Chapter 31 On the Powers of the Government and the People (March 10, 1902)

There is no country in the world that can be called a country without people, and there is no country that can be called a country without a government. Both the government and the people are essential for the construction of a country.Therefore, it is not allowed to say that the government is owned by the people, and it is especially not allowed to say that the people are owned by the government. If the government and the people are above the government and the people, and there is no so-called personality (the meaning of personality can be found in other chapters.) The country should be unified by a group.The country holds the sole supreme sovereignty, and the government and the people live under it.Those who value the people say that the country is nothing more than a collection of people, and the sovereignty of the country lies with the individual (that is, a person).The extremity of what it says makes the people's power unlimited, and its disadvantages are that it falls into an anarchist party and leads the people back to barbarism.Those who attach importance to the government are called the representatives of the country, and those who use the will of the country to make it real. Therefore, the sovereignty of the country lies in the government.The extremity of the theory makes the power of the government unlimited, and its disadvantage is that it will fall into absolutism, and the impoverished people will never be able to enter civilization.Therefore, it constitutes a complete and perfect country.The authority of the Ming government and the people must be the first priority.

Because of the unlimited power of the people, those who harm the country occasionally happen in modern times, such as the beginning of the German Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.Although such incidents are rare, looking at the thousands of years of history, there is a high rate of governments abusing their powers and invading their people, leading to decline and chaos.If China is special.Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to focus on the authority of the government over the people, and to take the authority of the people over the government as a vassal. What cares why the government is established?Said: in the civil agreement. (The meaning of the civil contract was advocated by Rousseau, a great French scholar. Nearly Confucianists refute its mistakes, but it is okay to say that this meaning is contrary to the history of the origin of the country, but it is not acceptable to say that it is absurd to the principles of the establishment of the country. Although those who hate Rousseau , and there is no difficulty.) If people are not a group, they cannot make the inner world develop, and if they are not a group, they cannot compete with the outside world. Therefore, on the one hand, they are independent and self-employed individuals, and on the other hand, they are a cooperative group. (In other words, from independent self-employment to cooperative cooperation, this term has flaws in theory. Animals that can be grouped like humans have a group nature from the very beginning, and it is not until the establishment of a national group that they begin to cooperate. Afterwards, there are still those who are independent and self-employed, and their uniqueness will not disappear. Therefore, follow the solitary and follow the group, that is, the group is independent, and the reason why people are more valuable than all things.) This is a common law of natural evolution, and it has to be.Since it is a group, the affairs of a group must be shared with its responsibilities.Although everyone spends time and energy on group affairs, the way of self-employment must be inferior.The people said to each other: I am farming, I am a worker, I am a businessman, I am a student. I have no time and energy to manage the affairs of the group. I would rather choose a few people from my group and entrust them to each other. , Sri Lanka is also the righteousness of the government.The government is the one who governs the people on behalf of the people. Therefore, the obligations that the government should fulfill and the rights it deserves must be judged by this principle.

But what does the government care about?Said: in public welfare.There are different approaches to public welfare, and the goal is to be able to develop within the inner circle and compete with the outside world.The story tells that if one person cannot do what he can, the government will allow him; if one person's actions harm others, the government will suppress him.Although the obligations of the government are varied, they can be summed up in two words: one is to help the people to self-employment beyond their means, and the other is to prevent the infringement of the people's right to liberty.The reason why this government is valuable is that the rate is right and the gang dimension is right.Go on, if there is a government, it is like having no government, and what is worse, if it is not only unable to help the people's self-employment, it will suffocate it, but it will not be able to protect the people's freedom and self-invasion, then having a government may not be as good as having no government. government.For thousands of years, the people's livelihood has been so difficult, and the government has not been able to last forever with the world, all because of this.

