FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS (DAO) AND AUTHORITY SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY (DE)
The Fundamental Human Rights here is more than the concept of human rights that we used to think currently. It includes the right of making a living that we are entitled to. Under the Sun, the Great Nature honours every creature its right to live. Further, the Great Nature establishes a viable living environment in a natural way for all things to make a living. That is the Law of Nature. Therefore, the right of making a living is part of the undeniable rights of people. The Law of Nature ought to be the principle of rule of law.
The concept of RISE is derived from very old Chinese culture that the authority of society then had and only had its responsibility to maintain a sustainable living environment for all people to make a living. This could be traced back to the pre-monarchic era and after the agricultural revolution, to be specific, before the first emperor Huangdi of about 5000 years ago. Such authority’s responsibility can be defined as Authority Social Responsibility (“德”in Chinese which is pronounced as “De”)。Such legacy of Authority Social Responsibility was still carried on after Huangdi till the early Zhou Dynasty about 2500 years ago. This ancient principle of guarantee of life arrives at the concept of “fundamental human rights” (“道”in Chinese which is pronounced as “Dao” ). Making a living is also an important part of our human rights in addition to freedom and equality. Such culture was revealed in the book of Daodejing of Laozi (circa 500 BC) and the book of Guanzi of Guan Zhong (circa 600BC) with proper interpretation of the words. We are missing this important part of our human rights today. Unable to safeguard this part of our human rights causes poverty. That we the people to safeguard this part of our rights will empower ourselves to act against monopoly and any kind of extremism of power.
DAO OF THE NATURE
The word “Dao” had its original meaning without any religious and metaphysical meaning. Originally it meant “road”, and then meant “way”, and then the “way” of how society should be, and then the principle of humanity. It degenerated in a later time into a political sense of the principle of imperial ruling and then about 1000 years ago into a metaphysical meaning. The ambiguity of the word “Dao” is now cleared away after this etymological analysis was done. The in-depth study of Daodejing and Guanzi reveals the early meaning of the principle of humanity for the word “Dao” suggested by Guan Zhong. Later on, Laozi adopted such principle of humanity as opposed to the principle of imperial ruling in pursue of democracy. Laozi took it as the way of the Nature that every human being had the equal right to live like all other creatures under the Sun. The word “Dao” in terms of Daodejing then can be identified as Fundamental Human Rights. Both Guan Zhong and Laozi advocated the principle of ONE. “Dao” and “De” were two elements to keep society intact as ONE. The goal of Laozi was to go back to the Great Equal Society before the emergence of monarchy w.r.t. Chapter 4 of Daodejing.
MOTHERLY NATURE OF THE MOTHER NATURE
The Mother Nature provides food for all creatures without prejudice. To be exact, it is the Mother Nature to provide opportunities for all creatures to make a living. It is the fairness of the Nature that inspires us the concept of equality of all things. Every creature has its own way to live and does not subject to any control of the Nature. That inspires us the concept of freedom. When the harshness of environment grows to an extreme which threatens lives of the creatures, the Nature will mobilize the atmosphere to change naturally to bound back to a living one. That inspired Laozi the principle of governance by Dao of the Nature (“道法自然”in Chinese which is pronounced as “Dao Fa Zi Ran”) to safeguard human rights of the people. Laozi found the characteristics of the motherly nature of the Mother Nature as for life, for all, for peace, not dominates, not possesses and not controls. He pursued Non-Possession Administration for the country, or “Wu Wei”, back then was actually to demand a new type of political authority to bear such motherly nature of the Mother Nature to observe its Authority Social Responsibility (“De”) to safeguard Fundamental Human Rights (“Dao”) of the people in order to withhold the Principle of ONE.
VIABLE LIVING ENVIRONMENT
The viable living environment means an environment can enable everyone to make a living on his own within it. Poverty has been a long time problem of human beings due to the dark side of human nature of greed, etc. across different nations and different peoples politically and economically to deprive the fundamental human rights of the underprivileged throughout history. Today upon awakening of democracy, voice out of human rights could not help much if we are ignorant of the right to make a living. We have come to the commercial era nowadays. We can make a living when we have jobs to earn enough to live. If we haven’t, we can’t. That is an intrinsic problem of today’s business world. Our economy entirely depends on private enterprises. That is the problem. The business environment is very different from the living environment at all. The business environment only facilitates the business to survive but not all people. That violates the Law of Nature. RISE is an instrument to patch up this hole in the market to restore and ensure a viable living environment for the left behind so that everyone’s fundamental human rights can be duly observed. It is a mechanism for the people to help people ourselves. We have to redefine what economy is all about in order to observe our fundamental human rights. Any kind of monopoly will damage the viable living environment for the underprivileged and cause poverty. Therefore it is important to safeguard a complete viable living environment for all to keep humanity intact. Let no one be left behind by the economic system.
