Lead the people with administrative injunctions and keep them orderly with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and keep them orderly through observing ritual propriety and they will develop a sense of shame, and moreover, will order themselves.
- Confucius (translated by Ames and Rosemont in
The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation)
If it were possible to achieve a government that provided all necessary services of society perfectly and completely, would such an endeavor be worth implementing?
My answer is no. Even if somehow, despite all evidence pointing to the fact that government is typically inefficient in its endeavors, government could be perfect in its services, such a reality is a stark one.
When a father works hard to provide for his family, he is practicing love, care, and sacrifice. When a mother cooks each meal for her children she is engaging in love, care, and sacrifice. When a grown child takes care of his parents in his very own home, he is repaying a sliver of the owed gratitude that his parents deserve. These acts are both symbolic and expressive of the love and care of the relationship, and each act reinforces and strengths this relationship.
Love is the most important thing. Without love, nothing else matters. Nothing else becomes a source of happiness. Therefore, it is natural to sacrifice the quality of other things for its manifestation.
Fortunately, the Way does not force on to choose between competing goods. One is not forced to choose between efficiency and love. For when one manifests virtue, related blessings naturally arise. When parents take care of children appropriately, the government no longer needs to step in. When family members take care of one another, the good that comes out of this is better than the good that comes from government taking care of individuals.
To grow as a person, and to cultivate character and virtue, one must put it into practice. Whoever heard of someone who simply sat in place, pondering compassion, and achieve a higher state of compassion without having put it into practice? Whoever heard of one who removed himself from all annoyances, merely contemplating patience, and achieved great patience without having dealt in difficult situations? Whoever heard of someone who had nothing to give, merely believing in charity, yet became generous and benevolent without having given? Such things are impossible. Through engaged practice can one truly cultivate virtue.
If government usurps these opportunities to work harmoniously with one's fellow man, what is left for him to cultivate himself in? And when he cannot cultivate himself, how can he more deeply love, care, and sacrifice? The beauty and grace of these acts become lost.
Once the people lose their ability to cultivate character, virtue seeps away from the land. Once virtue seeps away, the culture becomes degenerate. Once the culture becomes degenerate, poverty, war, and crime increase. With this comes the inevitable collapse of civilization.
When people cannot practice love, love is easily lost from their hearts and minds. When love is lost from the people's hearts and minds, relationships falter. When relationships falter, true happiness can no longer be found. Once true happiness becomes unattainable, the people become destitute and desperate for happiness, seeking it in all kinds of vices and pettiness. Once this occurs, the end of society is near.
Government, by forcing upon injunctions to act in a certain way, deprive people of two things. The first that government deprives its people of is the act of choosing to do good, to commit to good. The act of this choice and commitment changes people for the better, reaffirms their goodness. When acts of good are forced, this choice is not committed, and hearts are not changed.
The second deprivation regards critical thinking and the engagement, and consequent development, of wisdom. In cultivation, one must comprehensively search for what the right values are, what the right actions are, and what the right words are. When one is merely forced into an act without the prior contemplation of its ethical reasoning, individual soul-searching, and analysis of particular circumstance, one cannot develop wisdom or the critical thinking so needed to deepen one's soul.
Government deprives people of their opportunity to grow as human beings, and to engage in loving relationships. When a faraway government provides these things, instead of a local government or a light government that actively engages people into relationships of care and duty, character and relationships cannot be cultivate. From here begins the inevitable decline of individual, family, and society.
When the people are corrupt, no degree of government can help them. Injunctions will be ignored and roundabouted, programs will be exploited, and government officials themselves will work selfishly and not for the benefit of the people. But when the people are virtuous, government is not necessary. People will naturally follow the wise injunctions of their own hearts, programs will be unneeded, and government officials will work for the loving benefit of the people.
