The Chinese Philosopher All Libertarians Should Know

One thinker belonging to this long list of non-​Western practitioners is the Chinese philosopher Huang Zongxi. He argued for a constitutional model of government designed to benefit all people, not just the ruling class, and which stressed the importance of respecting private property rights.

Huang was born in 1610 in Zhejiang province in China. His father, Huang Zunsu, was a high-​ranking official of the Ming Dynasty. Thanks to his father’s high-​ranking position, Huang studied history and philosophy extensively. He was introduced to the scholar Liu Tsung-​chou, under whom he studied for several years. Zunsu’s works show that he was well-​versed in philosophical matters and did not wholly subscribe to any particular school dogmatically. Instead, he drew from different traditions as he saw fit.

Huang’s father, Zunsu, had opposed the unchecked authority of eunuchs at the Chinese royal court. Indeed, Zunsu died after being imprisoned by his political opponents in 1626. Huang boldly protested the death of his father at the capital city of the Ming Dynasty; he then returned home to dedicate himself to his studies.

By 1644, the ascendant Manchu Qing dynasty had taken control of the former Ming territories. Huang spent many years as part of a guerilla resistance against the Manchu Qing dynasty, which he regarded as foreign invaders. Eventually, Huang abandoned the fight against the Qing dynasty, although he refused to cooperate or take any government positions that he was later offered. Instead, Huang dedicated the rest of his life to studying history, politics, and philosophy. During his retirement from public life, Huang produced arguably his finest work in 1663, Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince, an extensive criticism of the Ming regime and a comprehensive set of proposed reforms.

Huang believed that before any government existed, people tended to their affairs without acknowledging the common good. This was not an idealized state of nature or a complete anarchy. According to Huang, looking after one’s interests is natural, and he deemed selflessness a rare and fickle virtue.

For Huang, the primary issue that plagued the Ming regime was the excessive greed of those in power. To rule is to take into account the interests of others and to selflessly pursue what other people wish for; that, however, is difficult given that “to love ease and dislike strenuous labour has always been the natural inclination of man” (Huang 1993, p. 91). The first people who ruled did so with extreme reluctance, knowing how difficult it would be to rule in the common interest of all. Some even tried to quit but were forced to continue. The first rulers understood that to rule well was an immense effort that was, for the most part, a thankless job.

However, as time passed, new rulers decided that since they did so much for their people, it was perfectly justifiable to rule for their own benefit. They began to use the state to benefit themselves, and because of their selfishness, these rulers made their subjects miserable and downtrodden. Therefore, according to Huang, “He who does the greatest harm in the world is none other than the prince” (p. 92). The solution to this miserable state of affairs is for princes to rule justly with true laws.

Huang states there has not been true law since the end of the Three Dynasties over a thousand years ago. Since then, all rulers had cared about was preserving their dynasty; they had refused to look to the common good of the people. Huang referred to the laws established after the three dynasties as “dynastic law.” However, he did not believe that dynastic law could be called true law as it was narrowly based upon the interests of the rulers, that “what they called ‘Law’ represented laws for the sake of one family” (p. 97). For any law to be true law, it must conform to the dictates of “all under heaven” (or what can be broadly termed the will of the people). Huang writes that “in ancient times all under heaven were considered the master and the prince was the tenant” (p. 92). The state existed to serve the people, not vice versa. True laws, for Huang, must not favor any particular group over another. Instead, laws must conform to a higher standard of justice, which the sage kings of the past embodied. Laws are not just simply because a ruler has established them. If law does not conform to a higher standard of justice, it can hardly be called true law.

Huang believes that, first and foremost, we need laws before we need leaders. By contrast, earlier philosophers such as Xunzi in the third century BC had written: “There is only governance by men, not governance by law.” Huang replied, “Only if there is governance by law can there be governance by men” (Huang 1993, p. 97). However, law alone is not enough; Huang had seen how knowledgeable men like his father were ousted from government positions due to entrenched and unchecked power. We cannot rely solely on virtuous rulers to preserve true law. Huang believed that we need institutions to put checks on power and to stop any individual from dominating all others.

Huang had no time for the idea of divine rule, and he questioned those he called “petty scholars” who insisted that the subject’s duty to their prince is utterly inescapable. The sage kings of the past deserve praise and respect but the princes of today deserve little if any praise, Huang argues, further asking, “Could it be that Heaven and Earth, in their all-​encompassing care, favor one man and one family among the millions of men and myriads of families?” (p. 92). While Huang did not wish to abolish the emperorship entirely, he strove to desacralize the state. The state is neither quasi-​divine nor should it command the total obedience of its people. As we have already seen, the relationship for Huang between the state and citizen is inverted; the people are the masters, and the state is the tenant.

In theory, the Ming dynasty was ruled by an emperor and supported by a court composed of ministers and civil service members. The reality was a departure from this ideal. Emperors resented and resisted any checks on their power. To cement their position, emperors tended to promote only those civil servants who were wholly servile, especially eunuchs, who had long been a crucial part of the Chinese government. They tended to the emperor’s household and his personal needs, which gave them immense influence as they were naturally intimate with the emperor and increasingly infringed upon the administration of civil affairs.

