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When China Rules the WorldElitist as the Confucian system clearly was, however, it did contain an important get-out clause. While the mandate of Heaven granted the emperor the right to rule, in the event of widespread popular discontent it could be deemed that the emperor had forfeited that mandate and should be overthrown. [618] The state has consistently been seen as the apogee of society, enjoying sovereignty over all else. In European societies, in contrast, the power of government has historically been subject to competing sources of authority, such as the Church, the nobility and rising commercial interests. In effect government was obliged to share its power with other groups and institutions. In China, at least for the last millennium, these either did not exist (there was no organized and powerful Church) or were regarded, and saw themselves, as subordinate (for example, the merchant class); the idea that different sources of authority could and should coexist was seen as ethically wrong. [619] The nearest to an exception were the great teachers and intellectuals who, though always marginal to the centre of power, could, under certain circumstances, be more influential than ministers, acting as the cultural transmitters and guardians of the civilizational tradition and the representatives of the people’s well-being and conscience — even, in tumultuous times, as the emissaries and arbiters of the mandate of Heaven ...» |
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