The purpose of the government remains the same, but its powers vary with the difference between the culture and the field of the nation, and the changes are suitable for the purpose of the time.For example, what fathers and brothers do to their children is to guide them to make them perfect.When it is a child, the authority of the father and brother is extremely great, every word and action, every drink and food, all interfere with it, and it cannot make it grow if it is not right.The intelligence, morality and ability of the children increase with the years, while the scope of interference between the father and the brothers decreases with the years.Even in the years when the crown is weak and the official is strong, and the parents are still waiting for the qualifications of breastfeeding their children, if they interfere with them one by one, it will do great harm to the future of their children.The lady knows it, and so do the citizens.When the crowd is immature, the power of the people is not self-supporting, and if there is no supervision, it will be disorganized and undisciplined, and the way of making use of the prosperity of life will not be prosperous; Invasion of Yue, but the disaster of bullying, killing and looting is endless.At the right time, the authority of the government must be strong and large.And from chaos to peace, the people are able to run their own businesses and self-government, but if they still want to treat them with the power of the government in the barbaric era, then those who are vulgar and powerful will be angry and chaotic, making the government precarious all day long. Those who are vulgar and cowardly will surely shrink and wither and become lifeless, while other groups will take advantage of them to gain power, land their land, and enslave their people, and the government will also be reduced to ashes.Therefore, the authority of the government is inversely proportional to the evolution of the people. One day it expands and the other day shrinks, and its shrinking is exactly the reason for the expansion.Why?The government considers the wealth of the people to be rich, the strength of the people to be strong, the interests of the people to be beneficial, and the rights of the people to be powerful. The government of a civilized country, although it is gradually making concessions to the rights of its own people, is still on par with that of barbaric countries. Compared with the government, its dignity and glory are far superior.

Except for the three barbaric species of brown, black, and red, most of the people on the earth today are civilized.But what should the authority of its government be?Said: If the people's actions violate the freedom of others, the government will interfere with it.There are two kinds of so-called intrusions on people's freedom: one is the intrusion of a person's freedom, and the other is the intrusion of the public's freedom.Those who infringe upon a person's freedom shall be punished by private law; those who infringe upon public liberty shall be punished by public law.Both private law and public law are enacted by the sovereignty of a country. .The most civilized citizens are able to make laws and defend themselves, and those who invade freedom are welcome, so the government will use less force to sanction things.It is said in history that Yao and Shun ruled by doing nothing. If the government of today's constitutional country is established, it is really the so-called rule by doing nothing.Otherwise, the government will ban people from invading freedom, and the government will invade people's freedom first, which is the biggest crime in the world by the government itself. (Xizhe often said: The crimes in the world are so great that there is no one who infringes on people's freedom.) But if you want to order the people, how can you get it!Moreover, the people's mutual aggression has sanctions, but the government's invasion of the people has no sanctions; the crimes of the people are expected to decrease day by day, while the crimes of the government will increase day by day.Therefore, the authority of the government is not merely for the benefit of the people, but actually for the benefit of the government.

John Stuart Mills On Liberty, an English scholar, says: Throughout the annals of ancient Greece, Rome, and Britain, the people often competed with the government for power.Its monarch is either hereditary or conquered. According to the power of the government, what it does not only follow the people's favor, but also oppresses and ravages it.The people are unbearable, so patriotic righteous men come out, saying that the people's restlessness is due to the unlimited power of the monarch, and then the righteousness of freedom will prosper.There are two ways for the people to protect their freedom: one is to limit the power of rulership, make a contract with the monarch, and obtain the promise. It is true to be rebellious; on the second day, the people have to express their own opinions, express them in speeches, and write them in laws and regulations, so as to protect the interests of all.This first method has been practiced by European countries for a long time; the second method has only recently developed, and it is gradually becoming invincible all over the world.Or it can be said: In the past autocratic government, the monarch knew that he had already but did not know that there were people, so he restricted his power, which was really not a last resort.Nowadays, the civil affairs are becoming more and more prosperous. The head of a country (the head of state is also the monarch of a monarchy and the leader of a democratic country) is almost all elected by the people, who can make him want what the people want and benefit the people. , The tyranny should not be overlooked.But even if it is not a restriction, is it okay?Said: Otherwise, even if the country is governed by the people, if the authority of its government is uncertain, the people will not be free in the end.Why?In a country of civil government, although it is said that all people are self-governing rather than governing by others, it is absolutely not the case.In a country, everyone who is not capable has administrative power, and there must be a distinction between those who rule and those who are ruled.Although its administrative orders say to follow the wishes of the people, the so-called desires of the people are not what the people of the whole country want, but what the majority of them want. (Note: There must be a political party in a civil government, and the party that can hold the majority in the House of Representatives holds the power of the government. Therefore, politicians actually follow the wishes of the majority of the people. In the past, politicians said that politics should be for the happiness of all the people As the right goal, Bentham, the master of Confucianism, began to change his name to take the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the right goal, because those who study the situation can only do so.) If there is no limit, half of the majority will suppress half of the minority , the few weak people will lose their freedom, and the tyranny of the majority is more harmful than the tyranny of the monarch.Therefore, the authority of the government and the people, no matter what kind of political system the country has, must be clearly discerned.

