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The Ancient Chinese Libertarian Tradition

LEE EST O EN ESPAÑO L

12/05/2005 • Murray N. Rothbard

The rst libertarian intellectual was Lao-tz u, the f ounder of Taoism. Little is known about his lif e, but apparently
he was a personal acquaintance of Conf ucius in the late sixth century BC and like the latter came f rom the state of
Sung and was descended f rom the lower aristocracy of the Yin dynasty.

Unlike the notable apologist f or the rule of philosopher-bureaucrats, however, Lao-tz u developed a radical
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Slibertarian
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 institutions hampered the individual's owering and his happiness, then those institutions should be reduced or
abolished altogether. To the individualist Lao-tz u, government, with its "laws and regulations more numerous than
the hairs of an ox," was a vicious oppressor of the individual, and "more to be f eared than erce tigers."

Government, in sum, must be limited to the smallest possible minimum; "inaction" was the proper f unction of
government, since only inaction can permit the individual to ourish and achieve happiness. Any intervention by
government, Lao-tz u declared, would be counterproductive, and would lead to conf usion and turmoil. Af ter
ref erring to the common experience of mankind with government, Lao-tz u came to this incisive conclusion: "The
more arti cial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished…. The more
that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be."

The wisest course, then, is to keep the government simple and f or it to take no action, f or then the world
"stabiliz es itself ." As Lao-tz u put it, "Theref ore the Sage says: I take no action yet the people transf orm
themselves, I f avor quiescence and the people right themselves, I take no action and the people enrich
themselves…."

Lao-tz u arrived at his challenging and radical new insights in a world dominated by the power of Oriental
despotism. What strategy to pursue f or social change? It surely was unthinkable f or Lao-tz u, with no available
historical or contemporary example of libertarian social change, to set f orth any optimistic strategy, let alone
contemplate f orming a mass movement to overthrow the State. And so Lao-tz u took the only strategic way out
that seemed open to him, counseling the f amiliar Taoist path of withdrawal f rom society and the world, of retreat
and inner contemplation.

I submit that while contemporary Taoists advocate retreat f rom the world as a matter of religious or ideological
principle, it is very possible that Lao-tz u called f or retreat not as a principle , but as the only strategy that in his
despair seemed open to him. If it was hopeless to try to disentangle society f rom the oppressive coils of the
State, then he perhaps assumed that the proper course was to counsel withdrawal f rom society and the world as
the only way to escape State tyranny.

That retreat f rom the State was a dominant Taoist objective may be seen in the views of the great Taoist Chuang-
tz u (369 BC - 286 BC) who, two centuries af ter Lao-tz u, pushed the master's ideas of laissez f aire to their logical
conclusion: individualist anarchism.

The in uential Chuang-tz u, a notable stylist who wrote in allegorical parables, was a highly learned man in the state
of Meng, and also descended f rom the old aristocracy. A minor official in his native state, Chuang-tz u's f ame as a
writer spread f ar and wide throughout China, so much so that King Wei of the Ch'u kingdom sent an emissary to
Chuang bearing great gif ts and urging him to become Wei's chief minister of state. Chuang-tz u's scornf ul
rejection of the king's offer is one of the great declarations in history on the evils underlying the glittering
trappings of State power; it was a tting declaration f rom the man who was perhaps the world's rst anarchist:

A thousand ounces of gold is indeed a great reward, and the office of chief minister
is truly an elevated position. But have you, sir, not seen the sacri cial ox awaiting the
sacri ces at the royal shrine of state? It is well cared for and fed for a few years,
35 caparisoned with rich brocades, so that it will be ready to be led into the Great
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 Temple. At that moment, even though it would gladly change places with any
solitary pig, can it do so? So, quick and be off with you! Don't sully me, I would rather
roam and idle about in a muddy ditch, at my own amusement, than to be put under
the restraints that the ruler would impose. I will never take any official service, and
thereby I will satisfy my own purposes.

Chuang-tz u reiterated and embellished Lao-tz u's devotion to laissez f aire and opposition to state rule: "There has
been such a thing as letting mankind alone; there has never been such a thing as governing mankind [with success]."
In f act, the world simply "does not need governing; in f act it should not be governed." Chuang-tz u was also the
rst to work out the idea of "spontaneous order," developed particularly by Proudhon in the nineteenth and by F.
A. Hayek of the Austrian School in the twentieth Century: "Good order results spontaneously when things are let
alone."

Chuang-tz u, moreover, was perhaps the rst theorist to see the State as a brigand writ large: "A petty thief is put
in jail. A great brigand becomes a ruler of a State." Thus the only difference between State rulers and out-and-out
robber chief tains is the siz e of their depredations. This theme of ruler-as-robber was to be repeated,
independently of course, by Cicero and then by St. Augustine and other Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages.

Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) was dean of the Austrian School. This article is taken f rom the rst section of
"Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Change Toward Laissez Faire," The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol
IX No. 2 (Fall 1990). You can download a PDF version of the original paper here. An earlier version of the paper was
delivered at a Conf erence on Economics and Social Change held by the London Academic and Cultural Resources
Fund and The Institute f or Sociology at the University of Warsaw, at Mragowo, Poland, March 14-18, 1986.

Author:

Murray N. Rothbard
Murray N. Rothbard made major contributions to economics, history, political philosophy, and legal theory. He
combined Austrian economics with a f ervent commitment to individual liberty.

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