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A great ruler who conducts benevolent governance will enrich his people and unify the country. The implication of this term is that a great cause can succeed only when it is supported by the people. Therefore, a visionary leader must give top priority to the interests of all the people, not just the interests of some people, still less those of some individuals. This term echoes the thinking of “people being the foundation of the state” and “keeping wealth with the people.”
The term means to benefit and provide for the people. Huimin (惠民) is a concrete manifestation of benevolent governance and loving the people, with focus on dividing wealth among the people and benefiting them. The emphasis is on placing the interests of the people first, so that they will support both ruler and government officials. Specifically this means all policies and measures must be in the public interest, must fulfill and ensure the real needs of the people, and keep wealth with them; they should not conflict with the public interest, or worse, be deceitful or resort to force.
This term means to provide the people with necessities of life and educate them. According to The Book of History, this is what constitutes good governance. To reach this goal, the ruler must manage well the “six necessities and three matters,” the six necessities being metal, wood, water, fire, land, and grain, and the three matters being fostering virtue, proper use of resources, and ensuring people’s livelihood. This concept of governance, which focuses on promoting both economic and ethical progress, is people-centered.
The concept of keeping wealth with the people has long been a part of Chinese political economy. Prior to the Qin Dynasty, the Confucian, Mohist, Daoist, and Legalist scholars as well as military strategists all expounded on this subject. A ruler is expected to be frugal and will not compete with the people for benefits, nor plunder their riches. Policies that are generous towards the people should be adopted, so as to permit and encourage them to become rich through justified means. The underlying assumption here is that a wealthy populace and a wealthy state are one and the same. A wealthy populace is the foundation of a state’s wealth as well as the fundamental guarantee for the state to win popular support. A state’s wealth is more than just about its riches, but about people’s support as well. This is an extension of the concept of “putting the people first,” and in the present day, keeping wealth with the people has become a defining feature of modern civilization.
The ancient Chinese believed that good governance allowed people to lead a life of plenty. The ruler should be frugal, not extravagant or wasteful. He should make good use of the country’s material resources, reduce the corvée and tax burdens on the people so that they could live peaceful, prosperous, and happy lives. This belief was one of the sources of advocation for the people’s livelihood and socialist thinking in modern China.
The people consider food to be of the utmost importance. Shi (食 food) is a general term for the basic resources or material conditions essential to human life; tian (天 heaven) refers to the most important things or the basic elements which determine everything. Ancient Chinese believed that rulers not only had to understand that the ordinary people were the ruler’s “heaven” and the “foundation” of the state, they also had to understand what the ordinary people’s “heaven” was. Food is an indispensable basic material condition for the people to feed themselves, support their families, live peacefully, and fulfill stable jobs; of course it is also an indispensable basic material condition for a ruling group to mollify the people and ensure their livelihood. The bottom line for governing a country and helping its people is to guarantee the people food to eat and enough of it, and to guarantee the supply of basic resources needed for survival. This is an extremely pragmatic political concept.
The full quote from Guanzi reads: “When the granaries are full, the people follow appropriate rules of conduct, and when there is enough to eat and wear, the people know honor and shame.” Here “granaries” and “eat and wear” mean the material conditions of life, while “rules of conduct” and “honor and shame” represent the social and moral principles of a society, as well as the systems and spiritual culture that underpin it. The quote highlights the relationship between material life and morality, that is to say, the former is the basis for the latter, and morality and social norms are the product of a certain degree of material development. Without the basic assurances for life, the best systems will not be followed, and the moral standards of the people will remain low. At all times, governance should focus first on improving the material conditions of a society. This is a very practical concept of state governance.
To have a strong army, the nation must have a prosperous population. In other words, a prosperous people are the basis and pre-condition of a strong military. Prosperity means the state treasury is full so military supplies are guaranteed. If people live a good life, they will have large families and the supply of manpower for the army is guaranteed. If society is well off, the population is content and will support national military policies and decisions. The expression shows the concretion between the population and the military in line with the concept that “people are the foundation of a state.”
This expression means to ensure a secure livelihood for the people, a requirement for governance proposed by Mencius (372?-289 BC), who believed that if the common people did not have a steady income and could not maintain their survival, they would deviate from moral righteousness in pursuit of survival. Rulers, therefore, must create and provide the necessary means for the common people to maintain their daily lives. “Sustaining the people’s livelihood” is the foundation and prerequisite for rulers who wish to promote the moral edification of the people.
An unchanging principle underpinning the governance of a country is that it should deliver benefits to the people. Here, “the governance of a country” refers to establishing systems of governance and policies, and issuing decrees; “delivering benefits to the people” means safeguarding the interests of the people and doing what is best for them. This is another expression of the traditional Chinese notion of “putting the people first.” Today, it is behind the thinking of putting the people above everything else and satisfying their desire for a better life.
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