To this end, Huang argues that the previously abolished office of prime minister should be reinstated. While one man should act as prime minister, he would have multiple vice premiers, all of whom are scholars with whom he would consult. Huang had three critical reasons for arguing for the reinstatement of the premiership:

Firstly, no matter how wise or hardworking, no one man can rule alone. While princes may have been created initially to rule, “All under Heaven could not be governed by one man alone” (p. 100). To remedy this, the prime minister aids the prince. Secondly, the emperor is decided by hereditary succession. Huang states that in ancient times, “succession passed, not from father to son, but from one worthy man to another” (p. 101). A person being handed a position based upon their lineage is no guarantee that they will rule justly. While Huang does not specify precisely how the prime minister will be chosen, he believes that the role will act as a buffer in case the emperor is not a competent ruler, given that the Prime Minister’s power will be equal to that of the emperor. Thirdly, by reviving the position of the prime minister, the government affirms the principle that no man should hold supreme power and that power should be divided and shared to serve the people best.

Huang’s reforms aim not only to make government more effective but, by putting qualified people in power, it also serves to check the power of the emperor who, without constraints, would have little stopping him from becoming tyrannical. Thus, Huang’s approach can be described as constitutional in its fundamental nature. Constitutionalism, as a broad idea, is a set of rules, principles, and norms that define the limits of government authority to avoid arbitrary despotism.

For Huang, it was essential that the government did not encroach upon property rights. According to Huang, during ancient times, there was no private property. The sage kings distributed land through what was known as the well-​field system. During this time, land was granted by the king to the people.

However, after the sage kings, subsequent rulers no longer distributed land to the people. Instead, people acquired land through sale and purchase. By the second century, private property had been established. Because the land was purchased by the people and not granted by a king, Huang concluded that the land is the people’s land and not the king’s. For Huang, “all land is either official or private” (p. 133). The difference between the two is that official land is owned by the state and cannot be bought or sold, while private land can be traded and belongs to individuals.

Huang argues that private property should be protected since people have a moral right to keep what they own. However, Huang does not stop there. He also argues that property rights set limits on government power. Protecting property is based on the principle that an emperor should not view “the world as an enormous estate to be handed on down to his descendants, for their perpetual pleasure and well-​being” (p. 92). Instead, emperors should respect the rights of their subjects and refrain from appropriating property.

Not all rulers in history were selfishly trying to expropriate property. Many genuinely wished to redistribute wealth to help the poor. To achieve this, some believed in limiting or equalizing the distribution of property. Huang replied to this proposition that “doing even one act that is not right” (p. 131) should not be allowed. People have a moral right to their property. Huang wonders why “should one needlessly make a big thing out of causing the well-​to-​do to suffer?” (p. 133). Instead he proposes the state should redistribute official property, which had been established for the emperor’s family and allies, and should be given to the poor. For Huang, pursing one’s self-​interest to accumulate property was a natural and prosperous instinct. He supported individuals autonomously pursuing their self-​interest.

Huang’s political thought resembles that in influential English philosopher John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government. Locke has been referred to as the Father of Liberalism; his political thought centered on his arguments for natural rights and government by consent of the people, and his theory of private property has played a foundational role in establishing what we now call classical liberalism.

As we have already seen, Huang was skeptical of the claims of divinity that emperors had made throughout history. Much later, Locke would argue against divine monarchy by saying that even if God had given the right to rule to someone, such as Adam from the Bible, there would be no way of determining who are his rightful descendants. Locke concluded “that in the races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another the least pretense to be the eldest house, and to have the right of inheritance” (Locke 1988, p. 267).

Huang believed true law serves the common good and does not favor any particular group. Similarly, Locke argued that the principle “let the welfare of the people be the ultimate law” is such a fundamental rule that “he, who sincerely follows it, cannot dangerously err” (p. 373). Both Huang and Locke based the legitimacy of the law upon how it served the interests of the governed, not the rulers.

Huang wished to see the position of the prime minister reinstated to check the emperor’s power. Locke proposed that government should be composed of legislative, executive, and federative powers. This separation of powers allowed a more effective government and one which would not quickly descend into tyranny.

Finally, Huang and Locke both argued that the government ought to protect the institution of private property. Locke, like Huang, believed that property was once commonly owned but that when people mixed their labor with the land, they appropriated what belonged to nature and made it their own. While Huang’s theory of how land becomes privately owned is not exceptionally robust, akin to Locke, he believed that people have a moral right to hold onto what is rightfully theirs.

Despite living on opposite ends of the world, Huang and Locke came to very similar conclusions on the proper ends of the state. Possibly, it is because both had fathers who fought against incumbent regimes and both men lived through civil conflicts resulting in regime changes. Huang Zongxi is an excellent example of how quite different philosophical traditions have arrived at broadly classical liberal ideas without being part of the same so-​called “Western tradition” or “Western values.”

There is much to admire in the Western tradition of philosophy, but this does not mean we cannot praise and synthesize with other traditions. Thinkers like Huang remind us that all cultures, religions, and peoples have traditions advocating for the freedom of the individual.