NON-POSSESSION ADMINISTRATION
Laozi and the very early Taoists, as opposed to the Taoist religion emerged in a very later time, in pursuance of naturality were advocating being natural in the sense of depleting unnatural behavior due to human weakness which resulted in greed, aggression, etc., that would hurt the vulnerable and undermine human rights. To be specific, the early Taoists were finger-pointing the unjust authoritarian feudal system of the time 25 centuries ago. Many civilizations shared the same empathy and found such human weakness intolerable and advocated similar principle of abiding by the Law of Nature. Such demand of abiding by the Law of Nature in fact was trying to minimize such human weakness intervention in order to ensure equality of people.
In terms of the thought of the very early Taoists, possession (“有”in Chinese which is pronounced as “You”) means having such human weakness of greed to acquire more than enough; natural (“天”in Chinese which is pronounced as“Tian”. It took the word “sky” here to represent the Nature) means being natural to acquire just enough and give away the excessive; non-possession (“無”in Chinese which is pronounced as“Wu”) means to deplete such human weakness of greed and be natural again to give away the excessive. In this regard, “unnatural” means the human behavior due to malice intentions or limited scope of knowledge that will hurt others and “natural” means all these malice intentions subside and no one will be hurt by other people. It is all a matter of how to deal with people.
Possession Administration (“有為”in Chinese which is pronounced as“You Wei”) means an act by those who have such human weakness of greed. To be specific, it is referred to the authoritarian feudal regimes of the time that the rulers took the country and the people in their possession. Non-Possession Administration (“無為”in Chinese which is pronounced as“Wu Wei”) that Laozi and the very early Taoists wanted to pursue means a kind of political system that no rulers took the country and the people in their possession similar to a republic that the country belonged to the people. The unique importance of Non-Possession Administration is that it requires the kind of authority which bears the motherly nature of the Mother Nature to sustain a viable living environment for all people so that the principle of ONE is observed. It is what Authority Social Responsibility means. For a society of Non-Possession Administration, equality of people will be observed.
Today, Big Corporations and all other private enterprises belong to the category of Possession Administration. RISE is of the property of Non-Possession Administration to act against market possession of these Big Corps in the market to ensure a viable living environment for the vulnerable and SME. RISE belongs to the people. Meanwhile, we need to define Authority Social Responsibility of a government to safeguard Fundamental Human Rights of the people by legislature to ascend the concept of rule of law in benefit of humanity. Everyone can exercise“Wu Wei”on individual level. The major emphasis is to demand the authority to exercise“Wu Wei”according to the Law. That means such empowerment of the authority is subject to the power of the people.
SELF-RELIANCE
The Mother Nature provides food for all creatures without prejudice. To be exact, it is the Mother Nature to provide opportunities for all creatures to make a living on their own. Such observation of the Mother Nature by the very early Taoists gave rise to the concept of Fundamental Human Rights and Authority Social Responsibility. While the authority is ensuring a viable living environment for all people, it is the responsibility of any individual to make a living on his own. Everyone is self-reliant and should be self-reliant. When anyone is self-reliant, he then will be independent and free of control. This is genuine freedom. When anyone is free of control, then no one will control him. This is genuine equality. Yet, everyone should respect such viable living environment and respect one another’s freedom to live. This will show a picture of harmony of the Nature.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ONE
ONE (“一” in Chinese which is pronounced as“Yi”) was the concept of keeping society intact by keeping every member of society able to sustain his life on his own. fore they are poor. That was the principle of forming the very first society after the agricultural revolution where every capable one was guaranteed his right to make a living while the vulnerable one would also be taken care of. The principle of ONE had delivered the very first scheme of social security in Chinese history of the pre-historical period. Such principle of ONE extensively covered the equal rights of all people in society, the equal rights of all things in the Great Nature and the equal rights of all cells inside a body with which Chinese Medicine Theory was developed. Thus this Principle of ONE backboned the very early Taoists, as opposed to the Taoist religion emerged in a very later time, to develop the principle of natural harmony which was widely narrated and elaborated in the books of Guanzi, Daodejing, Zhuangzi and Huang Di Nai Jing. By the principle of ONE, the Chinese ancestors developed the concept and of “Dao”, “De”, Society Leveraging, the pro-human philosophy and the pro-human economics theory. The achievement of ONE results in harmony. Then we will have harmony of the Nature, social harmony, harmonious friendship, internal body harmony, or even spiritual harmony of the mental state when each of these categories achieves ONE. The Harmonious Free Market Economy is a tangible approach for the world to achieve ONE.