From this point of view, even in a country where civil rights are extremely prosperous, the power of authority is not allowed, and if it is, how much more so in a country where the rule of the people has not yet been established?Do you remember: "A king who was born for the people and established by the people makes him a minister, so how can he let one person do whatever he wants over the people?" Therefore, in a civilized country, no one can do whatever he wants, the same is true for the people, the same for the king, and the same for the few , and most of them do.Why?Everyone has rights, and rights are limited.Those who have authority cloud, so restrict people so as not to abuse their freedom.If one abuses one's freedom, one's freedom will be invaded, which is called barbaric freedom; if no one can abuse one's freedom, everyone will have full freedom, which is called civilized freedom.Without the freedom of civilization, no country can be established.

Chinese sages advocated benevolent government, while Western Confucianism advocated freedom. The two are the same in shape and quality but different in spirit. Their spirit is different but their goals are still the same.Why?A benevolent government must talk about protecting the people and herdsmen.Those who protect the herd have unlimited power, so those who talk about benevolent government can only talk about it as it should be, and there is no way to make it so.Although Confucius and Mencius are the most sages and great sages, they can't stop the tyrants, traitors and officials for two thousand years, and they are fish and meat for our people, why?Those who rule people have power, but those who rule people have no power. Their benevolence often has worries that are beyond the reach of the whip, nameless, and never extinguished; their violence is extremely vicious, unrestricted, and pervasive throughout the country for a hundred years. And there is no Ai.Since the sages and sages are rare in a thousand years, there is less rule and more chaos.If husbands are free to set powers, the responsibility for the affairs of a country does not lie with one or two people, and the work is easy to do. Good governance is universal, and those who want to commit violence are restrained at any time and in any situation. Don't dare, and you can't suppress it, so it can be cured without chaos.Therefore, those who talk about the powers of the government and the people mean that the government and the people stand on equal footing and agree to determine their boundaries. It does not mean that the government grants power to the people. (Ordinary people must own this thing, and then they can give it to others. Civil rights are not owned by the government, so how can they be given away? Mencius said: "The emperor cannot give the world to others." It is also because the world cannot be owned by the emperor. ) Zhao Mengzhi is valuable, Zhao Meng can despise it, if the government can give people's rights, it can also take away people's rights.However, the teachings of our ancestors and past sages are not as good as those of Taixi?Yes or no, it is different from the time.I firmly believe that the power of the government is poor in proportion to the level of the people's literature and savagery.Two thousand years ago, in the first stage of human evolution, like a child supporting a bed, everything had to be taken care of by his father and brother. Therefore, Confucius and Mencius regarded benevolent government as a unique righteousness. At that time, the power that the government should have was different from that The responsibility that should be fulfilled is certainly the same.The goal of politics is public welfare.Freedom is the foundation of public welfare today, while benevolent government was the gate of public welfare in the past. This is the so-called difference in spirit but still the same goal.But since our generation was born today, after two thousand years of cultivation and progress, it seems that we have abandoned our childlike innocence and become adults. Yu nanny?How can those who have the power of the government finally use our people as fools?Permission?The foundation of the founding of the country, the plain of peace, let it go!