Checks and Balances in a Republic

Checks and Balances in a government also mean the Separation of Powers, but this separation doesn’t mean the powers in an absolute independence from one another. Instead, it aims to let different powers work together efficiently.

Renaissance thinker Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) first introduced this concept. Some regard him as the founder of modern political science. After the Medieval Ages (476 – 1453), the Church was too weak to protect the Italian state from being captured by foreigners one after another. Witnessing the turmoil and agonies, Machiavelli was convinced the importance of the political stability in government, especially in a republic government.

In his work: Discourses Upon the First Ten Books of Titus Livius, Machiavelli examined six kinds of governments: Monarchy, Aristocracy, Democracy; and Tyranny, Oligarchy, Anarchy. He reserved the first three as the good forms, and regarded the last three as the bad forms. In Greek, monarchy means one power; aristocracy means best to rule; democracy means people to rule; and tyranny means tyrant to rule; oligarchy means few powers; anarchy means no power. Machiavelli did the thought experiments for a government in each form: starting with a good monarch, and then succeeded by tyrants, the monarchy degrades into tyranny; the tyrant is then overthrown by a group of aristocrats, the tyranny becomes aristocracy; the aristocrats are succeeded by the corrupted generations, the aristocracy degenerates into oligarchy; the oligarchy then is ended by the people, the oligarchy turns into democracy; and the popular democracy then lapses into anarchy. He observed that “all kinds of government are defective”, and “they will be apt to revolve indefinitely in the circle of revolutions.” Feeling sorry for the three good kinds of governments had too short-lived, and impressed by Sparta had lasted more than eight hundred years, he concluded that the best government for a republic would be to combine all three good kinds of governments together, and keep them in Checks and Balances. He said: “In fact, when there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check.” Thus, the strength of the republic is vitalized by a tripartite state of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Machiavelli’s republic government form is the prototype of the modern republics.

Whither China? It seems to me this People’s Republic is at the second stage in Machiavelli’s thought experiment of government by one, by few and by many circle. Will China bring the first and third good kinds of governments into its system to reform a republic with the Checks and Balances? Probably not; it appears to me that the Chinese elites are more willing to serve their rulers than to share the powers with the people. The Chinese people have been suppressed and regarded as inferior by the rulers and their bureaucrats for a long history; they have always been requested and reminded to be grateful to their rulers, although, based on the assessment of Machiavelli, the vice of the ingratitude is generally from the rulers. My question (derived from the Euthyphro Dilemma) is the Chinese people should be grateful for “what” – is something grateful because the Communist Party rules it, or does the Communist Party rules it because it’s grateful? An alternative avenue to a republic for China is the America’s three branches government system in the Separation of Powers, which was advocated by John Locke (1632 – 1704). Can this emerge? Probably not, either; at this American system was once laughed by Deng Xiaoping (1904 – 1997). Besides, don’t forget that Communism is totalitarianism; and it is never shameful for the avarice of powers, and instead, it fears to lose its powers. Deng committed bloodshed in 1989 to stay his power. A higher probability would be this People’s Republic circles down the third form of Democracy by the people’s arousing, or reverses back to the first form of monarchy by an ironhanded man. The democracy, which has never happened before in Chinese history, might be not a bad experience for the Chinese; Machiavelli said “the governments of the people are better than those of princes.” Note that Democracy in the modern West means the political equality for all. It is interesting that many Chinese people, not just those bureaucrats, prefer an ironhanded ruler, like Deng. Deng ruled China as a power broker, he never had a legal title during his ruling, yet after his death for more than a decade, he seemed to be still ruling China, for the Chinese Communist Party has not corrected the blunder of June Fourth Massacre he committed. Deng must feel pleasures when he persecuted, jailed, exiled his conscientious political enemies, and did bloodshed in the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 and in the June Fourth Massacre in 1989. Such a kind of tyrant’s happiness even perplexed Plato (428 BC – 347 BC), for he lamely used the Myth of Er to condemn the tyrannical personalities. But Aristotle (384 BC – 322BC), Plato’s own student, claimed that “the happy life is life free and unhindered and according to virtue”. It is apparent to me that Deng’s life was without virtue but only free for himself. What can you expect from the obscurant government, the obsequious elites and the obedient people for China?