Many early Daoists, like for example the influential Laozi and Zhuangzi, were extremely critical of political authority and advised rulers that the less controlling they were, the more stable and effective their rule would be. I find the early Daoists' case for anarchism extremely compelling. They sought after the harmonious nature of spontaneous order, the Dao, and internalized it into a tremendously rich personal philosophy of life.
I’d like to share some thoughts of Zhuangzi (around 369-286 BC) on the natural disposition of man here which clearly depict his anarchist thought:
Horses live on dry land, eat grass and drink water. When pleased, they rub their necks together. When angry, they turn round and kick up their heels at each other. Thus far only do their natural dispositions carry them. But bridled and bitted, with a plate of metal on their foreheads, they learn to cast vicious looks, to turn the head to bite, to resist, to get the bit out of the mouth or the bridle into it. And thus their natures become depraved.
As with horses, so it is with human beings. Left to themselves they live in natural harmony and spontaneous order. But when they are coerced and ruled, their natures become vicious. It follows that princes and rulers should not coerce their people into obeying artificial laws, but should leave them to follow their natural dispositions. To attempt to govern people from top-to-bottom with manmade laws and regulations is absurd and impossible. We might
as well try to wade through the sea, to hew a passage through a river, or make a mosquito fly away with a mountain!
In reality, the natural conditions of our existence require no artificial aids. People left to themselves will follow peaceful and productive activities and live in harmony with each other and nature. They can, if left alone, create their own ways of life, and create legal systems with which they can cooperate and live peacefully together without a ruler.
In an essay ‘On Letting Alone’, Zhuangzi already asserted the fundamental proposition of anarchist thought:
There has been such a thing as letting mankind alone; there has never been such a thing as governing mankind. Letting alone springs from fear lest men’s natural dispositions be perverted and their virtue left aside. But if their natural dispositions be not perverted nor their virtue laid aside, what room is there left for government?
I am planning to do more posts on Daoism in the near future and explain its philosophy in greater detail. Stay tuned for more...