), their democracy is not ultimately imitable or extendable, i.e., cannot be extended to suit the need of a socialist enterprise intended for the liberation of the whole mankind. That is why it should not be copied as is. The undemocratic intention underlying it must first be rejected and then its formal structure reshaped accordingly.

Regarding this issue, there are currently two kinds of devious tendencies that should be guarded against. One is, in the name of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, to reject the political institution of constitutional democracy, which is an integral principle of scientific socialism as advocated by Marx. The other is to exactly copy the Western pattern of democracy in an attempt to, through the political process dominated by big capital, completely destroy socialist economic basis and restore capitalism in every way. The lesson from historical experiences, positive and negative, teaches us that only socialism with constitutional democracy, or democracy of a socialist nature, can make China physically strong while morally just, not to be bullied or to be bullying, either, thus blazing a new path for herself and for all humanity as well.

This is where lies the hope and future for China and the world.