THE BODY SYSTEM ANALOGY THEORY OF SOCIETY
It is more than body analogy of the functionalism. It is down to the cell level. A balance of necessity supply for all cells is assurance of a healthy body. For a society, a balance of necessity supply for all people is assurance of a healthy society.
In short, the principle of the theory of Chinese medicine is to keep qi inside the body well-balanced and well-circulated. The human body was viewed as a system. It was the five conceptual internal organs to serve as the central processor to monitor and dispatch qi throughout the whole body to deliver necessary nutrients to every cell. When it was not balanced, signs would show qi was blocked somewhere and sign of accumulation would develop. Then it caused sickness. People who were aware of this would be cautious about intake of food to keep a well balance diet. Otherwise, took medicine to relieve upon Chinese medical consultation. For a worse case of accumulation, malignant tumor would develop.
In comparison to a body, a society also needs to deliver enough necessity to every member of it in order to keep society healthy. The authority should bear the similar functions as of the five conceptual internal organs to serve as the central processor to monitor and dispatch enough opportunities throughout whole society to deliver necessity to every member of it. That is to ensure a viable living environment so that every member can have a job to earn enough money to make a living. Wealth disparity is similar to have a malignant tumor in society causing poverty.
SOCIETY LEVERAGING
According to the book of Guanzi, the Shang Dynasty used metal coins as the media to balance supplies of food between the harvest year and the year of crop failure so that the people could survive the difficult time due to crop failure. The Shang authority in fact historically invented the very first monetary system for this original purpose of social security. The guarantee of redemption of food with the coins by the authority however ensured the value of coins for purchasing. The early market emerged and flourished.
Several hundred years later till the time of Guan Zhong (circa 600BC) in the Zhou Dynasty, the social security system changed. Supplies of food solely relied on the market. There was no regulation and the merchants could make profit several times during the difficult year. It created poverty and the poor peasants were out of any social security protection.
Guan Zhong applied the monetary system again with the technique used in the Shang Dynasty but to leverage the market price of food indirectly so that the vulnerable could have food during the difficult time to safeguard the Principle of ONE. That is famously called society leveraging (“權衡輕重”in Chinese which is pronounced as Quan Heng Qing Zhong).
Quan means the weight of a Chinese scale. Placing the weight at the proper position of the scale rod can lever the rod to balance. Otherwise the scale will be off balanced and collapses. It can be easily seen that society would collapse when it is off balanced. The word Quan in Chinese in fact was taken later to refer power of the authority.
RISE is also applying the technique of society leveraging to safeguard the Principle of ONE. Yet, it uses a different approach. RISE creates a new market domain to encourage additional market activities resulting in creating jobs and opportunities. Such leveraging will mobilize currency circulation before tax. The property of non-possession of RISE will counter-act and lever the possession property of Big Corps and private enterprises so that society will return to balanced and reach a state of social equilibrium.
Taxation is a kind of society leveraging. But such leveraging is managed after tax and its effect is weak since nothing can be done before tax where the market is dominated by the Possession Administration of the Big Corps and private enterprises. The Principle of ONE cannot be observed.
Society leveraging can be and will be applied to mobilize currency circulation among different places to help building local markets for the local people of the poor places.
INTERNAL MONITORING
In Chinese Medicine Theory, the five conceptual internal organs have their functions to monitor status of health of the body wholy and signs will show when one is sick. These signs will reflect the body whether it is off-balanced of “qi” or not in many categories. Somehow, taking natural medicine is one of the ways to let the body return to a balanced state.
According to the book of Guanzi, the same analogy also applied to society in the ancient time. The officials then had their jobs to monitor production and social indexes, especially necessity supply, natural resources and weather, etc. in order to keep a sustaining condition which enabled everyone to make a living on their own. When critical imbalance was detected, it would trigger the process of society leveraging to help society remain intact, mostly to set off market cornering of food by the merchants when natural disasters occurred.