Translated from Chinese by Sherwin Lu
EDITOR’S NOTE: The author of this essay rightly points out the distinction between centralism and autocracy and that public ownership of political power is the key to centralized, and thus effective, but not autocratic government. Mao Zedong and his comrades, founders of the PRC, initiated efforts at establishing public ownership in China not only of political power but of economic resources (means of production) as well for the two to match each other, but unfortunately failed (for the time being, hopefully). Western (oligarchic) democracy is a kind of limited public ownership of political power based on private ownership of economic resources (as seen in slave-owners oligarchy based on institutional slavery in ancient Greece, and monopoly capital oligarchy based on capital domination over labor in modern West and Western powers’ domination over the world). It has done both good and harm, but long since increasingly more harm than good, to the development of human civilization and thus is worth studying both as a historically positive and increasingly negative example.
THE TEXT
In the past hundred years, the Chinese were misled by some wrong concepts and faulty logic. Some of the wrong concepts have been used for so long that people have become accustomed to them and accepted them as right, thus lost in a collective cognitive trap. For example, centralism has been habitually mistaken as identical with autocracy and therefore has become a derogatory term,
As a matter of fact, centralism and autocracy are two different concepts: Centralism refers to an administrative system in which the decision making authority is invested in a central organization while autocracy means a political system governed by a single individual. Centralism is not necessarily autocratic; and autocracy is not necessarily centralized. The two are not invariably correlated.
Many people do not really understand what centralization means. As we know, industrialization invariably led to large-scale social production, which in turn invariably led to intensive social management. In other words, centralization is a natural consequence of social development. Likewise, these people do not understand what is implied in autocracy, either. Autocracy is in essence the privatization of political power, with the hereditary system as its classical form. Why is it that a developed nation tends to be integrated while an undeveloped one divided? That is because decentralization encourages privatization of political power. China’s opponents falsely charge her former leaders for despotism, but that is out of sheer ignorance. The fact of the matter was that after 1949 China’s leaders initiated the public ownership, instead of privatization, of political power.
The most profound impact left by industrialization on politics is the high-degree centralization of government. In the historical perspective, centralization has been the only way for a nation-state to realize industrialization and modernization. Its importance lies in at least the following three aspects: a) facilitating effective allocation of resources, b) reducing institutional costs, and c) promoting balance in social distribution. Of course, centralization may also have its drawbacks. For instance, it may hurt the special rights of certain special groups (not to be discussed here). In a word, the term “centralization” should not be cited simplistically in the derogatory sense.
Capitalism and socialism are both highly centralized systems; what distinguishes them is mainly in the focus of their administrative attention: the former being on capital while the latter on the society. The recent years have been witnessing a trend of integration between the two, which would make contemporary centralized government both humane and effective at the same time. Because of the ideological dispute in the past century, people are dogmatically prejudiced against centralized government, some against the capitalist mode, others against the socialist mode. As a matter of fact, there is no absolutely rational mode of centralized government in the world. What is a good mode is one that has high adaptability.
This author admires Guan Zhong (c. 720-645 BC, Prime Minister of Qi, a dukedom during the Spring and Autumn Period of ancient Chinese history). He was not the top ruler, but he had the courage to “keep all the mountains and waters under official control (官山海)” (the ancient Chinese equivalent of today’s “nationalization”) and was good at “managing all affairs under heaven (总理天下)” (high-degree centralization), but he was not autocratic. He cherished noble thoughts that were ahead of his time and, while effectively managing the affairs of Qi through highly centralized government, did not turn his administrative authority into steward autocracy. His thoughts were systemized into the book Guan Zi, the best “textbook” for classical Chinese political economy. Guan Zhong was an outstanding embodiment of centralized but not autocratic statecraft in human history. Under his administration, Qi quickly rose to power; the people of Qi enjoyed a period of peaceful, prosperous and happy life; and he himself became a history-making thinker and statesman.
Centralization is not a bad thing while autocracy is. The crux of the matter is: Humans are greedy by nature and, once at the core of centralized power, tend to become autocratic. Political power is so irresistibly tempting to some people as not to be relinquished once acquired. To wield centralized power but not autocratically requires such noble-mindedness as is beyond average persons’ moral consciousness. What is great about modern Western civilization is that it turned the idea about centralized but not autocratic government into a rational social system, which initiates a better life for common people.
This author understands why Westerners object to China’s centralized government. Their way of thinking is nothing new: they do not like to see China growing powerful under a centralized government. Divide and rule, divide and take over – this has been Western powers’ political strategy against China for centuries. It has been their foreign policy to oppose centralization but not autocracy, for they have been supporting numerous autocratic governments, including that of China’s Chiang Kai-shek regime early last century. And most of the autocratic North African and Middle East governments today are their puppets.
But this author does not understand why China’s elites object to centralization. In the past 20 years or so, much of the authority of the central government has been usurped by its subordinate departments and local governments, so that local and departmental authorities have been inflating so aggressively that decisions by the central authority cannot reach downwards and even the premier would sigh with emotion that he carries less weight than a CEO. Has decentralization weakened autocracy? No. We have witnessed terrible decentralized autocracies everywhere.
Obviously, decentralization is not the way to prevent autocracy. How to tackle this issue is a quite sensitive topic in China right now. It will not be discussed in detail here, but this author would like to remind our readers of the Glorious Revolution of England. At that time, confronted with a powerful rival from across the strait, the Britons had to maintain a highly centralized government while not willing to tolerate an autocratic rule. Finally they found a way to solve the problem, that is, to implement a kind of public ownership of political power. They successfully established a political-economic system that is centralized but not autocratic, thus making it possible for Britain to quickly become an empire “where the sun never sets”.
It is no pretention, hopefully, to point out here that some Chinese are playing a dangerous game in pushing for decentralization and a divided government in the name of reform. To put it bluntly, the true intention behind such a scheme is to reinstate the privatization of political power. But that will definitely lead to despotism in China. The rampancy of corruption at all levels of officialdom is the inevitable consequence of decentralized autocracy, which is another proof of the truth that autocracy breeds corruption. Those Chinese who are privatizing political power are doing what some Westerners are wishing for, that is, to split up China. That is why they are supported by some external forces. People need to be vigilant against this.
This author does not mean to propose any new ideas in this essay, but means to convey his deep worries about the present situation in China, noticing that her centralized system is being seriously imperiled. Some people are trying to weaken the central authority in the name of reform and combating corruption. They have a tacit agreement with those anti-China forces in the West, i.e., to oppose centralization but not autocracy. Any reform that would privatize political power in disguised forms is actually meant to revive feudal separatism, which would send China into a most perilous situation.
Surely, those feudal lords would not admire Guan Zhong; they would rather turn their administrative authority into privately owned power. They dream about arrogating all powers to themselves, possessing all land and waters as their own private property, and lording it over everybody else.
Holding centralized power without being autocratic represents a spiritual height. Guan Zhong as a scholar-official in feudal times attained that height, and so did certain bourgeois statesmen. One may wonder whether China’s administrative authorities can reach this height after studying the “three representatives” and “scientific development” theories (guiding theories of the current governing party of China -- Translator)?
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