just hierarchy Just Hierarchy why social hierarchies matter in china and the rest of the world daniel a. bell wang pei prince ton university press princet on & oxford Copyright © 2020 by Prince ton University Press Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to permissions@press . princeton . edu Published by Prince ton University Press 41 William Street, Prince ton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press . princeton . edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Control Number 2019954572 ISBN 978-0-691-20089-7 ISBN (e- book) 978-0-691-20088-0 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available Editorial: Rob Tempio and Matt Rohal Production Editorial: Jill Harris Jacket Design: Carmina Alvarez Production: Brigid Ackerman Publicity: Alyssa Sanford and Kate Farquhar- Thomson Copyeditor: Jay Boggis This book has been composed in Arno Pro Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of Amer i ca 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 contents Acknowl edgments vii Introduction 1 1. What’s Wrong with Hierarchy? 8 2. In Defense of Hierarchy 13 3. From China to the World 21 1 Just Hierarchy between Intimates: On the Importance of Shifting Roles 29 1. Relations with Friends 31 2. Relations with Lovers 36 3. Relations with Family Members 45 4. Relations with House keepers 55 2 Just Hierarchy between Citizens: On the Importance of Ser vice 66 1. Justifying Hierarchical Po liti cal Rule in the Chinese Context 68 2. Is It Pos si ble to Limit Po liti cal Power without Competitive Elections? 78 3. Po liti cal Meritocracy as the Prob lem, Po liti cal Meritocracy as the Solution 84 v vi contents 4. Justifying a Hierarchical Po liti cal System to Those Outside the System 93 3 Just Hierarchy between States: On the Need for Reciprocity 106 1. Hierarchical Ideals of Global Order in Ancient India 111 2. Hierarchical Ideals of Global Order in Ancient China 117 3. One World, Two Hierarchical Systems? 129 4 Just Hierarchy between Humans and Animals: Subordination without Cruelty 143 1. Are Animals Our Equals? 144 2. Domesticated Animals: Subordination with Care 154 3. Eating Animals: Subordination with Humane Exploitation 166 5 Just Hierarchy between Humans and Machines: On the Need for a Master- Slave Relation 177 1. Marx on Machines 179 2. The Role of Confucian Role Ethics 187 3. Silicon Valley vs. the Chinese Communist Party 198 Notes 207 Selected Bibliography 249 Index 263 acknowle dgments first but not least, we would like to thank each other. The ideas in this book evolved via prolonged conversations and ar- guments over the past few years, to the point that we forgot who said what. Daniel wrote most of the En glish version of this book, and Pei wrote most of the Chinese version, but we are jointly responsible for its ideas, w hether good or bad. We are most grate- ful to Rob Tempio, our insightful and supportive editor at Prince ton University Press, along with two anonymous referees who allowed us to further refine our ideas. We are also grateful to our research assistant, Sun Qiming, and Daniel would like to thank his assistants at Shandong University— Liu Yuhan, Huang Ping, Wang Fuxiang, and Wang Chengchao— for help. We would also like to thank Cheng Jiaolong for writing the beautiful cal- ligraphy on the book’s back cover. Daniel owes special thanks to f amily members for emotional and intellectual support. He would also like to thank Kong Ling- dong, Cao Xianqiang, Kong Xinfeng, Liu Lin, and all his other colleagues and leaders at Shandong University’s School of Po liti cal Science and Public Administration for providing an intellectually stimulating setting that allowed him to write this book. Daniel is also grateful to Tsing hua University president Qiu Yong for continued support at Tsing hua as well as his co- teacher at Schwarzman College, Wang Hui, for fascinating dis- cussions on Chinese intellectual history, Bai Tongdong at Fudan vii viii acknowle dgments University for inspiring conversations in po liti cal theory, and Eric X. Li for friendship that goes beyond the ordinary meaning of friendship. He would also like to thank his students at Shan- dong University and Tsingh ua University for constructive and often well- deserved criticism of the teacher’s ideas. Daniel also owes special thanks to Nicolas Berggruen. We can- not construct a better world without serious engagement with the world’s ideas—i ncluding ideas from previously marginalized parts of the world— and Nicolas has both the vision and the means to realize this aspiration. The idea for this book emerged when Daniel was director of the Berggruen Institute’s Center for Philosophy and Culture. Daniel helped to or ga nize a conference on “Hierarchy and Equality” at Stanford University’s Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in March 2016. The papers w ere excellent—a nd we have made use of several of them in this book—a nd Daniel realized that t here’s the need for a full-l ength book on the topic of “Just Hierarchy.” Daniel would like to thank the workshop’s participants as well as co- organizers Margaret Conley and Jennifer Bourne for help and inspiration. He would also like to thank Berggruen Institute leadership in Los Angeles: Nathan Gardels, Dawn Nakagawa, Nils Gilman, and (former) president Craig Calhoun for help over the years. Dan- iel owes special thanks to the Berggruen Institute’s China Cen- ter at Peking University which supported several workshops in New Delhi, Qingdao, Beijing, and Bangkok, comparing Chinese and Indian thought, and Daniel is grateful to workshop partici- pants as well as to co- organizers Song Bing, Roger Ames, Yan Xuetong, Amitav Acharya, Rajeev Bhargava, Shelley Hu, Li Xiao- jiao, and Li He. Pei would like to thank her friends and colleagues at Fudan University’s China Institute. She is particularly grateful to Zhang Weiwei, Eric X. Li, Fan Yongpeng, Chen Ping, Li Bo, Yu Liang, acknowl edgments ix Lin Ling, Meng Weizhan, and Feng Zhun. She would also like to thank visitors to the China Institute, especially Alexander Dugin, Yukon Huang, Martin Jacques, Kishore Mahbubani, and Dominique de Villepin. She is grateful to the institute for pro- viding time and support and an intellectually stimulating envi- ronment for research. Pei owes much to Wang Hui for constant concern and intel- lectual inspiration. Wang Hui supervised Pei’s postdoctoral re- search at Tsingh ua University and showed the importance of relating philosophy to real politics and social life. Pei would also like to thank her former colleagues at the Tsing hua Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (TIAS): Kong Yuan, Fu Zheng, Yuan Xianxin, Li Peiyan, and Yang Tao, as well as visitors to TIAS, Michael Dutton, Viren Murthy, and Yu Zhizhong. Pei and Daniel are also grateful to Geir Helgesen, Liu Chunrong, and Unn Irene Aasdalen for facilitating and modeling the best form of cross- cultural dialogue at Nansen Acad emy in Lillehammer, Norway. Pei’s friends Cheng Jiaolong, Li Shuzhi, and Wang Hairong have provided unconditional support and have inspired her with new perspectives on real ity. Pei is deeply indebted to her f amily members and especially to her m other, who always surprises with her direct and sharp comments, and spoils Pei with all her tenderness. Earlier versions of chapter 2 w ere published in Philosophy and Public Issues (by Pei) and the Journal of Chinese Humanities / 文史哲 (by Daniel), and we are grateful to the publications for permission to draw on t hose articles, as well as to Aeon for permission to publish the online appendix. E arlier versions of chapter 2 were presented (by Daniel and Pei) at the University of Malaya’s Institute of China Studies, the Penang Institute, the Beijing Thinkers’ Forum, and the annual Reset conference in