Support or oppose Shiva's assertion that trade liberalization is a form of coercion. In what ways might additional trade opportunities help people in rural economies?
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LAW AND GOVERNMENT
What Is the Role of Law and Government in Society?
. . . to bring about the rule of righteousness
in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers;
so that the strong should not harm the weak . . .
—Hammurabi's Code
i i ammurabi's Code, the first known set of laws in history, was written in Babylon nearly thirty-eight hundred years ago, but its preface still sounds startlingly familiar. Before giving his list of laws, fines, and penalties, Hammurabi, the king of Mesopotamia and founder of the Babylonian Empire, states the purpose of his Code: "to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind." We need make only a few surface changes in this and it sounds like the stated purpose of the Constitution of the United States, as set forth in its famous Preamble: to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Many of the ideal functions of law and government have remained remarkably constant over the course of recorded history.
The fact that one of the oldest writings in history is a fully developed legal code testifies to the inseparability of law and civilization. According to social contract theorists (such as Thomas Hobbes, whose work Leviathan is excerpted in the previous chapter), society begins when people band together to protect themselves from conquest and their property from theft. Only societies with established laws, and with the governmental power necessary to enforce these laws, can provide the protection that people seek.
The first reading in this chapter comes from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, a work of ancient Chinese philosophy. Written during a time of civil war and great upheaval, the Tao te Ching presents good government as the result of aggressive non-action. The forces of the universe act independently of human striving, Lao Tzu insists, and the role of government is to recognize and adapt to these forces rather than to alter or direct them. This placed Lao Tzu and his followers in direct opposition to the philosophy of Confucianism, which believed that government had the responsibility to structure society and encourage virtuous behavior.
Among the Western readings included in this chapter are complementary excerpts from Christine de Pizan's The Treasure of the City of Ladies and Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, both written toward the end of the Middle Ages in Europe. In these texts, Christine and Machiavelli focus on effective leadership, that is, on the practical nature of governing rather than on its moral aspects. This is especially true of Machiavelli, whose name, since the publication of The Prince, has been inextricably associated with cynical, opportunistic, amoral political maneuvering. Such maneuvering is often viewed in connection with realpolitik (from the German, meaning "realistic politics" or "the politics of reality"), politics based on practicality and not ideals or ethics.
Images can also prompt questions about law and government. When you look at a magazine, read the news online, or watch television, you might see a political cartoon; an arresting photograph of a peaceful (or violent) demonstration by a mass of civilians; or the leader of a country delivering a speech. Whom or what is the cartoon criticizing? How does a popular demonstration change the way we see the government of the country where the protest is taking place? And how does the leader appear behind the podium—confident? Concerned? Fearful? The sole image in this chapter is an illustration by Abraham Bosse that appeared in Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (an excerpt of which appears in Chapter 2). Here we see a royal figure whose body is composed entirely of his countrymen, a symbol for the Enlightenment understanding of sovereignty. The figure holds both a sword and a religious staff, suggesting that true sovereignty requires mastery of both realms. This view contrasts sharply with the view of American founding father James Madison in "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments," which argues that a strong and truly free society must maintain a strong separation between church and state.
We then move to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," which describes the philosophy of "civil disobedience," or the belief that one is not obliged to submit to an unjust law. However, rather than proposing revolution— that is, a violent renegotiation of the social contract—King argues that even while refusing to obey an unjust law, one should respect legal authority by accepting the consequences of that disobedience. This argument, driven by King's passionate commitment, became the driving force of America's civil rights movement in the 1960s.
A commitment to peaceful reform also animates two of the final readings of this chapter. The first of these comes from Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was elected prime minister in an open election and then put under house arrest by a military dictatorship. After spending most of the time between 1989 and 2010 under house arrest, Suu Kyi was finally released in November of 2010. In 2012, she was elected to a seat in Burma's Parliament. The second reading comes from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a South African democracy advocate during the apartheid era who played a major role in his country's transition to democracy.
The final selection in the chapter comes from a speech by Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign. In this speech, Obama talks about the progress that the United States has made since the time of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, and about the progress that we still need to make before King's dream, and the promise of "a more perfect union," can be realized.
The potential for any government structure to protect or abuse its citizens makes it imperative to pose the crucial questions about law and government, justice and citizenship, that are presented only briefly in this chapter. There has always been agreement on the broad outlines of what a good government should do: protect people from both external and internal violence, provide the conditions necessary for human activity to flourish, and create a stable environment where people can live their lives in relative peace and security. Still, while these basic goals have been acknowledged for thousands of years, it has taken human societies a long time to put them into practice in ways that benefit all people. We have made progress on many fronts, but there is still work to do. As Martin Luther King Jr. observed at a crucial moment in the civil rights movement, quoting the Civil War-era abolitionist Theodore Parker, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
lao tzu
from the Tao Te Ching
[600-400 BCE]
WHEN THE MIGHTY Chou Dynasty collapsed, in about 770 bce, ancient China dissolved into seven small states. Between 475 and 221 bce, these states fought furiously with each other, each attempting to reunify China under its banner. This "Period of Warring States" was also, not coincidentally, a golden age of Chinese political thought. Hundreds of philosophers, representing dozens of different schools of thought, emerged during this time to propose answers to the burning question of the day: what is the best system of government under which we can reunify China?
Of all of the proposed solutions, however, none was as simple—or as radical—as that offered by the Taoists: maybe, they suggested, China should not be unified. If nature or fate had divided the old empire into separate states, then why not let them remain separate? This political philosophy is consistent with the founding text of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching.